Envy by Anna Godbersen - Book Review #71

Envy

by Anna Godbersen

Two months after Elizabeth Holland's dramatic homecoming, Manhattan eagerly awaits her return to the pinnacle of society. When Elizabeth refuses to rejoin her sister Diana's side, however, those watching New York's favorite family begin to suspect that all is not as it seems behind the stately doors of No. 17 Gramercy Park South.

Farther uptown, Henry and Penelope Schoonmaker are the city's most celebrated couple. But despite the glittering diamond ring on Penelope's finger, the newlyweds share little more than scorn for each other. And while the newspapers call Penelope's social-climbing best friend, Carolina Broad, an heiress, her fortune—and her fame—are anything but secure, especially now that one of society's darlings is slipping tales to the eager press.

In this next thrilling installment of Anna Godbersen's bestselling Luxe series, Manhattan's most envied residents appear to have everything they desire: Wealth. Beauty. Happiness. But sometimes the most practiced smiles hide the most scandalous secrets. . . .
From goodreads.com

Envy is a third installment of the Luxe series and, in my opinion, the worst book in the whole series. To tell you the truth, I’m not a big fun of these books to begin with. First one was sort of cute. Second one was already too soap-operish and boring, but nothing compared to the third one.

While I was reading Envy the only thing that I could think of was that Anna Godbersen didn’t have any plot for the third book. I had a feeling that she had something stock up for the fourth book, but before that she had nada. However, she had to write this third book (contractual obligations?), so Envy turned out to be the big nothing. Nothing was going on in this book, the only continuous feeling that we (and all characters) are waiting for something. It turned out to be the long setup for the fourth and the last book in the series.

Despite all of this I still loved epigraphs to each chapter. Either it was an invitation, or the piece from the newspaper, or the quotation from some book. These epigraphs were terrifically written by Anna Godbersen, were sometimes hilarious and went very well with each corresponding chapter. I always enjoyed these tiny additions to a book, such as epigraphs, either written by the author or picked out from other sources, or chapter titles. I think these details add something special to a book and in case of Luxe series, they certainly did.

After finishing Envy, if I wouldn’t have the fourth book standing on my shelf already, I would probably never finish these series.