Gilding Lily [Paperback]

Tatiana Boncompagni (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 9, 2008

In this delicious new novel, Tatiana Boncompagni creates a heroine everyone will love...and no one will ever forget.

As Lily Bartholomew navigates kiddie birthday parties starring chart-topping entertainment, society dinner-dances where any woman larger than a size 2 can barely stand to show her Botoxed face, and vacations to exclusive hideaways with the mother-in-law from hell, she constantly wonders, "On what planet have I landed?"

After all, she's just a down-to-earth gal from suburbia who felt as if she'd landed in the middle of a fairy tale when she married Robert. He's handsome, rich, and—best of all—able to make her laugh, and she happily jumped headfirst into his world. But now Robert's lost his job, Lily hasn't lost her pregnancy weight, and their once-golden existence seems suddenly tarnished.

Desperate to regain her self-esteem, Lily begins writing essays about life among the rich and snobbish, which tosses her into the spotlight and in the path of social disaster. But as Lily navigates her way through the shark-infested waters of Manhattan society, she starts to rediscover her own place in the world—and how to regain what truly matters.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Boncompagni (who writes for the New York Times Sunday Styles section) wittily describes the rise and fall of Girl of the Moment Lily Grace. After relocating to New York from Nashville, Lily becomes a society darling and marries the handsome, charming, well-educated and wealthy Robert Bartholomew. But an unplanned pregnancy destroys their nuptial bliss, and Lily becomes flabby and cellulite-laden as soon as she's carrying. Robert quits his job at a law firm and spends more and more time with his mother, a manipulative socialite. Lily, meanwhile, begins writing lifestyle pieces, which brings her back to the social-climbing world she inhabited pre-pregnancy. Lily's successes are marred by the constant indignities she suffers at the hands of her peers, forcing Lily to decide what she's willing to pay for her social standing. Boncompagni has an eye for the comedic aspects of this privileged, insular group, and her humor tends toward the absurd rather than the malevolent. The author's familiarity with the world she describes allows her to garnish the narrative with tantalizing details, and her protagonist is likable even at her most dastardly. (Sept.)
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Review

“A gawker-licious look at life inside the biting world of New York society. Juicy, gossipy, and ultimately redemptive, Guilding Lily is in a league with Nanny Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada.” (Jennifer Coburn, author of The Queen Gene )

Only a true insider could dish…the way Tatiana Boncompagni has in this smartly written tale…” (Karen Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Ivy Chronicles )

“Rivetingly readable, Gilding Lily gleefully exposes the secret underbelly of socialite life.” (Holly Peterson, author of The Manny )

“With crackling humor and spot-on detail, Boncompagni captures the rarified world of New York society—and the juggling act of modern motherhood.” (Bridie Clark, author of Because She Can )

“A fun society read that will keep you intrigued in the rise and fall of its glossy characters.” (Plum Sykes, author of Bergdorf Blondes )

“Boncompagni has en eye for the comedic aspects of this privileged, insular group...The author’s familiarity with the world she describes allows her to garnish the narrative with tantalizing details, and her protagnoist is likable even at her most dastardly.” (Publishers Weekly )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Avon; 1 edition (September 9, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061451010
• ISBN-13: 978-0061451010
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #524,187 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delicious, Fun and Ultimately Touching Read, September 9, 2008

By 

Doreen Orion MD "author, QUEEN OF THE ROAD" (on the road...) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gilding Lily (Paperback)

This is a great book to curl up with and devour. It's so nice to start a novel and know within the first few pages you're going to love the read. It never let me down. Aside from being well-written and just plain fun, GUILDING LILY offers a delicious glimpse into New York high society. Yet, even though most of us don't live lives anything like Lily's, we can still identify with her struggles for acceptance from others and ultimately herself.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Makes Plum Sykes look like John Updike, September 9, 2009

By 

L. E. Freed "LE Freed" (Lake Tahoe, NV, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gilding Lily (Paperback)

Thank goodness I got this as gift, because even $5 is a ripoff for this piece of retrograde trash. I wanted to throw in the towel at page 17, but I kept going because I relished the thought of writing this review.

This book sucks. DO NOT BUY. Here's why:

1) Why is Lily such a wimp? Everything her worthless baby daddy does is OK, apparently, because she's in wuv, twue wuv, with him. But why? There is no convincing back narrative for her love for Robert, just a lot of twaddle about her physical attraction and "she felt she could trust him" when she first met him. WTF? There is nothing in the book to contradict the reader's conclusion that Robert is a selfish, lazy rich boy and that Robert and Lily got married too quickly. He has no ambition, which Lily states on more than one occasion that her partner should have. Way to stick to your principles, lady. And everything the mother in law perpetrates, Lily just shuts up and takes because she secretly likes the trappings of the Park Avenue Princess life. And Lily's own mother is breathtakingly sexist, which only perturbs Lily slightly. And it's never explained why Lily liked her life as a journalist, and the conflict between staying home and continuing to work is never examined with the rigor that a real working mother would bring to it. Basically, Lily is an unlikeable cipher, spineless and venal, without an original thought of her own. Which leads to #2...

2) The poor proofreader at the publishing house should be fired, unfortunately. Boncompagni uses "venal" in one instance where she means "evil" or similar, and uses "discrete" where she should use "discreet." And those are just two instances I can think of without trying real hard. Grammar and usage. Please pay attention to it.

3) Boncompagni is not a good enough writer to convey the profundity of being responsible for a small human being. Instead, the repeated descriptions of how awesome breastfeeding is just come off as grotesque fetishization of mommyhood. I guess this fetishization substitutes for a real examination of the conflict between wanting to work (which Lily doesn't want, anyway) and wanting to raise children. Ugh, so cheesy, because Bomcompagni doesn't have the words to make motherhood sing. The use of typical adjectives when describing the baby and Lily's love for him and using phrases like "he [the baby] was her world now" just will make you puke. I can name five mommybloggers who are more lyrical on a daily basis.

4) Besides Lily, almost every other character in the book is unlikeable. Except possibly for Allison. Why should anyone care what happens to a bunch of starving, mean, predatory twits on the Upper East Side? Anna Wintour has been pimping these kinds of people for years in Vogue, and I still don't care what moisturizer they use or how much they liked Alber Elbaz's last collection. This whole book presupposes that one cares about the UES subspecies already. Actual classic American literature set in the Gilded Age never supposed the reader would be immediately sympathetic to its subjects.

Look, if you want to read a story of a woman ruining her "prospects," just go straight to the source and read House of Mirth or Sister Carrie.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gilding Lily, September 9, 2008

By 

Readin' Fool (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gilding Lily (Paperback)

I thoroughly enjoyed Gilding Lily. Tatiana Boncompagni really knows the world about which she writes. She captures the foibles of young Manhattan socialites brilliantly. This book was absolutely impossible for me to put down. I read it in two sittings. The characters felt very real and the story moves at a brisk clip. If you enjoy intelligent books about the world of Manhattan high society, this one is for you.