Glamorous Disasters

I loved this book! It is hilarious and impossible to put down! It is about a likable recent Princeton grad who tutors rich kids in Manhattan in order to earn enough money to repay his student loans. As he plunges into the unfamiliar world of the privileged, the main character encounters people and situations that will make you laugh out loud! The story flows nicely and is immensely entertaining.

Eliot's Schrefer's first book is a delightful debut and we hope a hint of more to come. Schrefer's characters are a step above real life, making them more interesting and sharpening the novel's focus on the modern moral dilemma of class conflict and the search for self-discovery. A great and thought provoking read.

Eliot Schrefer's debut novel does not read like a debut novel. His writing has a maturity that one doesn't often see in a first novel. His wonderful use of language and detail, his keen character development and themes, and his realistic insider view of a world most of us don't belong to testify to his rising star as a new talent that I am glad to have read and that I hope to read again. Mr. Schrefer takes the time to build believeable characters and bring the reader into Noah's world and the people he knows and works with, thus strengthing a reader's investment with the characters and their choices. Don't be suprised if you find yourself wanting to talk to Noah and rage at Dr. Thayer. The characters are that believeable. I liked Noah. Mr. Schrefer made me feel and understand his struggles as he navagiated a world of weak and insecure people to come of age and learn to know himself. This book was a excellent read. I highly recommend it.

Schrefer's literary debut is a watershed among the fluffy "chick lit" books that have come to dominate the current book market. I hesitate to call this "chick lit" for three main reasons: 1) It was written by a male author; 2) contrary to chick lit books, it contains actual good writing; 3) and contrary to chick lit books, it is not fluff but rather a mordant look at the morally ambiguous Upper East Side, where successful parents who are exasperated with their academically lackluster kids, will do anything to get them into a good college. As we all know, chick lit could not care less about social critique and Faustian bargains; rather, chick lit concentrates on the purchase of Manolos, who steals a best friend's boyfriend, and the ridiculous catfights that ensue in the Hamptons over spilt martinis. Schrefer dismisses all of this tired and recycled material and breaches new ground: he concentrates on the strained and even competitive relationships between parents and their children; exposes how SAT tutors are, in a way, mercenaries for the rich to get their kids into the best colleges, while outlining the tacit social rules that divide the rich and the poor in New York. I like the fact that Schrefer concentrates on the competitive nature of mother-daughter relationships. This is a topic that is all too common in real life but hardly touched upon by writers, except of course by Christina Crawford in Mommie Dearest. When parents, especially mothers of adolescent girls, read the following passage, they will be forced to examine how they really feel about their daughters' youth and vitality. ** "They are not speaking as a mother and daughter-they are rivals. And he realizes that, despite Dr. Thayer's nominal attempts at parental authority, they have always been rivals. Dr. Thayer's preoccupation with Dylan and dismissal of Tuscany make sense: Dylan, the son, can succeed in areas that don't threaten Dr. Thayer. But Tuscany...where she derives the most attention-her looks, youth, spirited nature-are the very areas in which Dr. Thayer is fading to gray. Dr. Thayer can't stand to see her daughter come to the landing poised and lovely, when she is haggard and lost. She sees in Tuscany the animus that has already faded from her, the very vitality she most wants to recover, her own ghost." Now, if you've read the book, you know that Dr. Thayer and her daughter Tuscany are indeed bitter rivals. Dr. Thayer competes in every possible way with her daughter but always fails-it really doesn't matter how many times she highlights her blond hair even blonder, she will always come up short because of her age and her bitterness; whereas Tuscany will always win, regardless, because of her age and her blossoming womanhood accompanied by a mischievous nature. Schrefer also limns the social divide between his Harlem residence and his Upper East Side clients. At one point, Noah wonders if the parents of the children he teaches know that the preppily-attired Princeto