Rules of Civility in What's the Name of That Book???

Mar 08, 2013 Laura rated it did not like it

Shelves: fiction, book-club, overrated

Completely mystified as to why this has such a crazy high rating on Goodreads. Between this and The Slap, I feel like I'm living in some sort of book Bizarro World.

More after book club meeting. ...more

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Dec 27, 2011 Kate rated it really liked it

Maybe a little overwritten at the beginning and the end, with some unnecessary name-dropping, (which always kind of bugs me.) But the bulk of the novel is deliciously compelling. If you like Edith Wharton or Julian Fellowes or Somerset Maugham, then you may find yourself seriously preoccupied by this story. It might interfere with your errands, work-out schedule, or even social life. You might lose sleep because you can't put the damn book down.

I will clear my calendar for this guy's next novel ...more

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Jan 25, 2019 Candice rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Having adored A Gentleman in Moscow, I was compelled to read Amor Towles's first book. Although well-written and evoking the atmosphere of the late 1930s, I was not as drawn into this book. It was no fault of the author; I just found the time, place and characters of Gentleman more to my interest and liking. I did like the way the characters were developed in Rules of Civility. Two working girls in New York City meet a wealthy young man on New Year's Eve and the three soon become fast friends. E ...more

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Mar 26, 2012 Misha rated it really liked it

Shelves: doorway-place, doorway-people, friendship, historical, doorway-prose, coming_of_age, read-2012, new-york

"...That was the funny thing about typing faster than 75 words a minute at Quiggin & Hale--from there, the faster you were typing, the less per word you were being paid.
That's not how Charlotte saw it. Like an adventuress trying to complete the first solo flight across the Hudson River, she hoped to type as fast as humanly possible. And as a result, whenever a case surfaced requiring a few thousand pages of duplication, you could bet that the next light that clicked on over Miss Markham's door w ...more

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Jun 24, 2012 Laura rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: old-reads, mt-bookpile-2011-2015

I wanted to love this book, but I just couldn't. Mostly that was because Katey Kontent (emphasis on TENT) just didn't click with me as a heroine - she seemed too passive, too remote, too... something. This look at at New York in the 1930s, filled with jazz bars and slightly pre-war sensibilities is so well realized that not having a memorable central character was jarring.

Katey and Evey are roommates in one of those female boardinghouses, spending what little money they have in divey places hop ...more

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Feb 19, 2013 Sandy rated it it was amazing

If you are looking for a well written novel by an author whose vocabulary is so much better than most novelists, then read Rules of Cvility.

Not only is the story compelling, with several unforseen twists and turns, but Towles paints a picture of New York City and it's high society during the Depression and prior to World War II in such a way as to create a memento mori to a life that was never seen again.

I thoroughly enjoyed Rules of Civility and cannot recommend it highly enough -- and I compl ...more

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Sep 25, 2011 Christina rated it liked it

Goodreads keeps eating my reviews. Short version: great supporting characters, great party scenes (it's not easy to write a great party scene, or so say the many attempts I've read, and boy, are there a lot of party scenes in this book. They are, I think, successful), "villain" lacking a dimension or two, love interest (early on my brain switched out one monosyllabic surname for another, and I had to fight the urge to think of him as "Tinker Bell" for the entire book) entirely lacking. I didn't ...more

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Nov 30, 2018 Marianne rated it liked it

I read this because I really loved A Gentleman in Moscow. This has a completely different (and interesting WWII setting), but I didn't like the characters and plot as well as his other book. ...more

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