Release Day Review: Brooklyn Girls

Author: Gemma Burgess
Publication Date: July 2, 2013
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Fantastically funny, fresh and utterly relatable, Brooklyn Girls by Gemma Burgess is the first novel in her brand new series about five twenty-something friends—Pia, Angie, Julia, Coco and Madeleine—sharing a brownstone in hip, downtown Brooklyn, and discovering the ups and downs and ins and outs of  their “semi-adult” lives.

The first story belongs to sophisticated, spoiled, and stylish Pia, who finds herself completely unemployed, unemployable, and broke. So what is a recent grad with an art history degree and an unfortunate history of Facebook topless photos to do? Start a food truck business of course! Pia takes on the surprisingly cutthroat Brooklyn world of hybrid lettuce growers, artisanal yogurt makers and homemade butter producers to start SkinnyWheels—all while dealing with hipster bees, one-night-stands, heartbreak, parental fury, wild parties, revenge, jail, loan sharks, playboys, karaoke, true love, and one adorable pink food truck. And that's without counting her roommates' problems, too.

Gemma Burgess has captured the confusion, hilarity and excitement of the post-graduate years against a backdrop of the pressures and chaos of New York City life, with heartfelt empathy, fast humor and sharp honesty.

A charming debut series about five twenty-something girls and the humor, heartbreak, and drama that bring them together.

“You sold it to me as a ‘small housewarming,’” interrupts Julia. “This place was like Cancun on spring break, but less classy.”

 

Sometimes friendships are more complicated than relationships.

 

And revenge, like vodka, is best served straight up and extra cold.

 

The tears escape my eyes. I know I’ve made some mistakes, but God, I’ve tried to make it up to them. I studied hard, I got into a great college…It’s never good enough.

To my understanding this is going to be a series…maybe, possibly, hopefully? Gemma Burgess brings us five twenty-something year old young women, Pia, Julia, Coco, Madeline, and Angie, who all live in Brooklyn, NY and are trying to establish some roots and figure their own lives out. This first book is told from Pia’s perspective and was a wonderful interpretation of the lives of twenty-something year old women who haven’t quite got their lives figured out. At the start of the book, Pia has just gotten fired, almost destroyed her new home, and has gotten an angry phone call from her parents threatening to move her in with them if she can’t get her life together soon. Needless to say, Pia is in quite the pickle. With the help of her friends she travels all over Brooklyn trying to find a “real” job, and hopefully satisfy her parents!

 

I fell in love with this cast of girls and the little brownstone called Rookhaven where they lived. Each of these girls is uniquely different and brings her own sense of attitude and style to this book. I am hoping that Gemma follows each girl and continues their story as friends. Pia was a bit chaotic at times and being twenty-two myself, the same age as her, I couldn’t figure out why she didn’t have her life together. However, I loved following her and all the trouble she gets herself into. She finds some way to screw up every time I turned around. I think I would like some of the other characters better than Pia, but this book was primarily her story. Pia was just a mess – that’s really the only way to describe her. Thankfully her friends were always there to bail her out.

 

I would also like to mention that this book does deal with some pretty tender issues. There is drinking, drugs, and loan sharks involved. The book opens up with the biggest party I think I have ever heard of, and at one point in the story there is talk of one of the girls doing Coke. This did not bother me to read because I know that some girls and guys do participate in these activities, and Gemma was just depicting the lives of a few party girls. However, I do not recommend this book for younger girls. At first I thought this was going to be young adult fiction, but this definitely fits in the adult category.

 

I loved my trip to Brooklyn with these crazy girls, and they aren’t all as crazy and wild as Pia. Some of them actually have their life together – well, for the most part!

 

***A copy of this book was provided to me by the publishers at St. Martin’s Griffin in exchange for my honest review***