A fun high-society thriller.
When a wannabe socialite experiences a case of mistaken identity, she’s thrust into a world of glamour, riches, and lies.
Lata Murthy of New Canaan, Connecticut, wouldn’t describe her life as glamorous. It’s 2013, and at 33, Lata is thousands of dollars in credit card debt, living paycheck to paycheck, and barely scraping by with a gig as a "content specialist" for a trivia company. Lately, her only source of entertainment comes from her email address (latamurthy@gmail.com), where she’s been accidentally receiving messages meant for "thelatamurthy@gmail.com." The Other Lata Murthy is a Mumbai-born heiress who’s constantly peppered with invites to the latest art exhibitions, galas, and fundraisers. Not only is the Other Lata fabulously popular, she’s downright mysterious—there isn’t a single photo of her online. And if no one knows what her doppelgänger looks like, how bad would it be if Lata attended one of these events? Technically, the invitations are in her name! But after one outing impersonating the Other Lata—and realizing how easy it is to perpetuate the lie—Lata can’t help but test the boundaries of her alter ego. Before long, Lata has dubbed herself "Downtown Lata" and befriended enough models and sexy fashion designers that she starts to earn her own invitations and street cred. Sure, she has to shoplift here and there to keep up her ruse, but after a few months of living as Downtown Lata, she starts to believe she’ll never be discovered. Then, when the Other Lata returns to claim what’s rightfully hers, the persona Lata has carefully crafted threatens to come crumbling down. Ramisetti’s novel is part fairytale, part horror story, deftly weaving a tale of two Latas and their desperation for relevancy. Lata is a flawed yet determined heroine, reminiscent of Sophie Kinsella’s Rebecca Bloomwood or Alexis Rose from Schitt’s Creek, and readers will be eager to unravel the mystery of the Other Lata and discover the underbelly of her socialite circles.
A fun high-society thriller.Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781538770993
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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