Town & Country Magazine’s Must-Read Books of Summer 2019 | She Reads’ Best Books for Your Summer Roadtrip“Carnegie Hill has got to be one of the most charming, hilarious, and insightful books I’ve read in ages. When it comes to New York’s (often befuddled) elite, Vatner has an eagle eye for detail, and an ear for whip-smart dialogue. This is an assured, heartfelt debut.” –Grant Ginder, author … assured, heartfelt debut.” –Grant Ginder, author of The People We Hate at the Wedding and Honestly, We Meant Well
Deception is just another day in the lives of the Upper East Side’s elite.
At age thirty-three, Penelope “Pepper” Bradford has no career, no passion and no children. Her intrusive parents still treat her like a child. Moving into the Chelmsford Arms with her fiancé Rick, an up-and-coming financier, and joining the co-op board give her some control over her life—until her parents take a gut dislike to Rick and urge Pepper to call off the wedding. When, the week before the wedding, she glimpses a trail of desperate text messages from Rick’s obsessed female client, Pepper realizes that her parents might be right.
She looks to her older neighbors in the building to help decide whether to stay with Rick, not realizing that their marriages are in crisis, too. Birdie and George’s bond frays after George is forced into retirement at sixty-two. And Francis alienates Carol, his wife of fifty years, and everyone else he knows, after being diagnosed with an inoperable heart condition. To her surprise, Pepper’s best model for love may be a clandestine gay romance between Caleb and Sergei, a black porter and a Russian doorman.
Jonathan Vatner’s Carnegie Hill is a belated-coming-of-age novel about sustaining a marriage—and knowing when to walk away. It chronicles the lives of wealthy New Yorkers and the staff who serve them, as they suffer together and rebound, struggle to free themselves from family entanglements, deceive each other out of love and weakness, and fumble their way to honesty.
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This book about people living in an upscale building in NYC is a debut for this author. It’s full of interesting but quirky people, some of whom were very difficult to like. There is a bit of humor and a lot of angst as the main character tries to grow up at 33 years of age.
Two main things that make up the theme of this book:
-Just because someone is rich, doesn’t make them nice, kind, honest or happy.
-It’s never too late to grow up but to do so, you need to cut the ties that bind you to your parents.
-You should follow your gut feelings about important things in life like getting married. If you don’t think it’s the right thing to do, cancel the wedding even though all of the plans are made.
It is very difficult to love a book when you dislike most of the characters. I found Pepper to be spoiled and out of touch with reality. Her finance Rick was only worried about himself – his needs for sex and more money. Her parents were rich snobs as were most of the people in the co-op. The only couple that I really liked were Sergei and Caleb, a porter and a doorman who were in a relationship. I would have enjoyed reading more about their story and less about the vapid rich people in the apartment.
Overall, I thought that this was an interesting look at how the rich live in NYC. I am looking forward to future books by this author – I think that he has a lot of promise as a writer.
Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.
I lost interest halfway through. Characters not developed but intriguing premise.
Love the book!
Excellent. Captures perfectly the vibe of an Upper East Side luxury building. Very insightful with well drawn characters.
Good for some light reading
Not what I was expecting which was an amusing read of the foibles of the 1%. Lots of reflections on mortality and aging and the often unsatisfying nature of relationships. There are some lighter moments to be sure, but not a ‘feel good’ read.
This book is so well written. I loved how Vatner used multiple point of views to tell this story. I found myself liking even the most unlikable characters. Pepper is also one of the most relatable character I’ve come across in awhile. She has flaws and gets depressed and shows how money truly isn’t everything. This book tackles aging, depression, racism, and elitism in a way that includes everyone. I started this book thinking I would probably enjoy it, but it was so much more than I would have imagined!
I struggled to get through this book. It took me weeks of start, stop, repeat. In my opinion, there was not a liable character that I wanted to root for, connect with or care about. These are not nice people and in my opinion have no redeeming qualities. They are bigots, racists, back stabbers, have serious narcissistic characteristics and are bullies and like nothing better than belittling each other to make themselves feel better. The main character Pepper is a child and a people pleaser most often to her own detriment. Her parents have always belittled her and she has happily gone along afraid of making waves. She is engaged to a class A jerk. He is only interested in what she can do for him, his career and what makes him look good and actually seems to care little about her as a person. The regard he has for others who do awful things is disgusting. He does not deserve Pepper a woman who so desperately wants to please him, though clearly he will be able to do and get away with anything as she will always blame herself for his bad behavior. He will blame her too and take no responsibility. Sadly, she will never be happy until she recognizes that she is good enough. That was sad and reading about her constantly trying to make everyone else happy and like her became redundant and annoying. Other residents are much the same, only in different stages of life. These couples may talk, but they do so at each other rather than to each other. It was overall a sad, boring and depressing read. Then came the epilogue which very quickly and succinctly wrapped everything up in a nice bow. Really?
I do like the writing style of toggling back and forth from different peoples perspective and experiences.
I am glad I pushed through it because I committed to doing so, but wouldn’t mind getting all the time I spent forcing myself to finish back. This just was not for me, but maybe because I know people like this like or respect them all that much either.
I received an advanced readers copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Carnegie Hill by Jonathan Vatner a three-star read that shows promise. I was expecting so much more from this one, it has the makings of a very good story, but missed the mark in my eyes. That being said I do advise people to give this a go if they think its their type of thing, as reading is selective and just because I didn’t enjoy it doesn’t mean it isn’t good.