Pub. Date: July 2nd, 2013
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Paperback
320 pages
Brooklyn Girls
features a quirky cast of five twenty something’s – Pia, Julia, Coco, Madeleine
and Angie - who take a lot of missteps, trying to figure life out. Having just
moved into Rookhaven, an old brownstone, Pia wakes up after a housewarming
party with a massive hangover, Madeleine’s brother in her bed, and pictures of
her flashing partygoers on Facebook. She is promptly fired from her new PR job
and cut off by her parents. After a single hilarious night as a waitress, and a
few chance encounters, Pia comes up with an idea for a food truck. Borrowing
$10,000 from a loan shark to buy the truck, and using her roommates as
resources to plan a menu, Pia sets out at record speed to make a profit to pay
the loan shark back. Chaos inevitably ensues.
Brooklyn Girls is
a very character centered novel that epitomizes how your 20s are the time to
take chances, get out of your comfort zone, and learn to live for yourself. Pia, initially, is truly unlikeable.
She
has everything handed to her on a silver platter and takes it all for granted. But,
the more she learns about herself, and the more mistakes she makes personally
and professionally, the more likeable she becomes. From the beginning the
secondary characters make up for Pia’s un-likeableness with unique struggles, which
I’m sure readers will relate to far more than Pia. My favorite relationship is between
Pia, Vic and Marie, Rookhaven’s downstairs neighbors. They show the Rookhaven
girls a kind of familial, supportive relationship that Pia in particular desperately
needs.
In a novel filled with humor and quirkiness, there’s a
surprising amount of real emotion. I didn’t necessarily relate to the alcohol
fueled, casual sex and hard drug use nights that most of the girls participate
in, and my one real complaint about the novel is the lack of culpability for
these nights (especially the hard drug use) beyond “whoopsy”, but I loved the
food talk, the budding relationship between Pia and a mystery Brit, and the
supportive relationships built between the girls. Brooklyn Girls is sure to be a crowd pleaser – the characters draws
you right in, and readers will have no problem relating to at least one of the girls
situations. Comparisons can easily be drawn between Brooklyn Girls and the quirkiness of New Girl, combined with
the oversharing nature of Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. Considering how much I liked the secondary
characters (especially Coco!), and the amount of storylines that are left open,
I am definitely looking forward to what’s next as Angie takes over the
narration for the second novel.
Rating 6.5/10 – Really like the majority of the novel, but I
had a problem with the lighthearted treatment of more serious extracurricular
activities.
** I received a copy of this novel from the publisher to
read and honestly review. I was in no way compensated.
No comments:
Post a Comment