“Rich and Pretty” by Rumaan Alam

As promised 55 pages ago, here's my break. Total beach read. (Except, unfortunately, I did not read it at the beach--although there is a section of this book where the main characters travel to Turks and Caicos. Which is not quite the same as me being at the beach, but vicarious is better than nothing.) 

This is definitely not my usual type of book. How did I end up with it, you ask? Well, it all started (as this sort of thing often does) at Half Price Books. My habitual method there is to head straight to the Fiction section and peruse spines until I get a crick in my neck. What catches my eye? Interesting titles, Penguin orange, and the names of familiar authors. In this case it was the latter. One year into the pandemic I read Alam's Leave the World Behind and found it interesting enough to give another one of his books a try.

Rich and Pretty tells the story of Lauren (who is pretty) and Sarah (who is rich), thirty-something New Yorkers who have been best friends (at least in name) since the age of eleven. About the time we make it through Sarah's beautiful, forty-page fairytale wedding with no mishaps, I started to realize: there really is no point to this book. Nothing has happened, and nothing is going to happen. My assumption that Dan and Meredith were having an affair? Pfffft. Way off. Dan really is exactly as predictable as he seems. But then there is a point, and it's the best one of all: Relaxation. Escapism. Just the pure enjoyment of reading a story. A bit like vegging out in front of the TV except it feels slightly more intellectually healthy just by virtue of the act of reading. And that is exactly what I needed.