Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | FICTION CLA | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Lucy Ellis moved to the Big Apple to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a fashion designer, but the native Midwesterner has just about had it with the city. A mousy, self-conscious girl trapped in a job at a designer sweatshop, Lucy has been mistreated, road-blocked, and otherwise insulted since her arrival. Overwhelmed by city life, Lucy is about to pack it all in and return home to Minnesota. Then she meets Wyatt. After being publicly dissed by the glamour girl he'd been dating, man-about-town (and bored Ph.D. anthropologist) Wyatt Hayes wants to prove he's still at the top of his game and boasts to his best friend that he can transform any girl -- even wallflower Lucy Ellis -- into this year's "It" girl. If he can fool the upper crust of New York society into thinking an impostor like Lucy is the real thing, he can rip the chiffon veil off the whole Park Avenue social scene.
Lucy's an unlikely candidate to become a red-carpet butterfly, but she considers it her last resort and jumps at the opportunity to "become somebody" in New York. Wyatt begins to rigorously train Lucy in the style, sounds, and sensibilities of socialites born with entire sets of silver spoons in their mouths. Three months of preparation culminate in Lucy's appearance at the ultra-exclusive Fashion Forum Gala, where Lucy and Wyatt finally confront New York's aristocracy -- and their feelingsfor each other.
Set against the glittering backdrop of contemporary Manhattan, The Overnight Socialite puts a 21st-century sheen on a timeless story of transformation and unlikely love.
Author Notes
Bridie Clark , a former book and magazine editor, graduated from Harvard University, where she was an editor of the Harvard Crimson . She has written for the New York Times , Vanity Fair , New York , Quest , and Elegant Bride . Clark's debut novel, Because She Can , about a beleaguered young book editor who works for a notoriously tyrannical female publisher, was published in nineteen countries around the world. Clark lives in Connecticut with her husband and daughter.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Clark (Because She Can) moves the Pygmalion myth to Manhattan, adds a dash of Thelma and Louise and proves what goes around, comes around to those born to the manor or trailer park. Professor Higgins is recast as suave bachelor Wyatt Hayes IV, "the sleekest lion in the pride," who picks down-on-her-luck fashion designer wannabe Lucy Jo Ellis to make over into the toast of the town. The deal is eventually struck-makeover and a shot at well-born fashion contacts for a gentleman's bet that masks a lucrative and career-saving book deal. Along the way, these perfectly matched antagonists battle mean-as-a-snake society snoots and their own misguided ambitions to find happiness and each other. (And, it should be said, the "Rain in Spain" remix is pretty great: "The snow in Gstaad puts Aspen's to shame!" the newly svelte and prepped Lucy proclaims.) Yes, of course the ending's no surprise, but the rollicking, smart-aleck fun along the way is worth the price of admission. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Contemporary retelling of Pygmalion set among the cutthroat Social Register crowd. Poor Wyatt Hayes: It's so boring when you have it all! The Manhattan blueblood has led a life of aimless leisure since obtaining his Harvard doctorate in anthropology more than ten years ago. His insufferable girlfriend Cornelia Rockman is a pedigreed socialite with the opportunistic instincts of a vulture. When she "trades up" to have her photo taken at a party with the 20-ish son of a private-equity billionaire, 37-year-old Wyatt senses "a terrifying shift in the natural order." He dumps Cornelia on the spot and drunkenly vows to his friend Trip that he could take any girl off the street and turn her into a socialite. Enter Lucy Jo Ellis, just fired from her job in the garment district and now dodging the rain under an awning next to Wyatt. A deal is struck, and Midwestern Lucy Jo is transformed via diet, exercise with a personal trainer, facials, new hairstyle and designer clothes, as well as extensive lessons in elocution, vacation geography, the social register, the art of inoffensive cocktail banter and a CliffNotes version of culture. Wyatt has given her a fake identity (same name, different life) with the promise that after his experiment Lucy will have made enough important contacts to start her own design house. Meanwhile, Cornelia vows revenge on the usurper who has replaced her in Wyatt's heart and on the social circuit; Trip and his longtime girlfriend Eloise have commitment issues; and Cornelia's BFF Fernanda may decide to marry for lovecan you imagine? Clark (Because She Can, 2007) has a keen eye, but the vacuous life of the super-rich is an easy target. That leaves the novel riding on the budding romance between Lucy and not-entirely-likable Wyatt. Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins they ain't. Begins with a fresh, funny eye, but runs out of steam halfway to its foregone conclusion. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Lucy Jo Ellis, from a small town in Minnesota, moved to New York with the dream of becoming a famous designer, but so far, working in a dress shop cutting out patterns, she hasn't gotten very far. Wyatt Hayes is a Harvard-educated anthropologist from money, very old money, who just dumped his socialite girlfriend. Suddenly inspired while waiting for a taxi, he bets his friend that he can turn a girl, any girl, into a bona fide New York socialite, no matter how corn-fed she is. Lucy needs a job, so she agrees to the experiment. In a whirlwind of personal trainers, designer gowns, spa retreats, and elocution lessons, Lucy is transformed, and now she must decide which of the Lucys is really her, and if Wyatt is simply a scientist or if there is more to his story. Clark offers a charming twenty-first-century update of Pygmalion and My Fair Lady.--Hatton, Hilary Copyright 2009 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Wyatt Hayes IV is independently wealthy, has a Harvard Ph.D., and enjoys a life of leisure and luxury in Manhattan. We meet him at an elite social event where he breaks up with his beautiful, shallow girlfriend. Lucy Jo Ellis is a mousy Midwestern transplant whose dreams of becoming a fashion designer collide with a reality of bad jobs and no lucky breaks. On the same night as Wyatt's humiliating breakup, Lucy attends a fashion event, thinking that she's been invited to network but learning upon arrival that she is expected to serve hors d'oeuvres. Spotting a drenched and sneezing Lucy on the street later that evening, Wyatt bets his best friend that he can transform any woman into society's "It" girl and joins forces with an initially reluctant Lucy to upstage the New York elite. Verdict Clark's debut Because She Can did for publishing what The Devil Wears Prada did for fashion. She scores again with this retelling of the Pygmalion story, which features crisp, funny prose and endearing characters. A fun read for fans of well-written chick lit.-Beth Lindsay, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
