Fake Plastic Love
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Prepare yourself for a daring, unsparing takedown of millennial Manhattan, trick by glossy trick.” —Beatriz Williams
We are a bifurcated generation, the Romantics versus the Realists: those who prefer transistor radios to Bose sound systems, scuffed ocean liner trunks to gleaming Rimowa hard shells, fountain pens to BlackBerry keyboards, restored old roadsters to eco-friendly hybrids, the unsmudgeable guarantee of old illusions to present-life ones, tinny and certain to disappoint.
When M. meets Belle at Dartmouth, they become the unlikeliest best friends. Belle is an unapologetic Romantic famous on campus for her bright red accessories and hundred-watt smile, while M. is a tomboyish Realist who insists she’ll always prefer her signet ring to any diamond. Despite their differences, they are drawn together, and after graduation they both move to New York with all the unfounded confidence of twenty-two. M. secures a job at the city’s most prestigious investment bank, and Belle turns her nostalgic aesthetic into one of the first lifestyle blogs, which quickly goes viral. Their future is spread before them, a glittering tableau of vintage cocktails, password-guarded parties, and high-octane ambition. But as they are pulled deeper into their new lives, and into the charming orbit of their Gatsby-esque new friend, Jeremy, style and substance—and dreams and reality—increasingly blur. In this fake plastic world, what do success and love and happiness even look like?
Dazzling, whimsical, and full of yearning, Fake Plastic Love is the transporting story of bright young things tested by the unsentimental realities of post-graduate life. Tipping its hat to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kimberley Tait’s gorgeous, incisive debut is a portrait of millennial Manhattan—equal parts nostalgia and modernity—that explores the timeless question: You will be a grand total of what you spend your time doing, so what do you want to add up to?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With sweeping nods to Fitzgerald and other writers of the Gilded Age, Tait's debut novel sparkles with vitality and conscience. Observant, contemplative, and witty M. takes center stage as the lives of four 20-somethings unfold. Postcollege, M. takes a job as an analyst at the prestigious Bartholomew Brothers banking firm in New York, becoming the banker her mother wishes she would marry. M.'s college best friend, Belle Bailey, also calls New York home, documenting her hopelessly romantic, rose-colored-glasses view of the world in her berpopular blog, La Belle Vie. She's created the illusion of her life as pretty and perfect, a fa ade at odds with an uncertain reality and the pain of a tragedy she can never escape. Belle's sometime beau, boorish Chase Breckenridge, works alongside M. and is a thorn in her side. Jeremy Kirby, M.'s closest work colleague, is a man in the wrong era, a Victrola in a world of MP3s. He becomes Belle's ardent suitor, and M. gets caught in the middle, torn between protecting Jeremy and humoring Belle. As the years progress, so does the disillusionment the characters feel about their current realities; struggling to make sense of their presents and wondering what they want for their futures. Fluid, graceful, and unfaltering prose highlights this remarkable novel; relatable characters and themes complete the package.
Customer Reviews
Got this at the dollar store!!
How underrated or great marketing??!! Definitely a reread able book. Live the imagery