Everybody Rise
A Novel
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3.6 • 66 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A sparkling debut that is “full of ambition and grit” (Emma Straub), Stephanie Clifford's Everybody Rise is a story about identity and loss, and how sometimes we have to lose everything to find our way back to who we really are.
“Finally, a novel that admits ‘making it’ isn't just a makeover away.” -Vanity Fair
Twenty-six-year-old Evelyn Beegan intended to free herself from the influence of her social-climbing mother, who propelled her through prep school and onto New York’s stately Upper East Side. Evelyn has long felt like an outsider to her privileged peers, but when she lands a job at a social-network startup aimed at the elite, she has no choice but to infiltrate their world. Soon she finds herself navigating the promised land of Adirondack camps, Hamptons beach houses, and, of course, the island of Manhattan itself.
Intoxicated by the wealth, access, and influence of her new set, Evelyn can’t help but try to pass as old money herself. But when the lies become more tangled, she grasps with increasing desperation as the ground beneath her begins to give way.
Chosen as one of Summer's Best Books by People Magazine
Featured in Time Magazine's Summer Reading
Entertainment Weekly's Summer Must List
Good Housekeeping Beach Reads Feature
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
First-time novelist Stephanie Clifford channels her experiences as a New York Times metro reporter into a hard-to-put-down novel of manners. Evelyn Beegan graduated from an elite New Hampshire boarding school, but her life as a 20-something New York City professional is more drab than razzle-dazzle. When Evelyn lands a job as the director of membership for an upper-crust Facebook called People Like Us, she makes it her mission to penetrate the lives of the rich and famous. With its cool air of detachment, Everybody Rise offers both the pleasures of voyeurism and the thrill of a cautionary tale.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The upstart heroine of this debut novel by New York Times reporter Clifford wages a one-woman assault on the old-money snobbery of the Upper East Side, before the Wall Street stock market crash of 2008. Evelyn Beegan, a new-money 26-year-old whose social-climber mother finagled her into the right prep schools, sells her soul in order to succeed in her first job at a social networking site called People Like Us. In order to win over those at the center of the young Upper East Side elite so she can use their names on the PLU site, Evelyn uses her connections from school to wheedle invitations to Adirondack camps and charity events. She spends more money than she has and lies about her own background as she claws to the top of the social heap, shedding integrity and eventually a very nice young man on her way up. Evelyn scores big when she befriends socialite Camilla Rutherford, who gives her access to her parents' friends and prestigious charity balls, until Evelyn's deception and the expense of keeping up appearances threatens to overwhelm Evelyn. While this novel displays none of the melancholy irony of the Sondheim song for which it is named, it is an amusing page-turning beach read. But if the author is trying to suggest that after 2008, class and the UES no longer hold sway, her argument is thin.
Customer Reviews
Just okay for me.
3.5 stars. While I don't think this was an extraordinary debut, as described in the blurbs, it was okay. I wanted to put it down several times during the first third part of it, but I stayed with it. It did get better, but I didn't feel as though it got great. I mean, I was rooting for Evelyn all the way, but I knew there was a train wreck on the way. I'm surprised she wasn't actually kicked out of her apartment. She kept that facade up longer than I thought she would.
There were some fun parts in here and lots of sad parts. I gave the book 3.5 stars because 3 stars is what I thought the first part was and 4 stars is what I thought the last part was. While it finally did start become entertaining, it still felt kind of unbelievable. Like of like the author was forcing it on me or maybe I'm just overthinking it. As for recommending it? I just got to say, come to your own decision. It's one of those books your either gonna love it or hate it. Or in my case, it was just okay.
Thanks St. Martin Press and Net Galley for allowing me to read and review this book. I'm still on the fence about recommending it.
Boring
I had such a hard time getting through this book. It's boring and the dialogue amongst characters is fake and forced. First book I've read in a long time where I think I deserve a refund.
Yes
Don't even think about it, just read it. One of the best books I've read in a long long time.