Everybody Rise by Stephanie Clifford

Genre: Nonfiction 

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Pages: 371

Rating: ★★★★



Synopsis

It's 2006 in the Manhattan of the young and glamorous. Money and class are colliding in a city that is about to go over a financial precipice and take much of the country with it. At 26, bright, funny and socially anxious Evelyn Beegan is determined to carve her own path in life and free herself from the influence of her social-climbing mother, who propelled her through prep school and onto the Upper East Side. Evelyn has long felt like an outsider to her privileged peers, but when she gets a job at a social network aimed at the elite, she's forced to embrace them.

Recruiting new members for the site, Evelyn steps into a promised land of Adirondack camps, Newport cottages and Southampton clubs thick with socialites and Wall Streeters. Despite herself, Evelyn finds the lure of belonging intoxicating, and starts trying to pass as old money herself. When her father, a crusading class-action lawyer, is indicted for bribery, Evelyn must contend with her own family's downfall as she keeps up appearances in her new life, grasping with increasing desperation as the ground underneath her begins to give way.

Bracing, hilarious and often poignant, Stephanie Clifford's debut offers a thoroughly modern take on classic American themes - money, ambition, family, friendship - and on the universal longing to fit in. 

My Thoughts

If you've been following me on my instagram, then you'll know I have been reading Everybody Rise this last week. It is the debut novel from the award-winning New York Times reporter Stephanie Clifford. I was initially so excited to read this book when I saw College Prepster read it earlier this summer. Pretty much anything Carly reads I like and when I read the synopsis I knew that this was something I was going to be down for. 

Everybody Rise is set in 2006 just before the stock market crash in 2007. The novel takes a close look at a group of friends in America's upper class as they run around NYC and vacation in The Hamptons -- basically the dream. I mean the first scene takes place at a prep school lacrosse tailgate which was dripping in crystal stemware...like The Grove, but better.  It was like I was stepping into the instagram of KJP or Town & Country and I never wanted to leave. 

The book begins by introducing us to all the characters including Evelyn's social-climbing and ever critical mother, which gives us a quick and obvious glimpse at the pressures Evelyn has had to deal with growing up. Even coming from a well-to-do family in Maryland, Evelyn's family wealth isn't nearly that of the friends in her social circle. For growing up under the criticism of her mother, Evelyn seems to be pretty self-sufficient. She has a job working as a recruiter at the new social media start-up People Like Us. Evelyn must make the most of her prep school connections to bring New York's elite into the site. Evelyn's first target is Camilla Rutherford and by forging this friendship Evelyn finds herself at the tip top of New York society. 

From here, Everybody Rise takes readers through dinner parties at social clubs and boat races in the Adirondacks. Contrast these lavish lifestyle parties with Evelyn's crumbling family life in Maryland where her father faces indictment. As the book continues, you see Evelyn start living two lives and watch as she climbs the social ladder and leaves everything else behind her. She quickly becomes someone you love to someone you hate to someone you love again. 

I'm so excited that the producer of The Devil Wears Prada picked it up and will be turning it into a movie. I am also seriously hoping for a sequel. Clifford leaves the ending fairly open and it would be interesting to see how her friends in finance find themselves after the crash. 

My Favorite Line 

I always think the opening moments of a party are the hardest, before everyone has had enough to drink