Review: Vixen by Jillian Larkin

Vixen (The Flappers)
Jillian Larkin
Hardcover: 432 pages
Delacorte Books for Young Readers
December 14, 2010
Amazon | GR | TBD

Jazz . . . Booze . . . Boys

It’s a dangerous combination.

Every girl wants what she can’t have. Seventeen-year-old Gloria Carmody wants the flapper lifestyle—and the bobbed hair, cigarettes, and music-filled nights that go with it. Now that she’s engaged to Sebastian Grey, scion of one of Chicago’s most powerful families, Gloria’s party days are over before they’ve even begun . . . or are they?

Clara Knowles, Gloria’s goody-two-shoes cousin, has arrived to make sure the high-society wedding comes off without a hitch—but Clara isn’t as lily-white as she appears. Seems she has some dirty little secrets of her own that she’ll do anything to keep hidden.

Lorraine Dyer, Gloria’s social-climbing best friend, is tired of living in Gloria’s shadow. When Lorraine’s envy spills over into desperate spite, no one is safe. And someone’s going to be very sorry.

Review:
I don’t read much historical fiction, but after reading Vixen, I’ve realized that I really need to reconsider and add more of this genre to my TBR.

Just as the cover implies, Vixen is a sultry novel, and I’m really surprised by how much I liked it. I could scarcely put it down, and the only reason I did was because my sister was visiting from out of town and got in my face more times than I care to remember. LOL

Based on some meandering impressions I’ve collected from various mediums, it seems to me that the high society lifestyle of the early 1920′s was highly coveted yet rarely something to feel fortunate about or even enjoy. Was it really such an imposition to have everything handed to you on a silver platter?

Gloria Carmody seems to think so. Forget engagement parties, Gloria would rather sneak off to find her thrills in the sinfully exotic underground world of speakeasies, where jazz music and drinking are more than forbidden delights. Her polite manners, perfect grades and pristine beauty may have landed her a handsome if not boring suitor, but what Gloria really longs for is the uninhibited lifestyle of a flapper, which would allow her to purse a career as a singer and a lover like Jerome Johnson. But she couldn’t possibly dare to dream such a thing, right? Because not only is Jerome poor, he is also black.

Along for the rebellious ride from all that is proper to all that is dangerously delicious was Gloria’s best friend, Lorraine and her cousin Clara, who couldn’t have been more opposite from one another. Poor Lorraine. She has to be the most pathetic character I have ever come across. Her desperation reeked through the pages, and her tiresome antics firmly put her at the bottom of the barrel for me.

Clara, I did like. She was very guarded because of her painful past, but she paid  the price for it. Once she embraced braver and bolder attitude, she really glowed and turned out the be my favorite character. Gloria has potential to be someone I could like, but not in this novel. She was a bit too selfish and reckless, leaving me to believe she was nothing more than a spoiled brat, but hopefully she will redeem herself.   

I’m not sure any of the male characters added anything really intriguing to the storyline, aside from the trouble they caused by doing what was expected (i.e. cue menacing gangster). They were all kind of bland, but maybe that was done on purpose. I really didn’t find myself falling in love with the ones that were supposed to be swoon worthy, but I did feel hopeful about the romances that Clara and Gloria got swept away in.

The story was more about the girls finding their own way, and I really enjoyed the three narrators POV shifts. As it usually does, it helped move the story along and added some much needed mystery to a somewhat predictable plot.

Vixen was a fun, fast read, and I really adored the lingo used. It made me smile every time. Who wouldn’t love being called Dollface or hotsy-totsy? And I gotta give Larkin major props for not going down the dark and evil cliffhanger alley. It would have been majorly cliche for the story to end with a who done it vibe, but thankfully that didn’t happen, though there is definitely more to come. Ingenue (Flappers, #2) will be released in August, and I’m looking forward to following the girls on their next adventure. 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqWhLaIgals]

Challenge(s): 111 in ‘11 Challenge

Reviewed for Book It Forward ARC Tours

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Posted at 2:00 pm  •  Labels: 2011, 3 stars, ARC, Book it Forward, Book Review, debut, historical fiction, review copy, trailers, YA