A Fortunate Age by Joanna Smith Rakoff

A Fortunate Age by Joanna Smith Rakoff. A number of female friends who went to Oberlin confront contemporary Manhattan.

Sorry. I couldn’t finish this. I got to page 136 and I went off to live my life. The story of these girls could be absorbing, but they were too many of them, too hard to tell apart, and the stakes were too low. The novel begins with an interminable wedding scene with zero conflict, introducing about a dozen characters. I enjoyed reading individual scenes which were absorbing and tense, although conversations seemed a bit too didactic. The scenes didn’t build in a way that made me want to keep reading. Finally, I enjoyed the prose style. She’s a good writer.