The Luxe by Anna Godbersen (review by Samyu Y. '15)

The Luxe by Anna Godbersen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The year is 1899, and the place is New York City. A glimpse of satin, silk, taffeta, or lace is visible around every corner of each gilded mansion, and fine carriages dominate the roads where the wealthy live. Gossip follows every eligible young person like a cloud – a cloud that others are only too delighted to darken. Illicit affairs, social impropriety, and scandal are the entertainment of the day. In this world, the Holland family works to elevate two daughters to perfection: Elizabeth, seemingly pious but secretly defiant, and Diana, an outward rebel but romantic at heart. Godbersen’s language weaves its way elegantly around thwarted romances, atrocious rumors, and secret abhorrence to reveal the unhappily tangled lives of the 1900 New York elite. A light read, this first novel of the Luxe series is expressed in pretty but unremarkable writing -- though the description of the dresses and the parties is extravagant. Readers of Gossip Girl and The Clique series or watchers of Pretty Little Liars will be swept away in this bracingly different version of catty cliques and damsels in distress. – Samyu Y. ‘15

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