Okay, before I launch into why I loved this book and stayed up late reading it and was late for work trying to finish it, let me take you back to 1984. The television industry loved miniseries back then and, in my opinion, there wasn't a miniseries better than Lace. It was the story of a famous model who grew up an orphan, abandoned by a mother she never knew. The one thing she did know was that she was conceived by a woman amongst a group of three friends that attended boarding school. This scene has stayed with me all these years:
That scene gave my young teen heart life! I loved Lace so much that I read the book several times and even sat through the less than stellar Lace II where Phoebe Cates' character, Lily, tried to find out "which one of you bastards is my father." So I was ecstatic when I read the description for The VIPs. I'd seen the author tweet about the book, but didn't really know much about it. Once I realized that he had written a story loosely based around the Lace theme, I was in. The only twist was, he wrote it from the male perspective.
Four childhood friends, connected through Sag Harbor, are brought back together by a famous rapper for reasons unknown. Although each man has had a successful career, they've had less than stellar personal lives and the connections to their friends are dangling by very loose threads. Reunited by TNT to answer the question of whom is his father sends the group of friends reeling down memory lane. With writing that pulls you in from page one and doesn't release you until the very end, Scott Poulson-Bryant has written the perfect beach read.
What did you like about this book?
The character development was excellent. I felt like I liked the characters I was supposed to and despised those deserving of it, purely based on how well they were written. I also loved that there was no predictability with the story line. Up until the very end I was surprised at how the story turned out.
What didn't you like about this book?
I honestly can't think of a thing.
What could the author do to improve this book?
I'm going to need a miniseries. I tried casting the character's in my head and can't come up with any actors that could play the roles of the four friends. Although I can easily come up with names of established actors to play the boys' parents, I'd love to see some unknowns take on the roles of Barry, Joey, Duke and Leo. So yeah, I'm going to need that to happen.
384pp
Published: July 2011
Theme: Friends by Whodini
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