Celebrity News: The Overnight Socialite by Bridie Clark

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The Overnight Socialite by Bridie Clark – Book Review

The Overnight Socialite by Bridie Clark – Book Review
The Overnight Socialite by Bridie Clark was a fun and quick read, the sort of book you would love to have with you to read on a plane or at the beach. By writing this, I am not implying that it is a simple book, (in fact, I’ve never read a chick lit book that had [...]

The Overnight Socialite by Bridie Clark was a fun and quick read, the sort of book you would love to have with you to read on a plane or at the beach. By writing this, I am not implying that it is a simple book, (in fact, I’ve never read a chick lit book that had an anthropologist as one of the main characters) I just mean that it was an enjoyable book that didn’t nearly kill you to read by struggling to keep up with every subplot.

Photo courtesy of Weinstein Books

The Overnight Socialite is a modern-day take on the wonderful classic play (and later film) Pygmalion. Lucy Ellis is our Manhattan Eliza Doolittle, who has just been fired from her small potatoes job in fashion and who dreams of making it as a successful fashion designer. When we are introduced to her she is working in a Garment District assembly line and has just humiliated herself publically during a fashion event by cracking a runway in half and getting stuck bottoms up in it. She meets Wyatt Hayes IV (Manhattan’s version of Henry Higgins) in a terrible downpour, who is a bored Ph.D. anthropologist who has also recently been dissed by New York’s reigning socialite, Cornelia Rockman, his ex-girlfriend. When Wyatt spots Lucy, shivering and wet, he boasts to his best friend that he can transform any woman into this seasons ”It” girl. Lucy, while highly offended, still takes up Wyatt on his offer to transform her into a social luminary.

The rest of the novel highlights Lucy’s trials and tribulations during her physical and social transformation from Midwestern lower-class ways into a highly sought-after Manhattan socialite. Along the way she entangles time and time again with Cornelia, reigning social queen who is determined to get back with Wyatt and is trying to get to the bottom of Lucy’s sudden appearance on the Manhattan social scene.

Any fan of chick lit, Manhattan’s social scene, fashion and unlikely romantic tales will enjoy The Overnight Socialite. I always enjoy a good social satire that balances both romance and fashion. I am very thankful to have received my review copy of this book, as I read it in one four-hour sitting.