A Fortunate Age

by Joanna Rakoff

Like The Group, Mary McCarthy's classic tale about coming of age in New York, Joanna Smith Rakoff 's richly drawn and immensely satisfying first novel details the lives of a group of Oberlin graduates whose ambitions and friendships threaten to unravel as they chase their dreams, shed their youth, and build their lives in Brooklyn during the late 1990s and the turn of the twenty-first century. There's Lil, a would-be scholar whose marriage to an egotistical writer initially brings the group back together (and ultimately drives it apart); Beth, who struggles to let go of her old beau Dave, a onetime piano prodigy trapped by his own insecurity; Emily, an actor perpetually on the verge of success -- and starvation -- who grapples with her jealousy of Tal, whose acting career has taken off. At the center of their orbit is wry, charismatic Sadie Peregrine, who coolly observes her friends' mistakes but can't quite manage to avoid making her own. As they begin their careers, marry, and have children, they must navigate the shifting dynamics of their friendships and of the world around them.

Set against the backdrop of the vast economic and political changes of the era -- from the decadent age of dot-com millionaires to the sobering post-September 2001 landscape -- Smith Rakoff's deeply affecting characters and incisive social commentary are reminiscent of the great Victorian novels. This brilliant and ambitious debut captures a generation and heralds the arrival of a bold and important new writer.

Genres: Fiction, New York, Coming Of Age, Friendship, Contemporary, Book Club, Novels

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Joanna Rakoff's novel A Fortunate Age won the Goldberg Prize for Fiction, and was a New York Times Editors' Choice, an Elle and Booklist Best Book of 2009, and a San Francisco Chronicle Best Seller.

Her memoir, My Salinger Year, is a semifinalist in the 2014 GoodReads Choice Awards! You can vote for it here!

Reviews

[Jackie · Rating 1 out of 5]

The folks at Scribner are really excited by this debut novel. IndieNext is really excited about this book. Me--not so much actually. It's clear that Rakoff can tell a story and create dimensional characters--I will absolutely give her points for that. The problem is that there are too many stories and too many characters seen in too short of glimpses to ever get attached to them. This is a story of several college friends in the 8 or so years after college who all seem to be just hanging around waiting for SOMETHING to happen to them. In the meantime, they get married or attached, have children or not, work, complain about money, and wonder why their parents give them such a hard time while cashing the checks they still get from them. The one character who actually DOES something to make his life happen disappears almost completely from the book, reappearing mysteriously at the very end seemingly in possession of adulthood and some sort of clue about life. The rest of them still haven't figured much out at the end of 400 excruciating pages--kind of like "Friends" without any of the comedy. This will NOT be appearing on my recommends shelves.

[Colleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got this book through the Barnes and Noble Book Club and really thought I was going to enjoy it. I'm the right age and education level to blend right in with these characters, and yet I felt not one ounce of connection to any of them. The book was long and frequently tedious, and characters veered off on major life diversions with never a hint of the underlying motivations.

I was extremely disappointed with this novel and didn't feel the narrative spoke to me at all. These characters seemed to revel in immaturity, and the endless posing was exhausting to read. I felt like every character was a negative stereotype of one age or another, and they therefore never rang true to me. I had a really hard time with this book; the more I read, the less I liked it and the less connection I felt to the characters. I believe that Lil's wedding should have marked the transition to maturity, but none of these characters ever seem to actually mature. This is my generation, and I would hate to think that any of my friends resembled these folks...

I definitely found the characters mired in perpetual adolescence, and apparently unable to recognize that fact. Getting married and having babies doesn't make you an adult, and I feel these characters were all hiding their immaturity behind the trappings of adulthood. The ending was rushed despite my belief that the book is way too long. My constant feeling while reading was that we were missing too much- too many decisions and actions without any explanations. I think that helped contribute to my feelings of separation from the characters. I couldn't even summon up any sympathy for Lil when she died, and can't see how these people can be considered a group of "friends" given how they act toward one another.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book packs a serious literary punch.

For the longest time, I didn't particularly like New York (it felt too busy and expensive for my blue-collar tastes, but at least isn't California, bleh!), yet- this longish story was nice enough to let me come along for the ride. The Ramones are also sweet. A Fortunate Age was far superior to any episode of Sex and the City or HBO's Girls. It felt real and exposed much of the 1990's essence that I truly loved so much.

There are instances where the chapters read more like interwoven novellas, but certainly covered a lot of emotional grounds. I think the final third of the book is when my heart strings were tugged the most.

Dave was my favorite character. I couldn't help but envision him as a David Foster Wallace/Elliott Smith hybrid type of character.

Some random musings:

* Three mentions of, "Brookline" (3), (175), (183)

* I can't ever in my right mind imagine marijuana causing erectile dysfunction (Pelligrino Bongwater 62, 64), if anything the exact opposite.

* Other cannabis references include:
"marijuana" (29), Caitlin's husband, Rob has a "spliff" (111-112), "smoking pot" (189), "pot-smoking types" (202), "ganja" (245)

* Was Delores based off of Rakoff's boss from My Salinger Year? (116)

* Will was a total fucking weirdo and I can't believe Beth fell in love with him.

* Caitlin was such a bitch for cheating on Rob with Tuck.

* Wicked cool to see Sleater-Kinney (189) and Elliott Smith (249) referenced.

[red heart emoji]

[Nette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was right in my wheelhouse-- next to medical memoirs and serial killer thrillers, I love nothing more than a big fat book that follows a group of friends over a period of years. I agree with some of the negative reviewers in that it was a bit hard keeping track of the characters, and some of them sort of disappeared halfway through, but I really liked the attention to the neighborhood detail (the park mommies, the yoga studios, the music scene), and also the very realistic dialog. (Lately I've been reading books with stupid dialog; thank God this author knows how real people talk.)

[Leslie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to add a new bookshelf to categorize this book -- "can't possibly finish." I realized this morning, when I was a third of the way through the book, that I didn't need to subject myself to reading even another page!

This book is excruciating. I tried so hard to like it.

[Patrick Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really, really enjoyed reading this book. I know some people will have trouble reading about the struggles of relatively privileged 20-somethings in New York -- if you're one of those people, then this book is not for you -- but I just devoured this book. The story of six Oberlin College graduates living their post-collegiate lives in New York, this book pulls off the considerable feat of shifting perspective between the characters. The jacket copy of the book described it as being in the tradition of 19th Century novels, and I suppose that would be right. It did feel a bit like reading a Jane Austen book.

I've come to admire authors who can tell a story that unfolds over several years, and Smith Rakoff does a fine job of this, deftly moving between excruciatingly drawn-out scenes told in painstaking detail and grand, sweeping paragraphs that sum up a month or a season. This is no simple thing, to move through time like that. It's a skill that eludes many talented authors. I also liked that this book took place in New York before and after the 9/11 attacks, but it didn't become maudlin or overwrought. The characters noted the attacks, and some of them were clearly changed by them, but it was the way I felt changed by them. This wasn't a story about people who survived the 9/11 attacks or those who didn't survive them, but rather about the way life was -- both before and after -- for all those millions of people who lived in the city when it happened.

If I have a criticism of the book, it's that the joints between sections, and the allotment of time between characters seemed a bit off. Why do we spend so little time with some and so much more with others? I would've enjoyed more from petulant, petty Dave's perspective (I fear I might be the only reader with this request), and I wondered more about Beth and Will. Still, it didn't stop me from enjoying the many chapters that lingered on Sadie. I think she was probably my favorite character in the end. And in this book, there were so many to choose from.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

People were hard on this book. Their criticism may be valid, but the dialog was smart and the book really captured something.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

"With her face in repose, Emily was alarmed to see that Lil looked old. Her bright beauty--black hair, fair skin, large eyes, like an Italian film star--appeared to be dissolving into a caricature of beauty: containing all the proper elements, but lacking the harmony to fuse them into a lovely whole. For years now, ever since college or marrying Tuck or leaving Columbia or something, she'd been in a state of constant movement, running glibly in conversation from one thing to another, eternally thrusting the focus of her attention on some minute detail of another person. She was a perfect, devoted, obsessively attentive friend, who could spend hours dissecting Emily's or Sadie's or Dave's problems; who always remembered birthdays and bought too many perfectly chosen gifts; who would meet for coffee at the drop of a hat--and yet over the years somehow those virtues had hardened into something akin to flaws. The light of her affection shined too brightly for any one friend to bear, and she demanded too much in return, more than anyone could give. It was not that she wanted the same--the birthday surprises, the days of rapid-fire conversation--all of that would have been bearable and easily, if not agreeably, accomplished. No, Emily thought sickly, what she wanted was complicity. She wanted her friends to swallow her own willful misconceptions about her life: that Tuck was a genius and she his happy muse. Or, in a different mood, that Tuck was a monster and she his unwilling victim." (323)

[Rashmi Tiwari · Rating 1 out of 5]

So 2015 may go down as the year that I finally decided that books that suck aren't worth my time to finish. Which was officially confirmed with this monstrosity that I stopped reading on page 100. For the record, I loved The Group and was hopeful about this homage. Don't bother picking it up. It's like reading the diaries of the most annoying of your most privileged college classmates in the five years post-graduation. You have Facebook. You definitely don't need this drivel.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm. I don't know that I like this, but I also don't know that I disliked it either.

"A Fortunate Age" follows the lives of six (five, really, but we'll get to that in a moment) Oberlin grads as they make their respective ways in New York from 1998 to 2004 (such strange timing, really, though I'm imagining that's when Rakoff herself - also a young Oberlin grad - was a 20-something living in New York). And therein - having six main characters - lies the problem. Rakoff spends a chapter with each character, speeding through time so quickly that I almost got whiplash, before moving on to another of the six with the strangest shift in POV I've ever seen. Instead of starting a new chapter, where at least you can breathe and think, "Okay, now we're following Dave," she will shift to another character within a paragraph and then follow that character for 30 pages or so. It's very jarring to be reading in Dave's POV and then all of a sudden Sadie's reacting to something Dave says and BAM, we're with Sadie.

Overall, though, Rakoff has too many characters for this book to feel really full. One of the six, Tal, never gets his due, though I think he would probably be among the more interesting. She also sets up characters early on and then never revisits them, except for in passing with one of the other members of the group. This is most distressing with the character of Beth, who we follow for almost the first 100 pages and who has a truly disastrous date with a man who seems shady at best, only for that man to be her husband soon thereafter. Somehow the man has a change of character, as they are still together at the end of the novel, but that is NEVER EXPLAINED. Somehow she goes from worrying that she's making a rash decision in marrying him to still being with him six years later, and it's NEVER REVISITED. I would easily give up the character of Lil (though, I suppose, she's the one who is ultimately the catalyst for the action) to have more time with Beth and find out what the hell happened there.

Furthermore, Rakoff seems to find it impossible to narrate major events in the lives of her characters. People pick up boyfriends or girlfriends, dump them, have children, get major career advances, etc. all in the period of time between chapters (each chapter ends only to have the next chapter pick up a year or so later). One character, in fact, suddenly has a daughter by the end of the novel without us ever even knowing she was pregnant. I get that Rakoff doesn't want to be sentimental, or would like to focus on the small spaces, but it all felt very blase to me, as though she smacks these sentences in with major life news in order to almost shock us in how lightly she takes it all.

And finally, I found many of her sentences HEAVY. It took me a lot longer to read this than a book normally does, because every sentence is so carefully and exhaustingly written as to make it hard to get through the book as speedily as I would like. Funnily enough, Rakoff has Sadie, the book editor, describe another character Tuck's book as "overwritten." Maybe she should have taken her own character's advice.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Fortunate Age by Joanna Smith Rakoff, approaches a group of post-graduate Gen-Xers as they begin their adult lives tackling friendship, coupling, love and sex. Rackoff is a tactical author who employs fresh methods of story telling to establish excitement and interest. For example, instead of getting a narrative of events central to the story, we get character reactions to some of these events, as the group tries to relate major events to how they may affect their own lives. To accomplish this we get a lost of tangents and back story which then clarifies character’s motive and thought processes. Huge plot developments are not even mentioned—only inferred later in the story. Such devices combine ensuring a dramatic story arc for all of the characters, and a book that reads as more of complex study of characters then a typical novel. Readers will literally climb into Rakoff’s group and the minds of its members. Overall, Rakoff delivers a strong and highly literary debut. The layered examination of New York culture during the time period reads like a modernized Wharton.

[Ellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Fortunate Age was an exhausting book to read. A group of friends from Oberlin all move to New York City after college. From the very beginning, I had a sense that these characters felt the world owed them something. They all seemed to be rather whiny. They were forced to grow up, in spite of themselves, and always seemed surprised when unprotected sex resulted in pregnancy, not working full time resulted in being poor (this was prior to the current economic crisis), and that not finishing a project (PhD thesis, manuscript) resulted in being criticized, if not fired. None of these people seemed to ever be responsible for themselves.


As other reviewers have mentioned, I also could not connect with any of the characters, and could not follow the disjointed story line. Initially, I felt that the problem was the disconnect between the characters' generation and my own. After finishing the book, I really don't think it's me. I can only believe that the author was being somewhat ironic in detailing the hopes and dreams of this group of friends while describing how positively normal they all were in the end.

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Upon completing about a third of this book, I had the feeling that I had read it before. Sure enough, I had read Mary McCarthy's the Group the previous summer. Rakoff calls her novel an homage to McCarthy's novel, the NY Times calls it a redecoration, I call it copying.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read an advance copy of this book, which is blurbed as being reminiscent of Mary McCarthy's "The Group," a book I haven't actually read but which rings true. What's good about this book: Ms. Rakoff writes well - interesting style, more literary than "beach read," understands her characters well (how they think, the thoughts behind what's actually said, their motivations), good sense of place that feels accurate (NYC / Brooklyn). These are all well done and kept me reading the book. However, the opportunities are there for improvement: First, she writes in detail about a group of Oberlin graduate (1992) friends and acquaintances, but in all honesty doesn't seem to really care about them. Case in point: One of the main characters dies at the end - this isn't a giveaway since a loss like this is to be expected in this type of book - but, sadly, you don't really care. Much description is given of ALL the people who come to the deceased's funeral and how so many people speak so wonderfully of the deceased; however, it didn't really ring authentic to me. As a reader who spent several chapters "inside" the deceased's head, I simply kept thinking that this person was a ninny. Liking this type of book - where no one really shows well - is like rubbernecking at an accident: you know you want to do it even though it's awful. In tone and in how Ms. Rakoff treats her characters, the book reminded me of Diane Johnson's writing ("Le Divorce," "Le Marriage") or of Tom Wolfe's (not Thomas, but Tom - think "Bonfire of the Vanities"). At least the writing is good enough to carry the reader's interest, at least to carry mine. I would recommend this to other early '90's liberal arts graduates / majors, especially those who live in NYC. This book will speak to you (perhaps). Oh, the book does take us through and then past 9/11 without dwelling on it, and that's a saving grace.

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Wanted to love love love this book because it was basically my post-college and early-NYC life, down to going to Oznot's Dish way too many times in the early 00s. But agree with the other reviewers that the reader's sympathies were spread so thin among so many characters, that you ended up caring about none of them, or feeling emotional but not really remembering why those emotions mattered in the context of the larger story. Definitely got a little more intense (in a good way) at the end -- Emily in particular felt a lot more alive and true by the final chapters -- and I thought the stuff dealing with mental illness was actually done quite well. But it definitely needed to be either much longer or much shorter to be worth recommending.

Side note: I read this after (and as a result of enjoying) My Salinger Year, Rakoff's most recent book which, like this one, was basically 100% autobiographical but disguised as fiction. She repeats a lot of the same stories in both books; indeed, Salinger basically foregrounds and fleshes out what in A Fortunate Age was a minor story arc (about Sadie's career in publishing). Nothing at all wrong with drawing from true life; rather I bring this up only to recommend the later book if the earlier book left you, like me, eager to invest in these characters but feeling unsatisfied.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is the work of a large, generous, contemplative mind. The events take place over the course of six years, beginning in 1998 and the narrative follows the trajectories of several characters who were friends at Oberlin. Rakoff changes point of view from character to character and these alternations are deft and seamless. The novel addresses love, personal and career ambition, politics, literature, child-rearing, mental illness, the bonds of family and obligations related to family and friends. Truly, there's no topic in this novel that Rakoff doesn't write about with insight and intelligence. I've been recommending A Fortunate Age to everyone and I know that I'll be thinking about it for a long time.

[Sue Ouellet-Cofsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read an advanced copy for a book club. For her first novel, it was extremely well written. I perhaps left me wanting more in the end....doesn't necessarily tie up lose ends but then again, this type of story was meant to elicit memories of your past groups of friends and how they have progressed into the future (or not progressed). Set in NYC, I can understand why the social and political climate was so important but honestly it made me feel like a complete idiot most of the time, like I was doing all the wrong things and reading the wrong books etc. but then again, I am a country bumpkin and not a city girl. I still loved the story and wanted more details into each of their lives.....

[M · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. I wanted to like this book! I like this genre (I enjoyed "the group" )--- and Rakoff can write. But this novel does not work. We get chapter after chapter of carefully written prose -- mostly descriptions of an individual character-- some of it lovely. And yet --the chapters don't really link together---the story is not cohesive -- there is no sense of who these people really are -- how deep/shallow their relationships with each other are --- and why we should care. I feel there is a novel in here somewhere -- but the editor didn't work with the author to pull it out. Disappointing. My next book is going to be a classic selection -- I need a good read.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the spirit of Claire Messud's "The Emperor's Children", this New York story of a group of college friends who move through life and grapple with the world from dot.coms to 9/11. If you're 30 to 45- you will think of your own friends, your own recollections of this time, and how the world formed your outlook. It's well written and a great read for a first novel.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would definitely recommend reading this book in tandem with "The Group" by Mary McCarthy. The structure of "A Fortunate Age" is directly related to "The Group", and if you are familiar with the earlier novel it is fun to see how Smith-Rakoff updates the story for our time. I was always a little jealous of my grandmother that "The Group" was written about her generation; now I have my own.

[Julie Franki · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book hoping to find some existential exploration of my generation and socio-economic class, but all I got was cheesy soap-opera and whining. Ugh. I have no desire to relate to these characters, and this book is insufferable.

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Fortunate Age is available in stores tomorrow. Go get it!

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so obsessed with this novel that I recently had a dream about Rose Peregrine (kind of a secondary character, but a fabulous one, you'll see)!

[Jessica J. · Rating 1 out of 5]

I stopped after chapter two, which was one of the worst, most ridiculous sex scenes ever put on paper. What pretentious crap.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

My interest waxed and waned with this one, but it was overall a success.

This is a Gen X coming of age novel (coming of age from 20 somethings to 30 somethings) following a group of friends around New York City for six years as they follow their dreams and, often, settle down. Rakoff calls her novel an homage to the 1960s THE GROUP by Mary McCarthy, which I suppose I should put on my tbr! #somuchtoread Susanna Rustin, writing for The Guardian, notes, “Politics was intrinsic to McCarthy’s outlook as a writer and activist, and her 1930s young women have minds alive to the currents of ideas swirling around them. Rakoff tries to imitate this, with a roster of minor characters engaged in social action.” But her main characters ultimately choose to lead “smaller” lives, detaching from their lofty ideals about being an arbiter of culture (Sadie) or pursuing their dreams in acting or academia (Emily, Lil, kinda/sorta Beth), and settle down to do what they once couldn’t fathom—get married, have children.

And the minor characters, in contrast, are a bit of insufferable assholes. I guess Rakoff is keeping her Gen X cynicism about activism. :P As a Grandma Millennial, I sometimes appreciated how Sadie et al wouldn’t let the activists get away with too much binary, “us vs them” thinking, which is far more ubiquitous these days. The activists in this story would probably still be seen as outliers—but as moderates-to-conservatives, not as radical liberals. (Another thing that feels anachronistic—acknowledgment that gay people exist, but no actual queer characters, even in passing.) Politics don’t really feature too heavily for the main characters—until 9/11, which changes their perspectives, or Sadie’s perspective in particular. I suppose it’s fair to say (from my own recollections, too,) that 9/11 served as disillusionment for much of the country—snatching off the rose-colored blinders and being much more attuned to the dangers of the world. It’s also true that Sadie’s perspective might be changing because by 2004, she’s the mother of two young kids.

But anywho. What this is, above all, a multi-POV novel that’s supposed to chronicle a certain social reality. Starting tidily with a wedding and ending with a funeral. Very Victorian, somewhat similar to PACHINKO by Min Jin Lee, but I’m not sure this one will grow on me as much. Because I think there has to be a degree of external commentary (like politics) for us to hang our hats on whereas everything here is mostly insular. And for insular novels to work—we just need to follow fewer characters.

Like, why did Beth need to exist in this story? What we know about her is that she has beef about her upbringing in Scarsdale, we follow her on a rather uncomfortable first date with an emotionally distant partner…and then suddenly they’re engaged? What? There was no real development to this point!

(Something I did appreciate about Beth was that her graduate thesis was on the 1960s soap opera, Dark Shadows. :P Maybe I could reach epic levels of geekdom by writing a “fanfiction” rendering of her work! Relatedly, it’s interesting to look back 20-odd years to a time when “pop culture studies” was just starting to become a thing, hee.)

Or Dave—why did we need to follow Dave? His POV was narrow and self-absorbed, and didn’t contribute anything lasting to the narrative that Rakoff couldn’t have otherwise tweaked. And because we spent time with characters like this in an almost 400-page novel, the more interesting and central ones like Sadie and Emily and Lil weren’t developed enough, either.

Lil has to be there because she’s the closest thing to an over-arching plot that ties the narrative together. Sadie and Emily go on interesting journeys, too, though frankly it’s too exposition heavy and there’s definitely some eyerolly contrivances. But underneath it all, there’s Sadie wanting to make a mark on the literary world and her journey to motherhood (and writing), and Emily wanting to make a mark on the Broadway world, and her journey towards caring for a sick sister and getting interested in the sciences.

I mean, maybe I’m biased by my interest in literature and family drama. :P Actually, Rakoff’s set (I think this novel is semi-autobiographical) of literary wunderkinds ramped up my feelings of English Major Impostor Syndrome. *hangs head* I should have been like these women in undergrad! At least I’m more connected to Jewish intellectualism (if barely) than they are. :P I did very much appreciate the casual and authentic way that the Jewish heritage of these ladies played into the books. Another one of their friends, Tal, grew more observant in the sidelines, but it made sense that it never became a focal part of the story.

The chapters were overlong and stuffed with information, though I was generally engaged while reading them. But I think if Rakoff trimmed a little bit of the fat, it would read less like an assortment of people angsting over their lives in various social situations, and more like a formidable piece of cultural commentary. Rakoff is better known, I believe, for her memoir about answering J.D. Salinger’s fan mail as an assistant to his literary agent. Another book to put on the TBR—or movie, as of 2021! Pretty cool.

[Gigi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don’t even know where to begin with how awful, depressing and useless this book was. The one thing that it was was well written. As in, the flow and choice of words were perfectly fine. The style of writing was fine. There were quite a few grammatical errors but I tend not to hold that against books.

Everything else was pretty bad. Firstly, in terms of its content, the characters were lifeless voids that all blended into one (had to constantly look back at the first chapter to see their original descriptions). New York felt dull and gray in its descriptions. The world they inhabited was flat. I didn’t care, couldn’t care, and was reading because I always read all books I start.

The story itself was so odd — any big event, big moment, big twist happened OFF SCREEN. All of them, 100%. In what I imagine is some sort of misguided attempt at literature or a theme, all the moments described were off-kilter realisation moments leading up to the actual plot. You read about them meeting someone for the first time, and then you found out 400 words later that they had married that person. This only lended to the lifelessness of everything else and made the book particularly depressing. Characters struggled through their 20s joylessly and with not very much happening. My 20s (the couple of years of them I’ve had so far) certainly don’t seem as horrifically dull and sad as they guys’....In that sense, there was no way this book could be relatable. I in fact have a little group of 6 friends from university with the exact same gender make up and yet I saw nothing in this book reflecting us despite being the literal target audience/person she was writing about. The bleakness of them getting these great jobs, in particular, was hard to stomach, when the reader was meant to feel empathetic for their rise and decline, when in fact all I could think was how it was all the characters’ faults in every way possible. Total miss. The ending was meant to be some poignant significant moment when in fact it totally missed any sort of framing or resolution by randomly picking an assortment of characters to do something together at the end. Most of this book did in fact feel random.

Finally, the pretentiousness of this book really got to me. Only ART people are REALLY living. Only NEW YORKERS are REALLY living. Only people who went to this very specific college in the US that I’ve never heard of (but, surprisingly, the author went to!!) are REALLY informed on anything....Oh please. Self-indulgence to the max, and it got very boring after a few pages. Unless of course we were meant to roll our eyes and hate them all for their ridiculous hang ups, but something tells me that’s definitely not the case.....

All in all, wowee, haven’t quite read a book like this that I’ve quite so personally disliked and have disconnected with on such a strong level. Naturally, wouldn’t recommend....

[Elaine Mullane || Elaine and the Books · Rating 1 out of 5]

Here's something you should know about me: I hate to not finish a book. I really do try my best to give an author their due and get through their novel so I can give it a fair review. That is why I picked this book up again, having previously given up on it in 2015. And I really did try to get through it. In fact, I made it halfway through, an improvement on last time, and further than I thought I could bear. So, I guess that pretty much gives away how I feel about this book.

A Fortunate Age is the story of six Generation X Oberlin graduates as they navigate their way through life in New York in the period between 1998 and 2004. And since I've mentioned them, I'll start there. I did not like a single one of these characters. Not one. Not only could I not relate to them, but I found them to be entitled, whiny and, for the most part, shallow. I am not sure if it was because of how they were portrayed by Rakoff or because of the annoying way she would fail to mention major life changes in the lives of the characters, only to infer them chapters later. For example, she would fail to mention that someone became pregnant or went through a significant career change, only to drop it into the narrative pages (and years) later as if we already should know about it. What was also really frustrating was how she would spend up to 100 pages introducing us to a character, only to whip them away before focusing on another character. Beth is probably the best example of this: Rakoff spends pages telling us all about this disastrous date she had with a very unlikeable guy, only to have her announce at a party in another character's segment that she is marrying him. And she never mentions him in between!

That brings me to my next point: the structure of this plot is so frustrating. Like I mentioned above, Rakoff will spend so much time setting up characters for us, to the point where we are almost sympathetic to their latest drama, before abruptly ending their story and moving on to someone else. Then, when you are in the mindframe of a new character, an old character will suddenly pop back up and you'll have to try adjust your attention to them. It's draining. I feel like trying to portray the lives of six characters all at once was just too ambitious an undertaking for Rakoff.

I wish I could say there was something I liked about this novel but there really wasn't. Rakoff's writing did not impress me at all. I thought this novel was overwritten. The sentences were heavy, overthought and just dragged out to the point of being exhausting. It was a really tiresome read and I am kind of proud of myself for at least getting halfway through it.

Perhaps a very specific audience would appreciate this (an Oberlin graduate living in New York in the years between 1998 and 2004 perhaps?) but, for me, A Fortunate Age was a major disappointment.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A measure of the likeability of a book, for me, is whether I am anxious to find out what happens to the characters in an obsessive, read-while-making-dinner way and in this case, dinner just did not get made. Starting with six friends, all recent Oberlin grads, together at one of the friends' wedding and ending with the same six friends some ten years later, all very far from where they began, "A Fortunate Age" is richly detailed, nostalgic and wonderfully compelling. Having spent time in NYC in the 90s made the book familiar but it's the characters' thoughts, actions and experiences that really hit home, as they work their way through life getting married, getting divorced, finding careers and finding themselves (or not.) My favorite character is Sadie, a member of the old-moneyed Peregrine family and, to me, the most level-headed. Her mother Rose is an old New York socialite who says things like "That's a whole different pair of gloves" (my new saying as well) and I would love a sequel of sorts just about Sadie and her family if only because the blue-blood aristocracy is so damned interesting.

Comparisons to "The Group" and "The Emperor's Children" don't need to be made (they've been made just about everywhere else) because "A Fortunate Age" definitely holds its own.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished this book several weeks ago and have delayed writing my review because I wanted to see if my reaction to this story changed any over time. Nope. This book is a huge undertaking (both from the author's point of view and the reader's). The story follows a group of college friends as they leave college face the real world. The author writes this epic from the point of view of 5 of the 6 members of the group. The writing is good, the flow of the story is the ultimate problem. More than a few of the characters are largely unlikeable, but just when the reader starts to feel a connection or even an interest in the character, the chapter ends and we're off on another entirely different character and sometimes an entirely different year. Sometimes the loose ends get tied up, sometimes not, leaving huge gaps in the story flow that keeps the reader feeling like they are jumping from stepping stone to stepping stone across the river of this story. Perhaps this book would have been more effective as a collection of related short stories instead of a mildly cohesive narrative.

[Krista · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading the synopsis of this book, I was really excited to read it. However, it was disappointing. It wasn't bad, but I didn't really like it either. In the beginning, the writing style got to me. The sentences were so long and contained so many tangent thoughts that by the time I got to the point, I had forgotten who or what it was about. I got used to it after a while and didn't notice as much.

As for the plot, I'm not really sure there was one. I like the depth of the characters and how the author switched back and forth between them from chapter to chapter. However, I must have missed the overall point. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so I won't mention the ending - kind of unexpected and anti-climactic.

Overall, it just seemed to be another book about over-educated twenty-somethings from decent backgrounds that chose live in NYC in apartments they couldn't afford and the troublesome situations they put themselves in. It wasn't a bad read. the writing was good, the plot just left me looking for the pooint, so it was just ok.