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The best of everything

By Rona Jaffe

(13)

| Mass Market Paperback | No ISBN

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Book Description

Here are the bright ones, the pretty ones the ones who come streaming out of the glamorous offices of midtowen New York. They look crisp and stylish in their budget cottons.

Critics

The Best of Everything

In the old apartment houses of New York where tenants are not allowed air conditioning or cannot afford it, summer nights are a time to go to yet another air-conditioned movie, to linger for hours in a cold restaurant, or to sit on a balcony or a fir ... (read full critics)

bookgroup published on Thu, 9 Jun 2011

The Best of Everything, By Rona Jaffe

Each generation of young women gets the fiction it deserves, or perhaps more accurately, needs. The early Sixties had Mary McCarthy's The Group, the Seventies Marilyn French's The Women's Room, and the Nineties Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City. Fo ... (read full critics)

independent published on Sun, 22 May 2011

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5 Reviews

It took me a while to read this because the details of the various charcters' lives, while interesting individually, became too much as a group. What I appreciated most was the journalistic type commentary on what it was like to be a working woman in a big city at a time when it was becoming possibl ... (continue)

It took me a while to read this because the details of the various charcters' lives, while interesting individually, became too much as a group. What I appreciated most was the journalistic type commentary on what it was like to be a working woman in a big city at a time when it was becoming possible, if still difficult, for a young woman to design the way she might live her life. A brave book for its time, I think.

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Top of the pile said on Feb 22, 2012 | Add your feedback

New York - early 1950s

Loved it! It is all centred on these 4 girls and their working and crazy social life in a bubbling Manatthan. It is a book about love, but also independency and friendship. Loved the writing style which keeps you glued to the page!

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Mati said on Sep 29, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Sex in the City meets Mad Men

As with many good books, The Best of Everything gathers pace in the second half culminating in a surprising ending. Told through the eyes of a group of young girls in the 1950s, new to New York City and publisher, Fabian Books, Rona Jaffe provides a sensitive and at times uncomfortable commentary o ... (continue)

As with many good books, The Best of Everything gathers pace in the second half culminating in a surprising ending. Told through the eyes of a group of young girls in the 1950s, new to New York City and publisher, Fabian Books, Rona Jaffe provides a sensitive and at times uncomfortable commentary on relationships. As a man, i should say that it does not always reflect well on the male protagonists, but is nonetheless an engrossing read.

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Matthew Hardcastle said on Sep 28, 2011 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe

http://www.theomnivore.co.uk/Book/7094-The_Best_of_Ever…

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The Omnivore said on Jun 22, 2011 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

Really enjoyed it...

....but it took me a long time to get through it for some reason. By the end I couldn't wait to finish and start a new book. Nice that it was set in 1958 but read like it was written in the Naughties. Without giving too much away, I constantly felt a bit sorry for the girls that the story followed, ... (continue)

....but it took me a long time to get through it for some reason. By the end I couldn't wait to finish and start a new book. Nice that it was set in 1958 but read like it was written in the Naughties. Without giving too much away, I constantly felt a bit sorry for the girls that the story followed, the power heels on the front cover are quite reflective of the outward perception they give of themselves but the author very cleverly exposes their incredible sensitivities and insecurities with men. The whole book gave me flashbacks to conversations I had with girls at University who had come straight from all-girls schools!

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Danielle said on Jun 3, 2011 about the Others edition | Add your feedback