Review: Everybody Rise by Stephanie Clifford

Everybody Rise

by Stephanie Clifford

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Pages: 400

Format: book

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  It's 2006 in the Manhattan of the young and glamorous. Money and class are colliding in a city that is about to go over a financial precipice and take much of the country with it. At 26, bright, funny and socially anxious Evelyn Beegan is determined to carve her own path in life and free herself from the influence of her social-climbing mother, who propelled her through prep school and onto the Upper East Side. Evelyn has long felt like an outsider to her privileged peers, but when she gets a job at a social network aimed at the elite, she's forced to embrace them.

Recruiting new members for the site, Evelyn steps into a promised land of Adirondack camps, Newport cottages and Southampton clubs thick with socialites and Wall Streeters. Despite herself, Evelyn finds the lure of belonging intoxicating, and starts trying to pass as old money herself. When her father, a crusading class-action lawyer, is indicted for bribery, Evelyn must contend with her own family's downfall as she keeps up appearances in her new life, grasping with increasing desperation as the ground underneath her begins to give way.

Kritters Thoughts:  Evelyn grew up just on the outskirts of everything, she went to the fancy prep school, but wasn't in the in crowd.  She lived in New York City, but just one block away from where you were "supposed" to live, so when she gets the chance to be IN she may go overboard and go ALL IN!

Evelyn was a great character to follow into this world.  I thought her perspective was fun, not unique, but at least fun!  I thought the main plot of her working for an exclusive Facebook or MySpace was a great way to get her to reunite with her prep school alums and give her a reason to return to that world.  When a book doesn't have a ton of action, the plot and characters must be enough and this one had enough for a summer afternoon of reading.

If you don't enjoy a good WASPy tale of society, then don't pick this one up.  There isn't much action to speak of, but there is plenty of society parties and society do this and do that and don't do this and don't do that - so this Gossip Girl fan enjoyed this book!  



Rating:  definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from BooksSparks PR.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.