Customer Reviews

The Misadventures of Oliver Booth: Life in the Lap of Luxury

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Oliver Booth craves wealth, acknowledgment and prestige yet he goes about it in all the wrong ways. The more he scams and tries to pry up into the world that he admires the more it detests him and his slyness. He is the arrogant owner of a supposedly high-quality shop filled with "hecho en Mexico" reproductions. His luck goes from bad to worse when one of the bigshots- Margaret Van Buren sends him and his new assistant to France to purchase some furniture for her guest house. Booth's arrogance even when he has no clue of the language, culture or area get him into even bigger trouble. All his problems are not without the meddling of his assistant, who more than anyone would like to see him fail.

Oliver Booth is not a character with good qualities, and then when his assistant enters the scene I had high hopes for him. Once I saw that his only intent was getting whatever he could claw away from Booth in order to impress their boss Mrs. Van Buren I lost hope. I need at least one person in the book to look at and admire, this one was just a rat race. As much as I know that is probably more realistic, this didn't do it for me. I was expecting more depth than this gave, more depth of character, more depth of something and it was not there.

In parts it was funny, but soon bashing on Oliver Booth's weight wasn't humorous anymore. I started to feel worse for him because it seemed that everyone wanted to tear him down. It distressed me more than made me laugh. I understand that he got what was coming, but it was too much to watch. Not my cup 'o tea.

For all my reviews go to B&b ex libris: http://exlibrisbb.blogspot.com

This little book is such a great read. Loved the trip to my Paris. Did not know Palm Beach, until now. So, where is the promised next one?

I read these reviews and thought I would really enjoy this novel because I like satire. Well, I made it to part two before leaving my copy in the gym, the place I leave one-star books since I assume most of the people there might actually be able to handle such bad prose.
The central character, Olive Booth, is totally unbelievable. I realize satire can be very tricky to write, and even the best at it such as Carl Hiaasen sometimes fail as he did in his most recent "Star." But this is a book I would have thought all publishers would have rejected pronto.

Mr Oliver booth runs an antique shop in Palm Beach. His antiques consist of "Authentic Mexican Reproductions", you know the cheesy gilded flea market finds. Mr Booth feels he has exquisite taste in antiques and those that question his tastes are themselves somewhat beneath him. As Mr booth attempts to become a designer to the society / wealthy of Palm Beach he finds himself the "cartoon" for their local newspaper. His antics are hilarious. Mr Booth finds himself in jail in Paris, and forced to take a psychological exam before he is allowed to leave the country. It is sad and also hard to believe but people like Mr Booth actually do exist.
This book is full of laughs and is a very good read.

Oliver Booth imagines himself to be much more sophisticated than he actually is. He owns an "antique" shop off of Worth Avenue in Palm Beach. He hires Bernard Dauphin to be his assistant in the shop. One day, Palm Beach's wealthiest society matron, Margaret Van Buren, comes in with her grandson who needs to use the restroom. She purchases the one good piece of furniture in the shop, which had been purchased by Bernard at an estate sale.

Pleased with her purchase, Mrs. Van Buren sends Oliver and Bernard to the Marché aux Puces in Paris to purchase furnishings for her guest house. Everything Oliver does on the trip backfires on him and he ends up in court, so Bernard does the shopping on his own.

Things become more complicated when they return to Palm Beach and Mrs. Van Buren discovers that Oliver is trying to swindle her and other members of the community. She comes up with a plan to put Oliver in his place.

The Misadventures of Oliver Booth by David Desmond satires high society. I think this sentence says a lot - "It's all about image and status and trying too hard to impress people who have so much money that they really can't be impressed." I found the book to be a good (not great), light read. It was enjoyable, even though it is predictable and somewhat silly at times. It was a good book to read during the holidays since there weren't many characters - it was easy to keep up with what was going on even though I was only able to read it in short spurts. David Desmond is Donald Trump's nephew and is currently working on another Oliver Booth book.

The Misadventures of Oliver Booth: Life in the Lap of Luxury

Not too many books have made me laugh out loud like this one did. This is a very funny book that reminds us to be careful what we wish for. It seems that Oliver has always wanted to live among the rich and famous. In this novel he gets that and much more, only not the way he was expecting.

Many funny twists...can't wait to see what happens next in the upcoming novel, a must read.

The Misadventures of Oliver Booth is a humorous look at a social-climbing man who thinks he deserves to have it all. Oliver Booth is quite repulsive (both physically and mentally) and he preys on the wealthy through his dismal antiques shop. He is definitely a caricature of a man, someone whose faults are grossly exaggerated in order to make the novel humorous. Of course, it is a successful technique, and the reader is left chuckling as Oliver makes one blunder after another. If he wasn't so odious, I might have felt sorry for him.

Despite the title, the story is more about Bernard, a waiter with an eye for antiques who ends up working in Oliver's shop. I really enjoyed reading about Bernard. I think if the novel had been solely about Oliver, the entire premise would have gotten old quickly. But Bernard adds a semblance of normalcy to the novel and is someone the reader can relate to. He keeps The Misadventures of Oliver Booth in balance between fiction and satire.

Desmond also should be commended for his writing style. His words are quick and sharp. His sense of humor is witty, without being too obvious. The novel is also a quick, light read. It ends before the mix of sarcasm and satire can get too grating; satires are only really funny if they know when to quit. This one definitely does, and is the better for it. It's a book you'll want to read in one sitting.

I would recommend The Misadventures of Oliver Booth to anyone who likes a good laugh. Though the novel is never absolutely hilarious, its wit and charm will keep readers enchanted. I'd definitely be interested in any subsequent books that Desmond releases.

Oliver Booth is a pompous and portly antique dealer who is constantly endeavoring to ingratiate himself with the cosmetically-preserved ultra-rich of Palm Beach, thinking it good for business. But Booth inevitably fails, sometimes comically, both in his bids for societal approval and in business because his manner is irritating and he's a fraud: his shop is filled with Mexican knock-offs, and few prospective customers fall for the deceit. In David Desmond's debut novel--the first in what will apparently be a series--Oliver hires a certain Bernard Dauphin as his newest assistant. Bernard, unlike his employer, is both competent and scrupulously honest, and his qualities are recognized and rewarded, much to Oliver's dismay, by Palm Beach's dowager socialite, Margaret Van Buren. Desmond's novel follows the mismatched pair as they travel to France on Mrs. Van Buren's behalf to purchase antiques to furnish her guest house.

Desmond's book is mildly amusing, but never laugh-out-loud funny. The humor lies in Oliver's continued failures and Bernard's nearly unwitting successes and in the absurdity of the situations in which they find themselves. It reminded me a bit of Alexander McCall Smith's Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld series, as both feature protagonists who are arrogant and unaware of how asocial their behavior is. But unlike von Igelfeld, Oliver, at least in this outing, lacks any mitigating charms or fragility that would render him sympathetic. Bernard is of course the more likable character, and one hopes that he will return in subsequent installments of the series to serve as counterpoint to the buffoonish Oliver.

-- Debra Hamel

To tell you the truth when I first picked up this book I was sure I was not going to like it. I found myself pleasantly surprised. "The Misadventures of Oliver Booth" presents a witty and sarcastic portrait of a desperate social climber.

Oliver Booth seems to be an amalgam of all the pesky, ambitious and abrasive social climbers and hangers on that Desmond surely has come into contact with. Oliver is obese, foul smelling, and petulant. He is not a character most people want to find themselves seated across from at dinner. He runs an antique shop filled with overpriced Mexican reproductions of Louis XIV. He hoodwinks a poor, sensible French waiter named Bernard into working at his antique shop. He demands first class treatment and throws a fit worthy of a petulant four year old girl in a toy shop. He is also one of the most engaging characters I have ever come across. I could not put this book down once I started reading. I was waiting to see what kind of situation Oliver got himself into next. He is not a character you will like. If you meet a person like Oliver, your faith in the general goodness of humanity will be greatly diminished.

Desmond's writing style is also one of this book. He is witty and sarcastic. His writing will draw you into this zany and wacky tale. You will get to the end of the book and not know how you got there. I highly recommend this book if you are looking for a good laugh.

This book is highly entertaining. Oliver Booth is basically a "wannabe", for lack of a better term. His opinion of himself does not match that of others and it's a constant source of entertainment for the reader. The book takes us through numerous misadventures...most of which take place in Paris as he and his assistant Bernard, attempt to select antiques for a wealthy Palm Beach resident.

At 202 pages, this was a very quick read. My only criticism really is that as obnoxious as Oliver was, I wanted to read more about him! At one point the story began to focus more on Bernard, his assistant and I was anxious for it to get back to Oliver, which of course it did. Desmond did an excellent job of creating a character that you can laugh at, yet not dislike so horribly that you cannot stand to read about him.

Overall it was light and fun and there were several moments that I found quite humorous.