POSH: A Novel

Lots of spelling mistakes. (Kindle copy) No real plot or story line. Disappointing.

I was quite drawn to this for several reasons, the most intriguing of which was that the author, a respected and lauded literary novelist (who has published in the New Yorker), had decided to bring this out under a pseudonym. Also, the cover art was quite fetching. I started reading in the bookstore, was hooked immediately and decided to buy it for a Valentine's gift -- which I still plan on giving -- but couldn't help finishing the book before I wrapped it. Only an enormously talented literary writer could tred so delicately between wit, humor, irony and poignancy. This book is obviously meant to be a satire, but there are so many moments in which the reader is gripped and moved. The world of the Upper Eastside private school is somewhat familiar to me; however, I believe Jackson gives it a fresh spin. Beyond this, beneath this satire is a cautionary tale that is very current insofar as it can be related to all the newspaper stories that we've read recently about how some parents will do anything to get their children into the right college. All of this is juxtaposed with hilarious set pieces about life at private school. And Jackson has a great feel for the one-liner. She gets off plenty of zingers. I love how at the center of the novel a frustrated novelist forced to work as a cab driver is, along with her daughter, trying to negotiate a private school world populated by people who are so much richer than she is. You feel for her as you do her daughter. Invariably this book will be compared to Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep. They are two very different books. While Sittenfeld's book is fresh and full of first novel brio, it is very much a first novel, soft in places, not fuly formed, jejeune. However, it's clear when you're reading Jackson that this woman is an accomplished pro. She has complete and effortless command of her narrative and her characters. Her dialogue crackles with wit. I gobbled up this book. Now I can't help wondering who Jackson might be.

I liked this book, despite its many typos and other proofreading errors. Before reading the first word, I expected snarky satire of the New York elite, but when I finished Posh, I wondered if I had misjudged the story. Yes, Posh does mock the super rich - high school (oops - private school) girls flaunting their Jimmy Choos and jeans bought at Barney's, mothers toting $9000 purses in their minks while their offspring are falling apart makes for some delicious black humor and irony. As a student at a posh <gasp> public high school, I would have thought Jimmy Choo was the name of dog food because I was styling in my Bass Weejuns, Pendleton skirts and Villager blouses. Julianne and her mother, Dee, are my favorite characters. Dee, a writer who garnered critical acclaim despite selling almost no books, now drives a cab, and along with freelance editing jobs and child support, manages to send Julianne to the prestigious Griffin School. Julianne's best friend, Morgan, is drowning in money, but loses her mother to cancer and has an absentee father. This begs the question: which girl has more? Julianne is joined at the hip with her boyfriend, Michael, who despite his wealth and lack of parental guidance, has a serious mental illness. She puts most wives to shame by faithfully adhering to the "in sickness and in health" vow. Rather than leaving Michael, she stands firmly at his side, ignoring the pleas from her mother and friends. And what prep school book would be complete without the shenanigans of the headmistress? Kathryn, a.k.a. Lazy, is a stereotype, par excellence. As I expected, she is a graduate of the University of Hypocrisy. If not for the countless number of proofreading errors, I would say that the story flows smoothly. I recommend Posh to those fascinated by life in Manhattan's fast lane.

The book was fine, but the editing was egregious. There is no excuse for a book to go to market with that many errors--very distracting!

Though it's not the worst book I've ever read, it is certainly the worst I've read in several years. I could hardly make myself finish it, but soldiered on in hopes that it would get better. The writing style is stale and unoriginal, and the characters are pathetic. By the middle of the book, I realized that I didn't care what happened to any of them. The characters all seem like pitiful stereotypes with no redeeming and/or original qualities, while the description of the private school is laughable. The most ridiculous character of all is the student who is an Arab prince and robs fellow students at gunpoint for no apparent reason! Save your time and money and give this book a miss!

Currently reading the book and having trouble getting into it. Mostly, I am shocked by the number of typos! They are very distracting!

The mysterious and unknowable Lucy Jackson penetrates the gilded precincts of New York's educational and domestic inner sanctums, where, it turns out, devils and angels both wear Prada. She exposes the dark underside of the glitz and simultaneously infuses the comedies and tragedies of this world with spice, acuity, wit, depth, authenticity and--rare perhaps for a novel featuring teens in jeans--heart. Snorting and fornicating, designer fashion and money talk ornament the scene, and all of this undergoes scrutiny, for better and for worse, by Jackson's discerning, perceptive and all-seeing eye and practiced pen. The moneyed and the celebrated line the corridors and shove their kids, smart and not so smart, deserving and less so, wallet first, into the Ivy League. Maternal-filial connections of all descriptions, loving and less so, are put under the microscope. Jackson captures with precision the intonations and peculiar music of the lingo of privileged, blasé kids at the Griffin School. She takes a good long and clear look at what's going on in class and outside of it, and rewards the reader with serious observations and a somewhat tongue-in-cheek eye for the human comedy. But she never loses sight of humane values--note the mom-cabbie-writer who exerts strong gravitational pull at the book's core--and of the things that matter. Love in its various guises survives, even when it is subjected to the rigors and assaults of an uncaring and sometimes harsh material world. A posh piece of prose.

I just wanted to say that the number of typos in this kindle book is terrible. One of the characters is named Lazy, and the huge letter at the beginning of a chapter about her is Eazy. How can you miss that? Guy became gay, bear became hear, and so on. This is a quite a good book, but how on earth could someone be so careless?