Nineties: A Story with No Moral

by Lucy Ives

Lucy Ives’s novella nineties is a portrait of teenage friends navigating Manhattan’s privileged class in an era of excess. Against the backdrop of a New York City private school during the 1990s, three girls steal a credit card for a gratuitous one-day shopping spree. As they traverse a world shaped by luxury and face temptations that—for better or worse—instruct their movement toward adulthood, the girls experience the tension of burgeoning sexuality and the thrill of testing moral boundaries. nineties is the strange and subtle story of selfishness, materialism, and confusion during the unique and fleeting moment when girls near the end of girlhood. Revised This edition of A Story with No Moral includes editorial revisions.

Genres: Fiction, Womens Fiction

200 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2013

About the author

Lucy Ives is the author of several books of poetry and short prose, including The Hermit and the novella nineties. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Lapham’s Quarterly, and at newyorker.com. For five years she was an editor with the online magazine Triple Canopy. A graduate of Harvard and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from New York University. She teaches at the Pratt Institute and is currently editing a collection of writings by the artist Madeline Gins.

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate giving 1 star ratings, but I don't have a single good thing to say about this book. The way it's put together is weird. At first I thought maybe there was a formatting issue. Nope, as I got further in the book I realized that it was purposely written to look similar to a diary, but there aren't any dates or headers between entries. It's a couple paragraphs then a RANDOM number of spaces between each entry. The writing style is very simplistic and reminded me of: See Jane run. Jane runs fast.

The only reason i would ever recommend this book to anyone would be to piss them off. I hate that the cover of this book is going to instantly catch the eye of teenage girls. My daughter, 11, and little sister, 13, were so disappointed that their 'love at fist sight book' was, in their words, LIKE SO SUCKY! I really like how it has gotten easier for writers to be published, but it also makes crap like this easier to get published too.

[Kate Cao · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won this book through good reads and I can't wait to start reading!

[Zoe]

i liked this, fast read, little to no interiority (except maybe in the letter at the end....that was an interesting touch, a textual artifact from the narrator with a completely different & falsified voice...threw a lot into question). really great details and tight language - thinking of the "cut grape eyes" of the horses. i don't know anything about the narrator or her desires. i really liked the exploration of guilt/shame thru the whole credit card shenanigan, and especially the fessing up. felt very potent for richness outside of just that one incident but i do wish we had been able to understand more about where this came from in the narrator. i didn't like the listing chapter (which i think is on this cover)

[Beverly Garside · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's not often I don't finish a book and this one of them. I like to find meaning and understanding in fiction, to meet people and experience subcultures I would otherwise never encounter and learn what the world looks like from their shoes. So "nineties" held a lot of promise: privileged teenage girls in Manhattan. What is their world like? Why do their parents let them run wild, drinking, smoking, doing dope and getting into cars with strange, older men? And why do they do it? This promised to be fascinating.
Unfortunately, Ives chose to tell the story from the point of view of the young protagonist as if she were a goldfish with a 3-second attention span. No insight, no reflection, no explanation - just a drive-by of images, feelings and events at the speed of light. I realize this is a deliberate style. Many reviewers call it "raw." I call it "boring." About half way through the author just starts listing, one by one, 15,000 nouns that were in the public consciousness in the 1990s. Maybe if you have a print version of the book you can skip this, but I was listening to it on audio, where skipping is a more iffy proposition. So I yanked it out of the player.
This is a style of fiction that you either love or hate, and I am firmly in the latter camp.

[Lyndsey · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was super short but there was just absolutely no point at all. Thank god I got this book through kindle unlimited. It was very confusing and was not worth my time.

[Susie Benitez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Short and sweet, very stream of consciousness, very diary entry. It definitely felt both authentic and silly at times, which I loved. I appreciated how quick it was, it helped me get back into reading once again!

[Sweetie · Rating 5 out of 5]

still reading but love it so far.

[Stampie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won a copy of this book from Goodreads. All opinions are my own.

This was a very unusual book. Some pages only had a few lines, some were blank, some were full like a regular book.

It was like reading the random thoughts of a spoiled 13 year old brat and finding out about the horrible things she does to get herself kicked out of her private Manhattan school.

As a 90s kid, I could relate to some of the things she mentions, which was neat. But, I'd rather watch Hindsight over and over than to reread this book.

It was short and a fast read. I'd recommend borrowing it to read on a plane or car trip.

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is one of those that weren't the interesting of stories I have read from books I have won on goodreads. the style [of abstract/experimental, I cannot find that word to describe on the tip of my tongue] does makes it interesting when the story begins to get boring it quickly takes a turn. I like when the writer experiment with different styles. Unfortunately the writer didn't do that with the actual story.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a quick read due to the formatting of the book. I was a tad bid disappointed after reading the description of the book because I was really excited to start reading. I enjoyed all of the 90's references but felt that it was lacking longer descriptions of the events and characters. I wanted more!

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strange, intriguing.

I read the entire piece without stopping. It was detailed, captivating and resonated with me, a product of the nineties. It manages to provide a snapshot into the frustration and anger of growing up with peer pressure.

[Rachel B. Glaser · Rating 5 out of 5]

great (new?) use of of question marks!

[Barbara Leuthe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very different type of book.Almost like reading someones diary.Did not really get all of it and I dont feel finished with it. I received this book free as part of the goodreads first reads program

[Denise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disjointed. Hoping the intention was to display the ping pong action of a teenage girl's brain and explain a little of her uncomprehendable actions.

[Morgan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I do not understand this book. It is incomplete sentences, weird ramblings. I read the whole thing in less than an hour. I am very glad that I did not pay money for it.

[Marisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tried really hard, but couldn't get into this book, at all.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

impressively/poetically good @ accidentally mean teen girl brain

[Kelsey Frost · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a hot mess of a book, some of the pieces went together and others didn't. Hard to follow at times.

[Emi · Rating 1 out of 5]

17 pages in and no it isn't happening. Glad I got this for free and didn't waste money on it.

[Jean Paulhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

See my profile pic. I'm obsessed with this book!