The Wild One, the third novel in Gemma Burgess' Brooklyn Girls series, centres around Coco. The summary says: "Sweet, innocent Coco has always been the good one. But when she catches her boyfriend cheating on her, she decides it's time to break bad. Coco swiftly goes from spending all her time baking and reading to working nights in (and dancing on) a bar, falling in and out of love (and lust), stealing education - and along the way discovers that she is stronger than she ever knew... In a time when her best friends are suddenly plunged into break ups, break-downs, big breaks, and on the verging of quitting New York City altogether, it's up to Coco to keep them together and find herself along the way." The Wild One is out in November 2015.
This is the second book in the Brooklyn Girls series. It features Angie, a fashion-loving 22-year-old living in New York. She's jobless, lonely, and a bit reckless. When she discovers that her parents are getting a divorce, she tries to drown her sorrow in vodka and prescription drugs. The next morning, she wakes up alone and naked in a hotel room, with $3000 waiting on the side table for her. In a lifelong pattern of running away from bad situations, she flees to Turks and Caicos with her sleazy friend, Stef. The trip is disastrous, and Angie is pressured into taking money for sex. She swims to shore in nothing but her bikini and a small shred of dignity. Upon returning to New York, she decides to do three things: swear off men (they only ever want her for one thing, anyway), be nicer to her friends, and get a job in high fashion. Angie stumbles from one mess to another, beating herself up for always making the wrong choice, for always running away when things get tough. Will Angie get her dream job, or is she destined to work at The Gap forever? Will she ever let her guard down long enough to let anyone in? This is a fun, entertaining read that will always keep you guessing what's next. But as far as this series goes, I enjoyed Brooklyn Girls a lot more. Angie's voice sometimes felt forced, as if the author were trying very hard to write like a 22-year-old might think. Angie also calls her friends "ladybitch" as a term of endearment. Now, I am not averse to swearing, but this just doesn't sit well with me. The frequent use of exclamation points and run on sentences were also very distracting. (CK)
The second novel in Gemma Burgess' Brooklyn Girls series, Love and Chaos, centres around Angie. The summary says: "Wild child and secret romantic Angie wakes up in a hotel room with $3000 and no memories of the night before. Her best friends aren't talking to her, she can't get a job in fashion, her parents are divorcing, and she's about to turn twenty-three. And life is about to get much worse. On a journey from private jets and yacht parties to dirty subways and hipster bars via crazy storms, flash floods, and retail jobs from hell, Angie discovers who she is, what she wants, how she's going to get it - and a crazy little thing called true love. Meanwhile, her roommates lives are imploding, too. Coco's self-medicating and self-loathing, Pia's breaking up and cracking up, Madeleine's finding her voice and Julia might - just might - have met someone she can actually date."
In the first book in Gemma Burgess' New Adult series, the focus is on Pia, one of five friends who live together in Brooklyn. Recently out of college she is trying to forge her own path in life but when she loses her promising PR job that her parents helped her get she has two months to get back on her feet and prove herself before her parents threaten to take her back to Zurich. Desperate to make it work, Pia seeks out the services of a loan shark to start up her own food truck business, Skinny Wheels. And while things seem to be moving in the right direction for Pia, it's not long before everything begins to spiral out of control. Gemma Burgess has struck on a niche in this series: the twenty-something post-college experience and I loved the focus on this age group and its problems. Although some of the problems are a bit extreme, it was a refreshing read, with the love story taking a back seat. The style was young and vibrant and Gemma seems to have nailed the culture and dynamics of the group. Readers may baulk at some of the casual references to drugs and the storyline is certainly exaggerated. Similarly, if it's romance you're after this isn't for you. But this is a contemporary book in which the characters have all of the flaws and qualities of youth. I am really looking forward to seeing how this series develops and getting to learn more about the other four girls, Julia, Coco, Angie and Madeleine whose own lives and troubles we are temptingly given glimpses of in the novel. This is such an inspired idea. (JC)
Brooklyn Girls, by Gemma Burgess, is the first novel in a series about five twenty-something friends Pia, Angie, Julia, Coco and Madeleine - sharing a brownstone in Brooklyn. The summary says: "Sophisticated, spoiled, and stylish Pia finds herself completely unemployed, unemployable, and broke. So what is a recent grad with an art history degree and an unfortunate history of Facebook topless photos to do? Start a food truck business of course! Pia takes on the surprisingly cut-throat Brooklyn world of hybrid lettuce growers, artisanal yogurt makers and homemade butter producers to start SkinnyWheels - all while dealing with hipster bees, one-night-stands, heartbreak, parental fury, wild parties, revenge, jail, loan sharks, playboys, karaoke, true love, and one adorable pink food truck. And that's without counting her roommates' problems, too."
