By Candice Bushnell
September 2008
Voice Publishing
ISBN-10: 1401301614
ISBN-13: 978-1401301613
Since the release of “Lipstick Jungle” we haven’t heard a proverbial peep out of Ms. Bushnell, at least not until now. Candace recently released “One Fifth Avenue” a story about a snazzy address and social climbers trying to keep their hard earned spot or dethrone another. At the beginning of the book there has been a terrible accident, one of One Fifth’s oldest and longest renters. Louise Houghton, has died from pneumonia. Ms. Houghton owned the biggest of all the apartments which had three floors of classy goodness including a ballroom, a study and a wood burning fireplace.
This sudden vacancy has the entire building buzzing. Some wanting to split up the three floors into three separate apartments, while others would like to interrogate possible renters as if it was the Spanish Inquisition. The head of the buildings housing association Mindy Gooch is the tenant wishing to lead that charge. Her endless rants and raves about the most trivial things are so tedious you wonder how her husband James deals with it all. She has even gone as far as to author a blog where she not so anonymously rants about all of the things bugging her. She is actually the one who ultimately decides who is going to live there, though later I believe it is a decision which she regrets many times over.
Paul and Analisa Rice are new money who has heard about the building through their friend Billy Litchfield. Billy knows the building because he is connected to many well off New York elite. Being that he himself is very poor it is not hard to understand why he surrounds himself with the very rich hoping that one day their good fortune rubs off on him. Analisa is the character who I can say I identified the most with because her personality is a lot like mine. She is fun, bubbly and easy to get along with; her husband however is horrible and thinks that all the money he makes in hedge funds gives him license to be a huge jerk.
This is a just a few of the varied cast of characters of one fifth. The book is told in Candace’s “insider on the outside” prospective and goes along at a pretty good pace that if you were to concentrate you could finish rather quickly. The only thing I wish is that there was at least one not all together evil character other then Analisa. Everyone in this book it seems has something to beg, borrow or steal off another. Each person looks out for themselves and does not care who they hurt in the process of getting what they feel is due to them. So, read at your own risk!
4 out of 5
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