Review Detail

Anna Godbersen’s Luxe series is a tough nut to crack, in more ways than one. All at once, the story of the Holland girls and their scheming peers is utterly ridiculous and yet bewilderingly addicting. However, I think that with the third installment in the series, Envy, Godbersen’s work took on a positive quality it hadn’t possessed in her previous books.

For one thing, while Envy is still full of secrets and gossip and betrayal, I felt that, for the most part, all the drama llama-ness was a bit more understated. I definitely wasn’t rolling my eyes in the way I did while reading Rumors, and I wasn’t bored as I was with The Luxe. Of course, I think this book’s plot was very over the top, but maybe a bit less so than its predecessors.

But even though I thought I saw improvement, this type of novel will never be my favorite. Any story that requires at least 20% of its content to deal with descriptions of clothing and shoes is not one for me.

As always, my biggest complaint with Anna Godbersen’s writing is her awful, two-dimensional characters. In some ways, I think Envy was even worse than The Luxe. Elizabeth, who for the most part remains the central figure, connecting all the other characters to each other, is an undeniable Mary Sue. She has no personality to speak of, and I really fail to see how she, as the supposed backbone of the series, managed to get such a large grouping of sycophantic satellites to orbit around her. Certainly, if I met Elizabeth Holland in real life, I doubt she would be nearly as well-liked as she is in Anna Godbersen’s imagination.

At the same time, I still think that Anna Godbersen has a massive amount of talent, even if I don’t like what she does with it. Her prose is very strong and effective. And Envy, like Rumors, was not at all predictible. As a seasoned reader, believe me when I say it’s hard to find a book that can surprise me, and Envy manged to do just that.

Overall, Envy is a decent book. A definite guilty pleasure on my part, but not one that I’d be too embarrassed to admit liking. Yet while Envy was probably the best in this series so far, it’s hardly a book I’d want to spend money on. Not while there are other, better books available at the bookstore.