Bibliography: Godbersen, Anna. (2010). Bright Young Things. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN: 978-0061962660

Plot Summary:  Cordelia and Letty escape Union, Ohio after Cordelia’s forced wedding to the streets of New York City.  Letty longs to see her name in lights and Cordelia is searching for the father she has never known.  After a falling out, they part ways.  Letty soon discovers there are hundreds of other girls searching for their big break.  Cordelia is welcomed by her father with open arms and a wild party.  Astrid, her brother’s chic girlfriend, takes Cordy under her wing but doesn’t stop her from falling for the son of a rival family.   When misfortune and tragedy strike, will returning to Ohio be their only option?

Critical Analysis:  As with the Luxe series, Godbersen has selected another opulent time in America’s history to place her characters and set their stories in motion.  I enjoyed Luxe because the time period was little explored in young adult literature, and between the soap opera plots there was room for exploration of class differences.  Here we get instead the complexities of what first appear to be bright shiny happy times in America’s past.  Wild parties are shadowed by shady crime activities and rival crime families.  Pretty girls are running from forced marriages or to the security a marriage provides.  Speakeasies are places where women are exploited rather than discovered, and for every story of a girl who makes it big, there are many more struggling to make ends meet or worse.

As with Luxe, the characters are mostly types.  Letty is innocent and naive, Astrid is worldly and above it all, Cordelia just wants a place to belong.  Of all three, I find Astrid the most interesting because I think she is the most self aware, especially by the end of the book.  I look forward to more books in this series, if only to get the description of all the wonderful clothes and parties!

Readalikes:  An obvious readalike is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.  I would like to highlight a lesser known work:  They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? by Horace McCoy, a story about Hollywood set at a dance marathon during the Great Depression.

Review Excerpt: “Godbersen (the Luxe series) proves that some things–namely the allure of cities, fame, and a good time–never change, melding drama and a lush historical setting….Godbersen excels at dialogue–especially Cordelia, Letty, and Astrid’s coyly flirtatious responses to suitors–and in capturing the mixture of exhilaration, innocence, and guts that propels them into their new lives.”–Publisher’s Weekly

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