Customer Reviews

The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund is both a quick funny beach read and a keenly observed social comedy of its time and place. It's a send-up of the personal excesses practiced by the New York City "hedgie" set prior to the current economic crisis, and the story a newly divorced mom finding her way back to happiness. The book had me alternately laughing out loud, chuckling under my breath and nodding in recognition of the characters and situations. Holly, the main character/narrator, must navigate between her previously comfortable life and a new one, minus the perks of wealth, that might really be happy, all the while trying to keep her son well-grounded. You don't need to be a New Yorker or know the financial world to enjoy this book, as Kargman explains a lot in both Holly's narrative and in the fun charts scattered throughout the book. Jill Kargman is great at skewering the rarified world of the Upper East Side of NYC that she knows best, with sharp-witted humor, but obvious fondness for its foibles.

I have read all of Mrs Kargman's books (I am actually a male) and enjoy her intellect and approach to todays social strata. Over the last few years the world had become a somewhat surreal place and to truly understand where we are collectively heading one must remember where we were. Some of the excesses were extraordinary and absurd. This book gives a fantastic angle into the lives of an entire subculture of money hungry, vacuous people. They defined success, stature and class simply as a correlation to material wealth.

The ex-mrs. hedgefund will be remembered as an anthropological assessment of a time that many mere "wealthy" people hope never returns. This book is a must read and can easily be read in a day at the beach and will definitely create enjoyable dinner conversation. The only thing I would like to do now is spend an hour with the author and share some more anecdotes.

I fell in love with the main character Holly Talbott. This is a very engaging and entertaining story. With so many so-called "gripping" best selling books that can leave one tense and depressed - this book is such a delight. It's a smirky and witty look at the super rich and the search for happiness no matter your zip code or tax bracket.

This is basically a glorified Harlequin romance, done up for the Sex & the City crowd. It is marginally entertaining for the few hours is takes to read, so it's an ok beach read. But whoever proofread/edited this book needs to find a new profession.

Holly Talbott is a 34-year-old mother of one. During her single life, Holly wrote feature articles on rock bands and musicians, but after meeting and marrying Tim who would eventually run a hedge fund, Holly abandoned her exciting career to be full time mother and hedge-fund wife.

Despite not wanting for anything, Holly must endure never-ending lunches with the other stuffy hedgie wives, attend boring hedgie dinners and just overall maintain her social standing and status among her peers.

One of the bright spots in Holly's world is her best-friend and sister-in-law Kiki, who is married to her husband's brother, Hal. Wild and vivacious Kiki's fire is in danger of being snuffed out after years of marriage to frigid Hal and they eventually divorce. Now Tim and his mother, the ûber snob, Sherry Von vehemently demand that Kiki be cut from their lives and Holly is forbidden to ever speak to her again--an order that she fervently ignores.

Newly divorced and on the prowl, Kiki and Holly spend a lot of time together; but on one fateful trip to Williamsburg, both women are shocked when they see Tim messing around with a much younger woman. Now Holly will join Kiki in divorce exile, as she learns to navigate the dating world and begin a new career.

Although there isn't really anything new here: rich husband, lavish lifestyle, snobby ladies who lunch and all the shallowness that comes with it; until divorce strikes and with it, the inevitable fall from grace, rendering the divorcee a social outcast who is forced to reinvent herself...

However, Kargman's light and humorous voice, paired with the yin and yang vibe of Holly and Kiki make the story much more interesting. Kiki's wild-child attitude, balanced by Holly's fun, yet reserved demeanor has something for everybody. The reader will follow Holly as she learns to accept her new life, getting a fly-on-the-wall perspective of all the post-divorce ups and downs, as well as the dating disasters; which will elicit empathic commiseration from her dating cohorts and an audible, collective sigh of relief from her legally-obligated peers.

I started this book last night and liked it. Then all of the sudden, the plot changes and ??? I thought, either I'm really stupid or I'm reading too fast and I missed something. So I went back and reread several pages.

The book begins with Holland, a hedge-fund wife, being close friends with her sister- in- law Kiki. When Kiki and her husband Hal begin divorce proceedings, Holland's mother in law lays down the law that no one in the family should continue a friendship with Kiki.Holly and Kiki are best pals and Holly isnt too happy with her snotty mother in law's edict.

One evening, Holland's husband Tim is out of town and she's getting ready for a night out with other hedge-fund wives. Are you with me? Then without any explanation, in the next paragraph, Holly is headed out with Kiki and its her first time out since her divorce from Tim. Huh? What? The entire book up until this point was about Kiki and Hal's divorce, from Holly's point of view.

I was so confused, I reread the chapter and nowhere did it say anything about Holly and Tim getting divorced. Since I was a little confused, I set the book aside. Im sure its great and the author is funny and the tone of the book was good but I definitely have questions!

If you are looking for a book of substance, this is not your book. The story is fleshed out pretty well, however I do wish there was a little bit more character development. They are a little two-dimensional. Overall, I thought Holly was a likeable character and somewhat relate-able. The part that I didn't think fit was the bachelorette party. It was almost as if the writer was getting tired of the book and wanted to wrap it up and added in a cliche. It just didn't fit with Kiki, I thought. Perfect book for getting lost in for a day or two and then moving on. It's not going to change your life, but a good little escape from it.

Let's be frank; this is a chick lit. book, not literature.

For me, the book started out promising and then just descended to the level of a dime store romance novel.

I also found the grammatical errors distracting and made a weak story line even less believable. (i.e. a hedgefund wife referring to her air conditioning unit as "broke" instead of "broken".) There were a few other errors like this. I decided to stop reading this book and will not purchase any more from this author.

I consider myself a chick lit expert because I read these type of books voraciously. Maybe I'm not into this book because I'm not a married-then-divorced mom, but I really think the reason why I'm not into this book (I made it to page 139 by the way) is because it's a snoozefest. 1) The author seems like a nice but probably bored, upper east side housewife who doesn't have anything do but yet had the connections to get a publishing deal - note: this doesn't make you an author. 2) She's boring so she writes from a boring point of view. 3) From her best friend/ ex hedge fund wife who is an unbelievable crass character who curses all the time to her four page whirlwind trip to Italy and back to her one chapter dates with young losers or old artists, I get the feeling that she doesn't actually know anything about being a hedgefund wife or being divorced. The book chops along awkwardly as you can feel the author having no clue what boring incident she'll toss in next. It seems like this book is the best she could come up based off her her little bit of research and her total lack of imagination. A tale of Wall St. excess and betrayal should've much more palatable than this.

I've read all of Jill Kargman's books and loved every last one of them, this one was just fantastic, I devoured it in 2 days and was so sad for it to end. Hope she writes another one soon!