Customer Reviews

Bergdorf Blondes: A Novel

5 star:		(75)
4 star:		(70)
3 star:		(46)
2 star:		(48)
1 star:		(125)

 

 

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.

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.

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'?

I admire Plum Sykes for writing a debut novel about the world she is familiar with, even though I couldn't help feeling that the book was based on events so true that the book actually lost its flavor; in brief, there was potential for a good book here. I don't mind reading about the world of PJs and thirteen-day blondes, since I don't have to relate to a character's lifestyle to enjoy a novel. Nonetheless, what undermined "Bergdorf Blondes" was the lack of plot and structure, and distracting name dropping. As a matter of fact, the writing style was a little too slang and unecessarily posh for my taste. Luckily, I speak French so that helped to keep the flow as I read. I did enjoy learning the acronyms, but that's about it. The book jacket is way cute too. As an avid reader, I just found that the characters lacked dephth. Some people such as the characters in this book are that shallow, fact of life, but "Bergdorf Blondes" was rife with them. I don't mind predictable plots to be honest, because I generally tend to like happy endings, well at least for one of the characters, but still, Moi didn't do it for me. I regret having bought this book and do not really recommend it.

This chick went to Oxford? As in England? Do THEY think this twaddle is clever? (Well, it is the land of Mr. Bean...)
Save your money. Don't buy into the hype. If you're looking for a genuinely hilarious autopsy of our celebrity-addled culture, check out "So 5 Minutes Ago" by Hilary DeVries (Villard). It's "about" Hollywood publicists, which makes it fun, but it's deeper than that. A great beach read, and food for thought, to boot. DeVries the real deal -- think Nora Ephron before she became a hack. Or Plum Sykes with genuine talent, wit, intelligence...oh, never mind.

The characters lack depth, which would be okay if the book had a plot of any interest. I would say this book was all sizzle no steak, except that it wasn't sizzling. Perhaps the intellectual and emotional retardation of the women in this book would have been easier to bear if they were all 14, which is how they act.

this book is one of the worst that i have read in quite some time. the narrator is completely detestable and you get the sense that the author is unaware of this (particularly because it seems that ms. sykes has based the annoyingly named character, moi, after herself). one of the numerous irritating plots attempts to recreate pride and prejudice (a la bridget jones's diary) yet turns the tale into a predictable and unrealistic pile of crap. at least jones, which i also found trite, provided the reader with a protagonist who was somewhat appealing. i wonder if anna wintour actually read her protege's ridiculous novel before so generously providing the compliment on its jacket. if so, her skills as an arbiter of taste are grossly overrated. even more preposterous is the fact that sykes fancies her book is on par with such great novelists as wharton, capote and fitzgerald. i highly doubt that history will regard bergdorf blondes on this level of literature or even remember it. let's hope the inevitable movie fails at the box office.

The problem with this "book" is that's it's about stupid and vapid people living in a world obsessed with vanity and fashion and material goods. Since I'm a sucker for the English sense of humor, and because I had read some funny lines in the reviews, I bought this thinking it would be a satire on a stupid world. But it's just boring. It's lucky to get 1 star from me.

We shouldn't blame Plum Sykes ... she's smart enough to see how preoccupied we are and to make some money at our expense, but don't buy this if you care about characters in books, or if you think Sykes wants to make fun of her subjects. She IS the subject. She's MOI. She lives and loves the world she's writing about and that makes her blind to its faults. If fashion and celebrity are your thing, go on reading magazines like Vogue and People. But if you want to read a book, do yourself a favor and buy a real novel. This thing will just make you angry for wasting your time and money.

This book was so bad I almost broke my own rule that you have to finish reading any book that you start. It is a completely boring "Briget Jones' Diary" meets "The Nanny Diaries" wannabe novel. Yes, yes, Manhattan party girls are oh so chic, live oh so extravagent and bizarre lives and, have oh so funny perspectives on life. We've had a deluge of novels in the last few years that follow this theme - each attempting to be wittier than the last. I don't know if this book was just an un-fuuny version of the genre or if the genre is played out, but this book was excruciating.

What made this book particularly torturous was that the author is so obviously begging to have it turned into a major motion picture. The book really seemed like more of an exposition for a cute chick flick. The movie would be better than the book. It would have good fashion visuals, attractive characters and predictable dialogue and plot developments. Wonderful qualities for a ninety minute chick flick. Not good qualities for a book that takes more than ninety minutes to read. More than ninety minutes is a waste of time for this tired book.

This book isn't clever enough to be considered satirical. It wasn't funny, it wasn't interesting, and I was extremely disappointed. I forced myself to get through to the end and it was even worse than predictable. Don't bother. It's a snore.