Beautiful Little Fools

“’Nothing makes you happy except what you don’t have. You’ve never known how to do anything but to take and take and then ask for more. You have everything and act like it’s nothing.’” Truth.

43.12 Tigers in Red Weather

First of all, this is a beautiful book.  The cover art and the end pages are really exquisite and play in to the idea of the socialite existence of these two beautiful women in post WWII America.  They live a privileged life at Tiger House on Martha’s Vineyard, with the parties, tennis clubs, clothes and jewelry, and to have the book literally wrapped in such a classically beautiful way helped get me into the right headspace every time I opened the book.  It is one of those books that I just had to have in hardback, and even better that I found it used!

Second, while the buzz around this book is making it an “it” book of the summer, I had zero idea of its plot coming in which seems to always work to my advantage.  However, looking back, I am not sure plot is really the right word.  This is one of those stories that you progress through with baited breath but in the end nothing much really happens.  The plot spans about 25 years and each section is told from a different point of view of someone in the familywith the events overlapping so you see things in different ways and pick up little nuggets of understanding as you read, but in the end I am not sure what the point of it all was. Even though we get the point of view of each main character I didn’t feel like I really knew any of them very well, or cared deeply for their well being.  I still felt like I was kept at a distance about what was really going on.  However, the last section had me on absolute pins and I couldn’t put it down until I turned the last page.

Third, I have never read a book that made me want to drink so much!  All those hot days filled with cold martinis, white wine, and gin and tonics.  I even have a new jar of olives in the fridge, and a bottle of pinot grigio chilling. I defy anyone to read this without craving something to drink.  And this says something about the descriptions, where her characters may be lacking a bit of depth the setting was palpable.  It all felt so real and so desirable.  It felt like home to me even though I have never been there.  I wish Tiger House was real and I could go live there, something about it felt eternally safe.

All in all, and for a first book, this very well written, and I really enjoyed it for what it was.  It was fun and wonderfully descriptive, but I don’t think it will have a lasting impact on me as a great book.