One Fifth Avenue

One Fifth Avenue
by Candace Bushnell

One Fifth Avenue
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Book Summary Information

Author: Candace Bushnell
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2009-06-02
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 464
Publisher: Voice

Book Reviews of One Fifth Avenue

Book Review: Enjoyable Fluff
Summary: 4 Stars

I thoroughly enjoyed One Fifth Avenue and think that Candace Bushnell has finally delivered a novel that has more to praise than to complain about. Sex and the City, Trading Up et. al. were pleasant enough, but unpolished, particularly regarding the details that go into creating believable characters. Not so in One Fifth Avenue, which boasts Mindy Gooch and Lola Fabrikant, equally hilarious characters who are polar opposites in every way imaginable.

Mindy Gooch is the self-important president of the board of One Fifth, an iconic co-op apartment building in NYC wherein live several social register types, as well as authors, actors and wannabes, one of whom is Mindy. She is uptight, angry, conventional, striving and infuriating. A social climber who hates society, as well as her husband and most of her neighbors. Lola Fabrikant is a spoiled kid from an upper middle class Atlanta family who, to paraphrase Jim Morrison of the Doors, wants the world and wants it now. Between them, Lola and Mindy manage to completely upset the social order of One Fifth and they provide lots of laughs along the way.

Another great character is Billy Litchfield, one of those gay guys still sometimes seen in New York who hangs around rich society women, helping them spend their husbands' money so they can look chic and entertain extravagantly. For me, Billy is one of the two characters who are truly likable in this novel, the other being the aging society matron Enid Merle, who knows where all the bodies are buried--literally.

In One Fifth Avenue Bushnell has given us a story that is a quite authentic depiction of New York City, even though it is clearly an exaggeration at the same time. With its laugh-out-loud moments and its realistic plot line, it offers an excellent diversion during your commute or for a rainy afternoon indoors.

Summary of One Fifth Avenue

"ONE FIFTH AVENUE is a modern comedy of manners -- a landmark novel, if you like. Its observations about money, the Internet, the function of art in society as wellas sex romps, social climbing and snobbery enhance Bushnell's reputation as an astute observer of modern life....Carrie Bradshaw wannabes as well as women (and men) near Bushnell's age -- she turns 50 this year -- will be pulled into this refreshing and highly entertaining novel about the power of money, sex and celebrity."
--USA TODAY

"Bushnell...broadens her scope in her latest ode to New York strivers and sophisticates...The fun lies in the author's acute observations about everything from real estate envy to midlife crises."
--More

"Where [Bushnell] goes, her army of stilletoed fans follow. You gotta love it: the conflict, the secrets-telling, the peek into the world of the rich and valueless. It all adds up to a juicy summer read."
--New York Post

"One Fifth Avenue is all things an escapist read she be: quick and wicked and wry. There's a blown-out bitch to root against, a star-crossed couple to root for, and a Tim Gunn-style best friend who deserves his own book. Great, guiltless fun."
--Entertainment Weekly

From one of the most consistently astute and engaging social commentators of our day comes another look at the tough and tender women of New York City--this time, through the lens of where they live.

One Fifth Avenue, the Art Deco beauty towering over one of Manhattan's oldest and most historically hip neighborhoods, is a one-of-a-kind address, the sort of building you have to earn your way into--one way or another. For the women in Candace Bushnell's new novel, One Fifth Avenue, this edifice is essential to the lives they've carefully established--or hope to establish. From the hedge fund king's wife to the aging gossip columnist to the free-spirited actress (a recent refugee from L.A.), each person's game plan for a rich life comes together under the soaring roof of this landmark building.

Acutely observed and mercilessly witty, One Fifth Avenue is a modern-day story of old and new money, that same combustible mix that Edith Wharton mastered in her novels about New York's Gilded Age and F. Scott Fitzgerald illuminated in his Jazz Age tales. Many decades later, Bushnell's New Yorkers suffer the same passions as those fictional Manhattanites from eras past: They thirst for power, for social prominence, and for marriages that are successful--at least to the public eye. But Bushnell is an original, and One Fifth Avenue is so fresh that it reads as if sexual politics, real estate theft, and fortunes lost in a day have never happened before.

From Sex and the City through four successive novels, Bushnell has revealed a gift for tapping into the zeitgeist of any New York minute and, as one critic put it, staying uncannily "just the slightest bit ahead of the curve." And with each book, she has deepened her range, but with a light touch that makes her complex literary accomplishments look easy. Her stories progress so nimbly and ring so true that it can seem as if anyone might write them--when, in fact, no one writes novels quite like Candace Bushnell. Fortunately for us, with One Fifth Avenue, she has done it again.

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