The Girl Booker

The Girl Booker

Friday, July 10, 2015

Twenty-Something

Since I was about a quarter of the way through A Fortunate Age (Joanne Rakoff), I started thinking about how much I wanted to blog about it. Not that I have anything terribly clever to say about it, just that it was a brilliant, fun, engrossing read. I am not a person who prioritises chores over fun, but this week the apartment is a few shades messier than usual. I just had to take every spare moment possible to read. I had to! It was compelling in the way your new iPhone was when you first got the Angry Birds ap. (Come on, admit it; we’ve all been there).

Ok, so why all the gushing? Well the book is set in New York, and the author clearly loves New York. She totally makes you want to go there because you think your whole life would be strolling through brownstone-lined streets in the sun, talking about poetry and philosophy, before ducking into a small bar for snacks and a cocktail and talking earnestly about music, love and fashion.


As well as the fabulous background, so beautifully painted, are the compelling characters. Somehow, I want to be them (or at the very least be friends with them), even when their lives are somewhere between muddle and disaster on the togetherness scale. Their apartments are smaller, jobs crappier and relationships more halting than anyone would ideally like, but somehow this just makes them seem... I dunno... tragically romantic? Or something. Anyway, Hooray and huzzah for A Fortunate Age. I love, love, loved it.