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89th out of 134 books
—
39 voters
Elements of Style
Elements of Style, the Pulitzer Prize—winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein’s first novel, is a scathing comedy about New York's high society facing the post—9/11 world. Francesca Weissman, an Upper East Side pediatrician rated number one by Manhattan magazine, floats on the fringes of the upper strata of privilege and aspiration. Through her bemused eyes we meet the thorou...more
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published
April 18th 2006
by Knopf
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I love Wendy Wasserstein's plays. I've recently read An American Daughter, Uncommon Women and Others, Isn't it Romantic, and The Heidi Chronicles and Other Plays. I'll read The Sisters Rosensweig also, soon. And not a play, but also recommended Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein.
But the bright, flawed, terrific, neurotic women we care so much about in her plays aren't in this novel... Well, there's one maybe, but you question her for wanting to spend her time around...more
But the bright, flawed, terrific, neurotic women we care so much about in her plays aren't in this novel... Well, there's one maybe, but you question her for wanting to spend her time around...more
Very funny book about shallow members of New York society. Eventually some of the shallow characters get insights into their lives--and those are also quite shallow. The problem with the book is that shallow characters get predictable after awhile. I think I might have been fascinated by this if it were my introduction to New York socialites, but this has been done before.
Wasserstein is better known for her plays--this is her first novel. She is best known for depicting middle-aged women who su...more
Wasserstein is better known for her plays--this is her first novel. She is best known for depicting middle-aged women who su...more
I have been reading a string of really bad books lately. So while this one was also really bad, at least it was marginally entertaining. I need to stop checking out books off the "recommended" shelf at my local library. Clearly, whoever picks those books and I have completely different tastes.
Anyway, I was in Wendy Wassterstein's play called "The Heidi Chronicles" in college, and it is a story very near and dear to my heart. I loved its focus on a woman on the edge of the feminist revolution str...more
Anyway, I was in Wendy Wassterstein's play called "The Heidi Chronicles" in college, and it is a story very near and dear to my heart. I loved its focus on a woman on the edge of the feminist revolution str...more
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It's sad to read this four years after Wasserstein's early death. (Apparently the book itself was published posthumously as well.) It's not necessarily moving, but Elements of Style is very funny. In my estimation there's only one character for whom the reader is supposed to care (Dr. Frankie Weissman, with whom the book begins and ends), which has clearly made it difficult for many reviewers here to care about the book as a whole. But if you take this as a skewering of the world of the Upper Ea...more
I liked this book. After reading Wendy and the Lost Boys, a biography of Wasserstein, I was interested to read some of her writing. This book has been criticized as being only chick-lit. I ask - what's wrong with chick-lit? Certainly some of it is very bad, but some of it can be very, very good. This is a genre that has a much broader scope that embraces human interaction on many levels, not just romantic, although romance does play a big part. But what is romance after all? It is love. This is...more
Wasserstein is one of my favorite playwrights. The plays I've read of hers - "The Heidi Chronicles," "Isn't It Romantic," "Uncommon Women and Others," and "Third" - have all stayed with me as heartwarming and meaningful. I've actually LIKED the characters, despite and because of their flaws. This novel was a sore spot for me - choppy dialogue, relationships that don't break the surface, barely an individual that exhibited anything more than a selfish and vapid way of life. It really reminded me...more
Loved it! Light and delightful at first, but Wasserstein's insights into human nature are quietly observed. I deeply admire her ability to show multiple aspects of her characters, so that in varying turns I felt compelled, repulsed, and compassionate for the same character.
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Thought it would be a good light summer read, and its about NYC, and I like the F.Scott Gitzgerald/jay McInerney social scene books that take you into other social structures. They set a pretty scene and make me feel glad I'm not part of it at the same time. I give it three stars because I think she did what she set out to do and because as silly as it got at times, I was still turning the page. It's a story about upper east side rich people in the two years following 911 and who hooks up and br...more
What a great book! It made me laugh, it made me cry — in the positive sense of the word — it made me bump into things (and people…sorry!) because I didn’t have time to look up from the book, it was so absorbing that even my boyfriend, who reads a lot himself, got a little impatient with me when after the x-th time I still didn’t answer him.
On the cover of the book it says it is a modern-age Jane Austen and I can relate to that. The critic on society and cultural rules are plenty repres...more
On the cover of the book it says it is a modern-age Jane Austen and I can relate to that. The critic on society and cultural rules are plenty repres...more
Feb 05, 2009
Bookmarks Magazine
added it
Critics felt traitorous calling Wendy Wasserstein's debut novel, published so soon after her death, a bit of a disappointment, but many agreed that what works so well on stage (the Pulitzer Prize? and Tony Award?winning play The Heidi Chronicles) does not translate well to prose. Some critics thought the novel possessed the verve and "charmingly neurotic" heroine (USA Today)__a Wendy stand-in__of her best-known work and praised Wasserstein's keen eye for social satire. Others called Elements of
...more
It was a little lame, but I still liked it. I was expecting more from Wendy, but the poor thing is no longer with us, so ....
The Elements of Style is a social satire of Manhattan's nouveau rich elite. Not surprisingly the characters are selfish, vapid and covetous.
The book concentrates on a handful of characters whose major concern is how they look, what prestigious boards they are affiliated with, and most importantly the seating arrangement at their endless “fusion-themed” parties. Put these woman together, their pseudo friendships, and events and you have a book that is filled with the empty conversations these pe...more
The book concentrates on a handful of characters whose major concern is how they look, what prestigious boards they are affiliated with, and most importantly the seating arrangement at their endless “fusion-themed” parties. Put these woman together, their pseudo friendships, and events and you have a book that is filled with the empty conversations these pe...more
Elements of Style follows the lives of several of New York’s Upper East Side socialites and their families in the year following 9/11. The back cover calls this book a comedy and describes it as “madcap”. I didn’t think it was humorous at all. Most of the characters are selfish, vapid and materialistic (which I expected seeing as they are wealthy society people) but in a sad and pathetic way, not in a funny way. I expected this to be a fun, chick-lit book and was disappointed.
I listened to the a...more
I listened to the a...more
Oh, how I detested this book. This was disappointing, as I enjoy Wasserstein's plays, and was hoping that this book would recapture some of that magic. Alas, it didn't. Stuffed full of entirely unlikeable, incredibly wealthy Manhattenites, who attempt to navigate their very privileged lives in a post 9/11 world. I could care less about them, their "problems" and their entirely vapid hopes. I only finished reading this novel because it was the only thing in the house and it was slightly more exci...more
Sometimes you just want to read trash, and this is a gem of a trashy story. Characters you'll hate, a tale that will bore you before it hooks you, and an ending that will make you cheer. Although this is a novel, I have a feeling playwright Wendy Wasserstein had a movie script in mind when she wrote this. I can almost name her choices for starring roles.
Read this book if you're down, or looking for something to kill some time on a long plane ride. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll thank your luc...more
Read this book if you're down, or looking for something to kill some time on a long plane ride. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll thank your luc...more
Although this was written before the "Housewives" franchise began I know these women would have vied for a slot on the "Real Housewives of New York City." I listened to the audio and while I didn't like it quite as much as "The Nanny Diaries" I thought about the aforementioned novel quite a bit as they share many of the same themes and happen to use the same vocal artist. This was one of those books that grew on me. The more I listened the more I liked it. When I popped the last cd in the player...more
Clearly written escapism, "Elements of Style" draws you in with well-crafted indulgent, ridiculous, and highly unlikeable characters more obsessed with their Upper East Side social status than anything else. Their lavish lifestyles are intriguing, if not unbelievable, and I was quickly intrigued by each character's personal story.
I would have completely loved this book if not for some completely over-the-top plot points. Yes, rich people also have problems, but plaguing every character with see...more
I would have completely loved this book if not for some completely over-the-top plot points. Yes, rich people also have problems, but plaguing every character with see...more
It takes a true New Yorker to fully understand the culture of the Upper East Side. It also takes a true New Yorker to be able to satirize it, mock it, and completely pull it apart.
You can't help but love a book that references Lewis Carroll, Go Away Big Green Monster, Midwood High School, and the New York Society Library.
Wasserstein plays with the reader's emotions and loyalties until the very end. It's so difficult to decide whether or not the characters are worthy of any compassion at all. Mos...more
You can't help but love a book that references Lewis Carroll, Go Away Big Green Monster, Midwood High School, and the New York Society Library.
Wasserstein plays with the reader's emotions and loyalties until the very end. It's so difficult to decide whether or not the characters are worthy of any compassion at all. Mos...more
First off, there will be spoilers so if you want to read this book and don't like to know anything before you read it (like me) then don't read on!
What was this? I love Wendy Wasserstein as a playwright. I couldn't wait to read this book! I thought that it would be a witty satire on New York's "finest" (not the firefighters, the Upper East Siders) after 9/11. I was sorely mistaken.
The first few chapters are delightful and engaging, but soon, you long for the book to go somewhere... 307 pages l...more
What was this? I love Wendy Wasserstein as a playwright. I couldn't wait to read this book! I thought that it would be a witty satire on New York's "finest" (not the firefighters, the Upper East Siders) after 9/11. I was sorely mistaken.
The first few chapters are delightful and engaging, but soon, you long for the book to go somewhere... 307 pages l...more
Such a disappointment as I love Wasserstein's work. Perhaps she simply didn't live long enough to hold onto this one and work it through. There are moments throughout where her wit, warmth and intelligence shines, but the last quarter of the book was awful enough that I tossed the book across the room -- literally. Dearly wish she had lived long enough to continue to write and to work on what would have been a fine novel -- I know she had it in her -- but this aint it.
Pretty lame and superficial, especially in 'this economic climate' [my least favorite phrase:]. I didn't care about any of the characters. They weren't poorly written, but I just don't care about contemporary New York society ladies and their 'troubles'--just not what I needed right now. And I never want to hear the the saying "Grand Canyon of need" ever again.
If Wendy Wasserstein rises from the dead, she should stick to plays.
If Wendy Wasserstein rises from the dead, she should stick to plays.
I don't often abandon a book, but I just can't hang in there with this one. It reads like an early draft that Wasserstein never had the chance to flesh out. Brittle and skeletal, without either the bracing wit or empathy for the characters that is notable in her plays. I was inspired to pick this up after reading the recent biography of Wasserstein, Wendy and the Lost Boys, but the novel leaves me cold and a little sad.
Like others, I expected this to be easy, fun reading with a critical eye exposing the upper echelon of New York City money. Unfortunately the story fell far short of my expectations, particularly in the critical aspect. The structure of the story does not lend itself to this criticism, except through the obvious commentary by the author in her descriptions of monetary excess, and her editorializing through the "thoughts" of her characters. Almost all of the characters feel flat and used as caric...more
I picked this up because I really admire(d) Wendy Wasserstein. I was wary of this when I started reading it--it seemed like standard fare chick lit--but it really picked up steam and I ended up really enjoying it. The characters were rather seductive, not everyone's fates turned out as I had assumed, and I was sorry when it ended. Not deep or serious reading, but fun!
A book with a million characters and they all interacted and at the same time, nothing happened. I am reading reviews on amazon, trying to remember what this book was about, and none of the reviews are giving me anything. Essentially, this book was kind of a waste of time. Characters, some stories, but nothing happens.
Grade: D+
Grade: D+
Housewives of New York in novel form. I got the book on tape. It was well read by Cynthia Nixon. But with this book, what is smart and sassy when read seems crass and vulgar when spoken. Impossible to overlook the vulgarity and shallowness of the upper crust, and in the end, it wasn’t worth it. I did not finish it.
I think the characters were all meant to be despised, but I'm still not sure that's what the author wanted to have happen. Maybe she wanted them to seem real by all of their flaws, but they just came off as selfish, snobby, and immoral. I kept waiting for a redeeming factor and it never really came.
I'm not entirely sure what the author's point was for this book. I guess maybe to show the depravity and shallowness of New York socialites? I'm not sure. It also dealt a lot with uncertainly of life in New York after 9/11. Maybe I should think of this as naturalism? I'll decide someday. This wasn't exactly chick-lit, but it seemed to be a close cousin, and it was entertaining on a long car ride. But I was still confused by many choices the characters made. Two characters randomly began an affai...more
I love Wendy Wasserstein the playwright, and her skill easily transfers into novel-writing. Elements of Style is funny, and witty, with perfect Wasserstein over-the-top New York characters. This was so much fun to read, and (I think) would make a great movie. Wasserstein was such a talented writer...
I picked this book up during the summer and while I am re-reading Cransford and other books I have. I come back to reading this book. It talks about women in New York and how they are friends, but then they have some falling out between friends. It sounds so high schoolish but it is an enjoyable read.
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Wendy Wasserstein was an award-winning American playwright and an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. She was the recipient of the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
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