Rating: 
Summary: Lucky Girls - But Lucky at What?
Review: I read the book based on a strong review, but I was greatly disappointed. The stories are all well-written, but after each one, I wondered what I had read. What was the point? What was the author saying? The stories seemed to be about spoiled girls from comfortable families just going aimlessly through life. The girls had no goals, so they could not be faulted for making no effort to reach them. A total waste of time.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing and amateurish
Review: I knew nothing of this author when I picked up this book and find all the back and forthing in these reviews pretty amusing.
This is a perfectly OK collection of stories but nothing special. This is not some "talent for the ages" that some in the Eastern establishment seemed to have decreed. It's competent if rather shallow writing, standard-issue "Iike, I totally didn't know what I wanted to do with my life so I went and got an M.F.A" stuff..
Rating:
Summary: Still one star
Review: It's funny how all the positive reviews seem to be from people who know her, who knew her, or went to school with her. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... Doesn't change the quality of her writing one bit. O for the love of literature!
Rating: 
Summary: Nell, Nell, Nell...Well, Well, Well!
Review: To preface this review just let me disclose thatI was in the author's graduating class at Harvard, and maybe she knows me. I comped the Harvard Advocate, but decided against joining because I knew I'd be tempted to chisel out the piece of the wall that's engraved with T.S. Eliot's name and also probably steal some of the loose back issues to sell on ebay.
I liked the parties they threw and always walked back to Adams house (40 feet) without falling over and splitting open that hard thingy that holds my Harvard education. I was the dorky, Byronic, disheveled alcoholic one. I'm obviously jealous of her big, fat paycheck advance. Hey I lived in Paris and Madrid and other fun expat places after dropping out of law school...but the New Yorker has sent me nothing but rejection emails. Of course, I sent them only one story. Nell gives me hope. Congratulations and double congratulations (No, make that triple congratulations!) to Nell on getting her foot firmly in the publishing house door. She's as sharp as Zadie Smith, and what's more, she's a Harvard grad. Matthew Pearl's book was not as good, I must say. I loved reading these tales of spoiled rich girls trying to make a difference. In fact, I have a penchant for the type. A lot of people don't get the succulent irony of these stories--in fact she is a satirist making fun of Postmodernism/Gobbledygookism that most of my scrambled-eggs-for-brains English teachers at Harvard weirdly preached. You go girl! I hope your novel is as trenchant as these stories. Down with PoMo, down with kooky all-white paintings, abstract sculpture, negative spatial, black- leotard-wearing Derridian-Lacanian goofy doublespeaking writing. I bet her novel is going to be like a big "Disco Sucks" stadium rally where all the raw-meat eaters chant as the steamroller crushes a mound of Saturday Night Fever records! I'll just end this by curbing my enthusiasm. Oh, who am I kidding, this is an awesome read! Go buy one copy for yourself and one for posterity right now!
Rating:
Summary: Wish I'd like it, but...
Review: It's funny--most of the positive reviews for this book seem to be from the New York area--where the author is from--I feel fairly certain they're friends of hers. The strories here are just dismally mediocre, the "musings" of the socially privileged and insulated..the author just doesn't seem to have anything to say. It's certainly not envy that provokes me to write this--I am a reader, not a writer--I cheer every time a good book comes into the world but this one made me sigh with frustration. It's just...flat and amateurish. I think the so-called "jealous" reviews below are more bewilderment that this author has gotten so much unwarranted media attention when there are so many worthier candidates...sigh--better luck next time.
Rating:
Summary: Annoying American girls wreaking havoc abroad
Review: I would rather have Bechtel take over my municipal water supply then have these 'lucky' girls come and live, or even worse, try to give aid, in my third world country. In one of the two stories I could get through, a comfortably well off family goes to Bangkok to visit its daughter, Mandy, who is volunteering at an AIDS orphanage.
On principle, this really bothered me. Mandy is not a doctor, so what is she really doing at the Thai AIDS orphanage except getting in the way while getting to feel morally superior and enjoy an exotic country? I find that kind of charity work - exotic and chic in its slumminess and rejection of bourgeoisie comforts - really self serving, and not very useful. Let's recognize it for what it is. She is so painfully politically correct that she has zero character judgment. After she springs her slimy, no account Thai boyfriend on the family, she takes her mother to task (which you could tell she was just dying to do) for not appearing to like him, even though the mother's only prior exposure to him had been when Mandy called her to tell her he had raped and hit her. When her mother finally gets Mandy alone, Mandy basically responds "Oh, when I called you all hysterical that time? He didn't really rape and hit me. It was just a cultural misunderstanding. And don't you dare judge him! You just don't like him because you're a racist xenophobe! I reject your bourgeoisie lifestyle and values! You can't possibly understand what a deep, meaningful experience I'm having in this rich culture while I make the world a better place at the same time! So there!" Another story involves a twentysomething homewrecker who lingers in India long after her lover dies, just hanging around, blowing off her brother's wedding back in the states, being a painful reminder to her lover's mother and his family. The story ends when she finally dares to tell the dead lover's mother that she, the young American mistress, should have been summoned to see him after he fell ill and was surrounded by his wife and children. Sorry, but as a mistress you don't have that right, you disrespectful tramp. Most of the girls reminded me of those insufferable girls who would return from their semester abroad and claim not to remember the American English word for various common items, or even worse, speak in a different accent for a few days until they were finally shamed into dropping it. But these are the girls who decided to remain abroad and become expats. You go away, girls.
Rating:
Summary: this book is good who cares about the hype?
Review: A very solid first collection. A lot of the reviews below, which talk more about marketing and advances, are clearly sour grapes from jealous would-be writers. Who cares how much she got paid?
Rating: 
Summary: A fair read
Review: When the hype regarding "Lucky Girls" began, I was determined not to read this book...the premise linking the stories didn't appeal to me, and I am often not a fan of collections of short fiction. However, when I picked up a recent issue of Granta and noticed one of Freudenberger's stories, I read it. And the story that I read, I found to be wonderful. So I bought the book. Freudenberger, has a way with describing the romantic trysts that permeate the collection. I found the relationship between the young girl and her tutor to be beautifully and insightfully written. Unfortunately, I felt that Freudenberger was trying to hard not to fall into the cliched category that is "women writing about romance" in the rest of her stories and I didn't much get into her writing when she stepped outside of the form and subject matter that she did best. I was especially unmoved by the way that she depicted familial relationships in almost every story (most strongly in the story about the suicidal mother and alzheimer's stricken father - which I loathed) Overall, I found the collection to be readable, but not riveting. Moreover, I don't believe that I will pick up the next book. There doesn't seem to be a lot of room to move for this author - the stories didn't seem to be brimming with unrealized talent. It seems that the story that I loved, "The tutor" was a lucky shot.
Rating:
Summary: Exquisite first book
Review: This book is a treat to read from the first page to the last. It's masterfully crafted and the characters jump off the page. I only wish there were more stories in the collection. It is truly amazing that this is the author's first book. We should all feel privileged and lucky that we will have so many more books from this super-talented author. Would I recommend the book? Absolutely. Get a first edition - it will be worth something someday.
Rating:
Summary: don't believe the hype
Review: I knew the author in college and enjoyed her fiction for the Harvard Advocate, admittedly against my will. I read this collection hoping that the spark she had shown back then had developed into something more substantial. Unfortunately, "lucky girls" is as unimpressive as she was--mediocre, pretentious, run-of-the-mill with a passably attractive cover. My advice to Nell: Better luck next time (though perhaps her luck has run out--much has been wasted on this overhyped collection). There's talent in there somewhere....but these stories ain't where it is.
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