The Luxe

Reader reviewed by Misty

I would maybe go as high as a 2.5 for this, but really no higher (sorry Ashley and Jenn).

The Luxe is about turn of the century New York socialites
falling in love and misbehaving. New York's darling debutant, Elizabeth
Holland is poised to marry one of the most eligible (and debaucherous)
bachelors in the city, but her perfect life is not what it seems.
The Luxe reads like Gossip Girl meets Edith Wharton.
Sadly, it has all of the shallowness and poor writing of the former,
with little of the intelligence and power of the latter. Godbersen does
her best to make the time period interesting and appealing to today's
teen girl audience, but the result is predictable, flat and strange. It
really is as if the GGs had put on costumes and were playing at The Age Of Innocence:
their actions and dialogue is not well-suited to the time or the story.
This isn't to say that they can't be scandalous; I don't by into a
white-washed history. I know people always have skeletons in their
closets, regardless of the mores of the time. More so, even, in a
repressive society. Wharton demonstrated that expertly. But the actions
of the characters in this book seem too careless and intentionally
shocking, and as such seems silly. It's hard as well to feel for the
characters. They have very few redeeming qualities, and I was torn
between wanting them to have the happy ending that was
(obviously-parading-as-stealthily) coming and seeing them get what they
actually deserved.

The structuring was a bit weird for me as well, especially when it
came to conversations between the characters. One character would say
something, and then Godbersen would spend a whole nice-sized paragraph
describing something (the rich scene, someone's dress, some incident
from the past, whatever), and then the character who was spoken to
would respond. By that point, I was completely out of the flow of
conversation and had no idea what had been said in the
first place and had to look back to follow the thread of dialogue. It
was a strange choice on her part and her editor's. And though some
description of finery and scene were necessary, they were a bit
overdone and tended to overwhelm the story (or maybe mask a lack of
it); if I had had to read about 'pocket doors' one more effing time, I may have had a fit of hysterics like some of the characters were prone to.

This is not to say that teen girls won't find this book just heart-flutteringly terrific.
If Godbersen set out to write a soap opera dressed up as historical
literature, she succeeded at that, and there is a market for it. For me
tough, it's a shame it didn't live up to its pretty cover.