sábado, 19 de março de 2011

Review: Vixen (Flappers #1) by Jillian Larkin

Vixen (Flappers, #1)
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. . . .  From debut author Jillian Larkin, VIXEN is the first novel in the sexy, dangerous, and ridiculously romantic new series set in the Roaring Twenties . . . when anything goes. (From Goodreads)
I love historical fiction. I really do. And I really like the 20 and 40, because everything seems to be so glamorous. So, the first thing who attracted me to Vixen, was the cover. I really loved it! Of course that dress wouldn't look good in me, but in the model, is pretty. 
Well, the story shows three differents POV. The main character, Gloria, her best friend, Lorraine, and her cousin, Clara. The girls have differents personalities, but they actions are interlaced in the story. Gloria was the typical good girl (you know, good grades, good daughter and things like that), but before her wedding with Chicago's most eligible bachelor, Sebastian Grey, she wants to get a little bad. So she decides to go to the most popular place at the moment, The Green Mill, to see how is to be a Flapper, and dancing all night and having great drink, but this decision is going to change her life. She mets the pianist Jerome Johnson, who plays with his band there, and the sparkles start. This is something that I didn't saw before. I liked that Jillian Larkin showed something that was unusual for that time: The interracial love. Isn't something that you see a lot in books. And I liked the way that the difficulties that Gloria and Jerome got because of that were shown. The reality was well portrayed. 
On the other hand, we've Lorraine, Gloria's best friend. I didn't like her since the beginning. She was selfish, stupid and most of time I felt that she was with Gloria, just because it gives popularity to her and because Gloria is close to Marcus, Lorraine's love interest. Maybe in the second book, she gets better, after all the trouble that she ended in the first one. 
And in the end, we've Clara, Gloria's cousin, who has a troubled past in NY, and was sent to take care of Gloria's upcoming wedding. Clara was my favorite character in the whole book, because since  the beginning we know what are Clara's intentions, but after some chapters we can see her little changes. In my opinion she was the character who has the most notable changes, through the book.
The guys play a important part on the book, because most of the girls decisions are taken because of the boys. Marcus, Jerome and Sebastian are major characters on the book, but I won't talk about them or else I'll give spoilers, and it wouldn't be fair.
I'm excited, waiting for the second book in this series, Ingenue, which comes out on August of this year. I read that lost of people thought that the Flappers series, are similar to Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen. I've BYT in my TBR pile, and I'll read it, and after that I'll see if they're similar.


So I give to this book:


I really enjoyed this book!