Julie's Review: The Hopefuls

Author: Jennifer Close
Series: None
Publication Date: July 19, 2016
Publisher: Knopf
Pages: 320
Obtained: publisher via Edelweiss
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction
Rating: 3.5/5
Bottom Line: A fine example of why friends shouldn't work for friends
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Grab!

Summary:  A brilliantly funny novel about ambition and marriage from the best-selling author of Girls in White Dresses, The Hopefuls tells the story of a young wife who follows her husband and his political dreams to Washington, DC, a city of idealism, gossip, and complicated friendships among the young aspiring elite. When Beth arrives in DC, she hates everything about it: the confusing traffic circles, the ubiquitous Ann Taylor suits, the humidity that descends each summer. At dinner parties, guests compare their security clearance levels. They leave their BlackBerrys on the table. They speak in acronyms. And once they realize Beth doesn't work in politics, they smile blandly and turn away. Soon Beth and her husband, Matt, meet a charismatic White House staffer named Jimmy, and his wife, Ashleigh, and the four become inseparable, coordinating brunches, birthdays, and long weekends away. But as Jimmy’s star rises higher and higher, the couples’ friendship—and Beth’s relationship with Matt—is threatened by jealousy, competition, and rumors. A glorious send-up of young DC and a blazingly honest portrait of a marriage, this is the finest work yet by one of our most beloved writers. ~amazon.com


Review: The Hopefuls is definitely a novel for those interested in some knowledge about the Obama White House and the young staffers who filled it. Now I don't know how much is based on fact and how much is fiction, but it is interesting and kind of scary at the same time.

Beth loved living in NYC but her husband Matt has a wonderful opportunity to work in Obama's White House as part of the legal counsel team. So she sucks it up and moves to D.C. She's definitely not making the best of it and has a hard time finding her groove. She feels like everyone always has an agenda (which they do) and she's not in politics so they treat her as an outsider. Matt seems happy and loves working in the White House. He thinks it'll be great experience for when he eventually runs for office.

Things finally start to fall in place when Beth and Matt click with another couple, Jimmy and Ashleigh Dillon. They start hanging out all the time both as a couple plus Ash and Beth without the guys. They are inseparable so much that Beth's friend Colleen makes jokes about them being swingers.

Then Jimmy gets asked to run for Railroad Commission in Texas and asks Matt to run his campaign. This involved Beth and Matt moving to Houston and living with the Dillon's until at least the primary is over. It doesn't seem so bad at first because things are going well and they are all getting along rather well but of course things start to crack. You start to see behind the curtain and see how people really act. It also shows the cracks in your own marriage. Is this the hurdle that Beth and Matt can't over come? Why have things changed so drastically in a short period of time? Can they fix it?

As much as this is a novel about D.C., it is more about the hard times of marriage and what it takes to make one work. I never felt that Beth and Matt were on the same page. I always felt that she was just following him along because she never really knew what she wanted. She wasn't really even sure she wanted to be married to a potential politician. I feel like that's a huge obstacle to overcome in a marriage. I'm not sure if Matt was right when he told her she didn't support him because I think she did but he wasn't understanding that it would have a huge impact on her life as well.

I'm not sure if any of the characters here were particularly likable. It's not like they were horrible but each were so flawed it made them hard to identify with. I also wanted Jimmy to not have the typical politician flaws because that was too easy to write. Even Ash seemed like a caricature at times.

If you like stories that are entwined with politics then you will definitely enjoy Ms. Close's The Hopefuls. 

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Alice's Review: Girls in White Dresses

Summary:  Wry, hilarious, and utterly recognizable, Girls in White Dresses tells the story of three young women grappling with heartbreak and career change, family pressure and new love--all while suffering through an endless round of weddings and bridal showers.  Isabella, Mary, and Lauren are going to be bridesmaids in Kristi's wedding. On Sunday after Sunday, at bridal shower after bridal shower, they coo over toasters, eat tiny sandwiches, and drink mimosas. They're all happy for Kristi, but they do have the ups and downs of their own lives to cope with. Isabella is working at a mailing-list company, where she's extremely successful, and wildly unhappy. Mary is in love with a man who may never love any woman as much as he loves his mother. And Lauren, a waitress at a midtown bar, finds herself drawn to a man she's pretty sure she hates.  With blind dates and ski vacations, boozy lunches and family holidays, relationships lost to politics and relationships found in pet stores, Girls in White Dresses pulls us deep inside the circle of these friends, perfectly capturing the wild frustrations and soaring joys of modern life.

Review:  I’m not quite sure where to begin with this one… I’ll start with how difficult it was for me to keep track of all the characters.  I thought about making a list to figure out who was who and how they know each other.  In the end, I vetoed the idea because a book shouldn’t require that much effort.  Especially a chick lit novel of 300 pages.   It was a little frustrating.  The other thing is that with these new character introductions, it was difficult to get invested in their story lines.  Especially since one of the main characters had a major life change and there was hardly an explanation as to what happened.  I would much rather have read about what that than about another friend whose relationship is on the fritz because of a Presidential election.  It was annoying to say the least.

I know this seems unfair, especially since I love books written like this.  They are more factual than poetic.  You get to know the characters much in the same way you get to know people in real life, through conversations.  There aren’t many people who reveal everything about themselves when you first meet them.  You need to foster the relationship, talk, get to know them, and I felt that Ms. Close handled that beautifully.  I just wish she had focused more on Isabella, Lauren, and Mary and less on the gaggle of friends constantly thrown at us.

Of the three main characters, I like Lauren the best.    I liked  her attitude.  The scene at Kristi’s bridal shower made me laugh.  I loved her spunk.  She wasn’t the only comic relief in Girls inWhite Dresses.  The novel was pickled in humor.  I laughed a lot.  And I especially enjoyed Lauren and Isabella’s story arch. 

It’s difficult to say if I would recommend this novel or not. I’m happy I read it, but I’m also happy I didn’t buy it.  It’s been on my TBR pile for a while and it’s my introduction to Jennifer Close.  I would definitely read her novels again, but they would be library books and not purchases.  

Final Take:  3/5
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Julie's Review: Girls in White Dresses

Summary:  Wickedly hilarious and utterly recognizable, Girls in White Dresses tells the story of three women grappling with heartbreak and career change, family pressure and new love—all while suffering through an endless round of weddings and bridal showers. Isabella, Mary, and Lauren feel like everyone they know is getting married. On Sunday after Sunday, at bridal shower after bridal shower, they coo over toasters, collect ribbons and wrapping paper, eat minuscule sandwiches and doll-sized cakes. They wear pastel dresses and drink champagne by the case, but amid the celebration these women have their own lives to contend with: Isabella is working at a mailing-list company, dizzy with the mixed signals of a boss who claims she’s on a diet but has Isabella file all morning if she forgets to bring her a chocolate muffin. Mary thinks she might cry with happiness when she finally meets a nice guy who loves his mother, only to realize he’ll never love Mary quite as much. And Lauren, a waitress at a Midtown bar, swears up and down she won’t fall for the sleazy bartender—a promise that his dirty blond curls and perfect vodka sodas make hard to keep. With a wry sense of humor, Jennifer Close brings us through those thrilling, bewildering, what-on-earth-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life years of early adulthood. These are the years when everyone else seems to have a plan, a great job, and an appropriate boyfriend, while Isabella has a blind date with a gay man, Mary has a crush on her boss, and Lauren has a goldfish named Willard. Through boozy family holidays and disastrous ski vacations, relationships lost to politics and relationships found in pet stores, Girls in White Dresses pulls us deep inside the circle of these friends, perfectly capturing the wild frustrations and soaring joys of modern life. ~ http://www.knopfdoubleday.com/

Review: Girls in White Dresses seemed like it was right up my alley, but what I found is that while I can remember my 20s and all that excitement, my experiences were different than theirs It's not that I couldn't identify with some of it because I could and some of it was funny. I just didn't find it wickedly hilarious. Sure, I chuckled at parts but mainly I felt sorry for these young women and I'm pretty positive that was not what the author was going for.

I found Isabella, Mary and Lauren to be your average, normal girls who were trying to make it on their own. We see their twenties roll into their 30s with not the greatest of ease. As some of their friends get married, move out of the city, have babies and generally move on with their lives; these three struggle. Especially Lauren and Isabella it seemed to me. We see different events through their eyes and the eyes of their friends. Some were heart-wrenching and others comical.

I do understand that sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find the right one for you, but it seemed to me that all of these girls settled for who they ended up with in the end. None of them seemed passionate about their boyfriend, live-in partner and then husband. There seemed to be no passion for them. For me that's worrisome, less passion comes when you are together for years. ;)

At times I found the stories hard to follow as I couldn't recall the relationship of the girls to our three main characters, but those were few instances.

I enjoyed the friendship that Lauren, Isabella and Mary had. I liked that they were boldly honest with each other and stuck by each other even when their lives changed.

I would definitely read Ms. Close again because she did have a wonderful way of telling a story and her wit was recognizable throughout the novel.

Final Take: 3.5/5