Bergdorf Blondes: A Novel [Hardcover]

Plum Sykes (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 7, 2004

Plum Sykes's beguiling debut welcomes readers to the glamorous world of Park Avenue Princesses, the girls who careen through Manhattan in search of the perfect Fake Bake (tan acquired from Portofino Tanning Salon), a ride on a PJ (private jet) with the ATM (rich boyfriend), and the ever-elusive fianc.

With invitations to high-profile baby showers and benefits, more Marc Jacobs clothes than is decent, and a department store heiress for a best friend, our heroine known only as Moi is living at the peak of New York society. But what is Moi to do when her engagement falls apart? Can she ever find happiness in a city filled with the distractions of Front Row Girls, dermatologists, premieres, and eyebrow waxes? Is it possible to find love in a town where her friends think that the secret to happiness is getting invited to the Van Cleef and Arpels ber-private sample sale? And how is she going to deal with the endless phone calls from her mother in England demanding that she get married to the Earl next door?

With enormous wit and an insider's eye, Sykes captures the nuances of the rich and spoiled in a heartwarming social satire, featuring a loveable "champagne bubble of a girl" who's just looking for love (and maybe the perfect pair of Chlo jeans).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

They're ravenous. They're ruthless. They live in a strictly hierarchical, alpha-dog, eat-or-be-eaten world. No, it's not a rerun of Wild America; it's the world of dressed-to-the-nines Park Avenue heiresses, aka Bergdorf Blondes, botoxed to within an inch of their barely-into-the-third-decade lives. Our unnamed London-born heroine is New York's favorite "champagne-bubble-about-town" and just as effervescent and exhilarating as a fine bottle of Dom Perignon. Blissfully self-interested and flush with the cheeriness that comes from being, well, flush, Miss Disposable Income 2004 sashays her way through New York society in search of the perfect P.H. (Potential Husband)-"Have you any idea how awesome your skin looks if you are engaged?"-and the perfect butt-shaping pair of Chloe jeans. Despair occasionally strikes when her latest prince turns into yet another toad, but it's nothing an invitation to an uber-exclusive Hermes sale and a gallon or so of Bellinis can't fix. She's got the crème de la crème along with her for the ride, including her best friend, the fabulously wealthy heiress Julie Bergdorf, who is tres supportive of her nervous breakdown=You'll be able to dine out on how crazy you went in Paris for months-and a posse of chattering, Harry Winston-bedecked clones with whom to limo around New York. Tacky? Absolutely. But it's impossible not to be massively entertained by a woman who refers euphemistically to oral sex as "going to Rio" in memory of the first man who suggested she get a Brazilian bikini wax, considers vodka a food group and who holds up glamour as the first of the commandments. This is a savvy and viciously funny trip into a glittery, glitzy world we sure wouldn't want to live in-but by which we're more than happy to be vicariously consumed for the length of a book.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Our heroine is a self-described "champagne bubble about town" (the town being New York City, of course), a twentysomething socialite whose life centers on tracking down Chanel sample sales and downing Bellinis with the group of friends she calls the Park Avenue Princesses. When she notices that getting engaged brings a glow to her friends' skin that even an alpha-beta peel can't replicate, she and her best friend embark on a roller-coaster-ride of a search for prospective husbands. Their misadventures, both romantic and cosmetic, are related in a dishy, namedropping-over-cocktails tone. At the story's end, everyone has landed safely on her Manolo Blahniks, true love turns out to be where one least expects to find it, and Vera Wang is booked to design the wedding gowns. Sykes' debut is feather light, but its heart is in the right place. Like the movie Clueless, to which it owes a substantial debt, this is a breathless, sweetly tongue-in-cheek examination of the lifestyles and arcane social mores of the young, rich, and glamorous. Readers, especially fans of Candace Bushnell, will enjoy the ride. Meredith Parets
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Miramax (April 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401351964
• ISBN-13: 978-1401351960
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (378 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #746,259 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

156 of 179 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A little too Bergdorf, and a little too blonde March 25, 2004

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

In the tradition of Candace Bushnell's "Four Blondes" and "Trading Up" comes "Bergdorf Blondes" by Plum Sykes, a story about Manhattan's best-dressed women, and their fantastically luxurious highlights, heartbreaks, and Hermes Birkin waiting-list woes. In a sense, the unnamed narrator (a self-described champagne bubble-about-town) and her perfectly blonde best friend, Julie Bergdorf, are refreshingly unlike many rich chick-lit heroines: they're not ruthless or mean-hearted, they're oftentimes charming and witty, and their very self-indulgence has a campy quality that comes across as more amusing than petty.

There's a downside: the book never goes anywhere particularly surprising, and the whirl of men-clothes-manicures gets boring and one-dimensional after a while. The characters' very cuteness is a little unnerving as well; I love clothing as much as the next girl, but it's not all that I, or any other girl for that matter, think about. Sykes' writing isn't good enough to make her characters into real people. Rather, they're simply very well-dressed, well-coiffed shells with no interests other than clothes or men, and they're not real enough to make their silliness interesting for more than 100 pages or so.

In conclusion, it's disappointing to reach the end of the book and realize that it doesn't go anywhere: there's no well-fashioned plot, just a series of fragmented episodes that pass for a story, and there's no character growth. No one ever learns to care for anything beyond men, clothes, and grooming, and yet, despite this, they're perfectly happy people. Does that mean the book's not worth reading? No, it is; it's good beach or boredom reading. But you may find yourself losing interest in the incessant themes of designer highlights and rotten men, in which case, "Bergdorf Blondes" becomes very unpleasant to finish.

62 of 70 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Oxford Blues August 20, 2004

By Em1

Format:Hardcover

As an Oxford graduate and an English person I'd just like to apologise to you all for Plum Sykes and Bergdorf Blondes. No, that's all. We're really sorry.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Depressingly dreadful August 23, 2004

By Cooper

Format:Hardcover

Initially I thought Miss Sykes was attempting to satirise the ditzy social register scene of the rich women of New York City. If this had been the case, it would have been a brave attempt, and not at all bad for a debut. However, after a few pages it became painfully obvious that there was absolutely no tongue in Miss Sykes' cheek, and that she thought her readers would actually enjoy several hundred pages of irrelevant fashion titbits and vacuous inanities. Are the women of New York really so self-obsessed and, frankly, stupid? And where was the plot? The denouement was clumsy and embarrassing, almost bringing a blush to my cheeks at the audacity of it. I think that Miss Sykes underestimated the intelligence of the average book reader, and overestimated the level of interest in her line of work and her lifestyle. As she obviously isn't going to get many royalties, I at least hope she gets a few freebies in exchange for so much ruthless plugging of designers. How many times can you say 'Marc Jacobs'?