Rumaan Alam

A Novel

Rich and Pretty

Lindsey B

I kept waiting for something to happen & then I was 90% done with the book and nothing had happened. I think the book accurately captures what it's like when two friends long time friends have different lives yet continue to keep the friendship alive & related to that. I just wish that something happened.

Skye Sherman

This is one of those books that you read not for the plot, because there is none, but for the artfully written text, which is pretty readable (but ambling more than anything). Basically, it’s about two women who have been friends since age 11 who are now adults living separate lives and trying to navigate their diverging yet still closeknit paths. But nothing very stimulating happens throughout the entire book so I just felt like I kept waiting for the “main event” and it never came. They moreso spend the book reminiscing on their relatively unremarkable adolescence and friendship. Ultimately, I didn’t really care about either of their goings-on, in the past or present, but I did appreciate the writing style.

Nadine 

Didn’t finish. So insanely boring that it was too annoying to even use to put me to sleep in the background.

Sarah Vaughan

This is the only book lacking a climax and juicy plot that I've actually enjoyed. I've seen many reviews by readers frustrated with the lack of action, and it's true, there's not a whole lot of substance there. This book was significant for me in that it explores the essence of human nature: how we come to understand what a person is thinking without them having to say it, how we know inherently when something is wrong, how we pick up on physical and verbal cues from the ones we are closest to that strangers would never notice. The author has done a great job of creating two totally believable characters with real desires, real faults, real selfishness, and real life problems. I am a huge believer in the idea of a book coming to you at the right time in your life. I personally lost several personal friends that I've known for years in the last couple of months. Some of them drifted away, others became different people with different priorities and different expectations of who their friends should be, some were just plain jerks I had been allowing to take advantage of me for years. Reading this book opened my eyes to something big: we are each of us our own person, unique and special. People can complement our lives, or they can complicate them. The same is true for ourselves. The trick is learning to evolve and accept change while understanding your needs and your personality. While I don't typically pick up works of contemporary fiction, I am glad I chose this book for my July 2016 Book of the Month club pick. It was insightful and interesting not only in its story but also in what it taught me about myself.

Lauren Attaway

This book does an excellent job of showing how complicated and mean females can be to each other, in particular in longer friendships

Elena Garcia Navarro

What I really loved about this book was how the relationships between the characters were portrayed. We got as main characters two woman who were best friends when kids and teens but have grown up to be two very different women; one is all about marriage and having kids, the other is focused on her career and not trying desperately to find the man of her life. And still they find a way to make their friendship work, cause that's what you do with best friends, you just find the way. There are these melancholic moments in the book that make you reflect on your own past friendships and how things change through time. The book feels vey accurate to reality and the author is not scared to write about real life stuff (sex, blowjobs, waxed ashholes) in a spontanous and natural way, 'cause, hey, that's what life it's like, girls also swear and joke and talk dirty with their friends. The book also tackles other topics such as family dinamics, expectations and fears. All in all, I really enjoyed it.

Dorian Avers

** spoiler alert **
           This book's focus is on the characters and their present, but not much else. There's no plot, it's just a series of chronological, mostly mundane events. No big challenges arise, at the end there is a sadness though, brought about by a loss. There is little, if any character development (besides physically), every time the girls see each other they always say they're doing the same. There are little quarrels between the two best friends that are resolved, internally, within the same page. I originally picked up this book after reading the description on the sleeve because it reminded me of my best friend and I's relationship. I am not disappointed, per se, but just left wanting a bit more depth. Another interesting thing is that I fully expected this book to be written by a woman, but it was not. The comfortable way Alam describes women and their thoughts is completely accurate and I did not realize the author was male until about half way through when i unintentionally saw the back sleeve. I was amazed by his accuracy when describing emotions and their friendship. There were also words used that seemed very out of place. It honestly seemed like Alam wrote the book and then decided that he had used the same words too many times or he needed a higher difficulty, pulled out a thesaurus and then threw in some bigger, less well-known and understood words. I can tell you that his favorite word is proprietary or proprietor, really any form of that word, he loves it.

Overall, this book is good if you're looking for a quick read that doesn't require critical thinking. It doesn't have a thought-provoking plot, but somehow manages not to be boring. It's like a mediocre reality TV show, two best friends, catching up and reminiscing every now and again, with different priorities. At different stages of their lives: one in a long-term relationship, soon married and having babies, the other focused on her career and casually dating. Each not truly understanding the individual parts of the other, but being able to comprehend the whole. Not something I'd recommend to a friend or reread, but I'm not upset I read it.

b.andherbooks

A character study of two 30-something best friends in NYC who struggle internally with their friendship. With essentially no plot and a writing style that is fairly free-form and stream of conscious, I enjoyed it enough to finish but think those looking for the next "it book" as pushed by the advertising will be disappointed.

Also, while I found some of the insights the author brought forward on female friendship intriguing and truthful, it is annoyingly written by a man which I couldn't seem to forget while I read.

Rich and Pretty A Novel

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