Diary of a South Beach Party Girl [Paperback]

Gwen Cooper (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 10, 2007

South Beach in the late 1990s is a town of blink-and-you'll-miss-'em nightclubs populated by celebrities, models, mobsters, heiresses, drug dealers, drag queens, and fun seekers of all stripes. It's a place where the famous come to party like locals, the locals party like rock stars behind velvet ropes, and the press is savvy enough to know what not to report.

Rachel Baum is a sheltered, career-oriented everygirl when she moves to South Beach from her quiet Miami suburb, searching for a life less ordinary. Quickly making friends among SoBe's most exclusive scenesters, she spends her days building a career and her nights building a reputation. But in a town where friends become enemies faster than highs become hangovers, the life less ordinary turns into more than Rachel bargained for. As she pursues the endless party in penthouses, dive bars, after-hours clubs, and cocaine speakeasies, Rachel struggles to balance her goals and ambitions with the decadence and excess -- especially her drug-fueled, on-again off-again relationship with Yale-graduate-turned-addict John Hood -- that threaten to destroy everything she's always worked for.

With tremendous wit and razor-sharp insight, Diary of a South Beach Party Girl portrays the innermost sanctums of South Beach's privileged Beautiful People through the eyes of a no longer innocent heroine.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her debut novel, former party girl Cooper smartly focuses on the fringe freaks who fueled the nightlife in the nauseatingly hip late 1990s South Beach: über-publicist Ricky Pascal, petulant heiress Amy, sexy felon John Hood and a host of bar workers and bar hoppers who hobnob with the rich even as they scramble to make their own rent. Rachel Baum—poet, aspiring publicist and hard-partying diva—narrates the frenetic scene from a prime VIP-room seat. The air kissing, photo-ops and drug-and-liquor indulging is the price of admission to the much more subtle seduction of Rachel and her entourage. "South Beach was a town in the business of seduction," Rachel notes. "Sometimes the sheer, overwhelming beauty of the place and its inhabitants was so sharp, it was almost painful." Rachel's love affair with the South Beach party scene ends when her search for "stability versus chaos" takes precedence over the addictive charm of a community that so readily forgives and forgets every destructive bender she (and everyone else) goes on. But it hardly matters: South Beach—and all of its neon-vodka-narcotic glamour—is a much better draw than the predictable mellowing of a party chick. (Apr.)
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Review

"There's real wit and pathos beneath the feather boas."

-- Entertainment Weekly

"As captivating as it is alarming."

-- Cosmopolitan

"A page-turner."

-- Playgirl

"300-plus pages of what Vanessa Williams' show South Beach should've looked like."

-- Jossip.com

"Like a popular and generous best friend, Cooper takes readers behind the velvet rope and into the seedily thrilling, drug-filled world of late-90s Miami." -- People

"A dishy look at the SoBe scene." -- Harper's Bazaar

"The biggest sensation since Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls is Gwen Cooper's Diary of a South Beach Party Girl." -- JumpOnMarksList.com

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 323 pages
• Publisher: Gallery Books; Original edition (April 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416940898
• ISBN-13: 978-1416940890
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #392,255 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gwen Cooper is the New York Times bestselling author of the memoir "Homer's Odyssey: A Fearless Feline Tale, or How I Learned About Love and Life with a Blind Wonder Cat" and the novels "Love Saves the Day" and "Diary of a South Beach Party Girl." She is a frequent speaker at shelter fundraisers, donates 10% of her royalties from "Homer's Odyssey" to organizations that serve abused, abandoned, and disabled pets, and serves on the Advisory Board of Tabby's Place, a cage-free no-kill shelter in Ringoes, NJ. Gwen lives in Manhattan with her husband, Laurence. She also lives with her three perfect cats--Homer, Clayton, and Fanny--who aren't impressed with any of it.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars very entertaining May 20, 2007

By DD

Format:Paperback

Whether Gwen Cooper was writing a semi-autobiography, or simply a fictional story, this book made me laugh, made me cry, at times, made me want to beat Rachel Baum senseless, and then at other times made me want to hang out with her! The book was funny, she had quick comebacks as well her her circle of close friends that made hilarious comments throughout.

Her writing style may have dragged at a few parts, but her descriptions and her coversations in the book practically made me fall in love with the characters, esp. John Hood!! Many of the names mentioned are REAL people from that very REAL scene, and if Gwen Cooper had some type of friendship with them, so what if she uses their names in her book!

i thought Diary was an entertaining, funny and sarcastic look of what life really may be like under all the make-up and glamour of a celebrity lifestyle...not everyone is rich and famous, but if they are acting the part for the party, who cares!! there are alot of people who would have loved to be in the 'in' crowd at least for a little while.

The only problem i had with the book is the reference to cocaine as though using it to party was 'ok' as long as you weren't an addict. When i was younger, i spent many nights at the Tunnel in mahattan, well known for its drug use, and never needed a drug to have a good time. So the idea that cocaine makes the party better in totally exaggerated. otherwise, i loved the book!

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Unplug the phone & prepare for a late night April 6, 2007

By Elizabeth Navarro

Format:Paperback

I came upon my "pre-release" book by accident in a library/bookstore and wasn't sure if I should read it out of respect for the Author...well, my curiosity took over and after the first few pages I was HOOKED!! Gwen Cooper writes so that you feel there with Rachel. What a journey she was on. Most of us can identify in one way or another with the character, even having not lived in South Beach. The struggle with careers, falling for the "bad-boy" ect.. This is a MUST read!! I actually read it twice & have ordered this as a gift..

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Hilarious, Exciting Read April 19, 2007

By Michael Harper

Format:Paperback

Cooper did too much drugs, drank too many martinis and got too little sleep for YOU, dear reader, for you. She did the dirty work so you can pick up this ravishing story and dive right into the nightlife of South Beach in the 90s, back before boys dressed like boys and bathrooms were for pissing. Cooper's voice is hip, sarcastic and funny. She makes you want to find the nearest drag queen and drag her to the nearest club and find something to dance on. She does a really good job of untangling the web of what might otherwise be an almost impenetrable story... her characters are so vividly detailed that characters a lesser author would be unable to distinguish are clearly painted. I'd suggest this book to anyone with even a bit of the ne'r-do-well inside of them.