Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: "Drowning Ruth" was a tightly knit novel peopled with
well-drawn sympathetic characters in a tale with an inventive,intriguing plot."All is Vanity" contains only [weak] characters, and a plot so slight as to be virtually nonexistent. The author has a gift for description of place and the knowledge of what goals drive individuals to exceed their reach. She certainly illustrates both the New York and California locales with valid, poignant and amusing anecdotes. In this book, we can only ask "who cares?" Ms. Schwarz portrays two women, both of whom lack substance, sincerity, credibility and character. Sorry, but this novel is not worth your time spent in reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: Is it Vanity or Reality?
Review: A childhood friendship is misused (or abused?) in a somewhat sad yet definitely entertaining manner in Christina Schwarz's second novel. One mishap after another befalls each friend in this tale of vanities of an English teacher on sabbatical whose husband graciously supports her year's leave so that she can write her "dream novel" (although she's never even been published!) while on the other coast, her stay-at-home mom best-friend battles kid- and dog- and cat-poop and carpooling woes amidst the Beverly Hills crowd of artsy folk while living in Southern California and attempting to maintain a lifestyle that just doesn't fit with her own simple tastes and finances. The realities that hit both friends makes for a fun, easy read. Grab some popcorn, and get ready to chuckle as you enjoy this almost believable tale that is one that you can probably relate to in one form or another (although you probably would be cautioning one or the other friend throughout the story!).
Rating:
Summary: Utterly disappointing
Review: After reading "Drowning Ruth" I was very excited to see Christina Schwarz had written a new novel. The plot sounded fascinating and I was keen to read just how Letty's life was going to be so drammatically influenced by Margaret. Instead, half of the book is about the difficulty Margaret experiences with her writing. Perhaps Schwarz is trying to provide justification for why Margaret would later use Letty - someone who is her close friend. But this makes for INCREDIBLY tedious reading. You can skip over whole paragraphs and you will not lose the thread of the story. You may just miss Margaret's husband (or someone else) asking her for the hundredth time on the progress of her novel. You may miss Margaret getting rejected over and over: either when she attends a writing class, or looks for a job. Or you may miss her staring at her computer or reading Letty's boring emails, but that's all you will miss. If you want to buy this book, skip to the second half and you may feel less bored. For my part, I am utterly disappointed and though I tried to give this book two stars, I felt it was not justified. Rather read "Drowning Ruth" which is a five star novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Possible beach read for the undiscriminating beachgoer
Review: After reading all the rave reviews, I found this book such a disappointment. There is very little true character development. The reader gets to know "Letty" ("best supporting" character) through her series of emails to the book's protagonist, Margaret. Margaret is a self-indulgent school teacher who has quit her job in order to become a successful novelist. We learn a lot about how precious and quirky Margaret was as a child, a result of a sophisticated, slightly bohemian, upper-middle class upbringing. (Schwartz inexplicably contradicts this depiction later in the book, when Margaret's family is described as the picture of middle-America, fixed in their lawn chairs on a little cement slab backyard.) When Margaret eventually realizes that she is unable to produce even a page of prose, much less a novel, she resorts to appropriating the first-person story her "best friend" Letty is revealing through email. Letty's is a rags-to-riches-to-rags via keeping-up-with-Beverly Hills-Joneses story. Letty & her husband live beyond their means in California, fall into great debt, suffer consequences. These events are chronicled in a series of superficial and boring emails from Letty to Margaret, obviously contrived by Schwartz expressly to push along her plot. Margaret feels guilty about betraying her friend, but cannot stop encouraging Letty to make bad decisions because the results yield interesting drama for her book. She becomes convinced that her creative larceny will result in a great novel, the proceeds of which will repay Letty's debt and redeem her standing as a true friend. I will not be a "spoiler" by revealing the conclusion, but will say that this book's "moral" is as unconvincing as its plot and characters. The descriptive passages are very self-conscious and long. There are many annoying inconsistencies, similar to the conficting presentations of Margaret's family. Margaret is an unlikeable, unsympathetic woman whose self-effacing (occasionally amusing) humor cannot redeem her as a worthwhile protagonist. And the characters of her husband, Letty, and Letty's husband are simply too undeveloped to ever take shape. This may be an okay beach read (though only for the undiscriminating beachgoer), but it is does not begin to approach the level of literary novel by even the loosest standards.
Rating: 
Summary: Diabolically funny and bittersweet
Review: All is Vanity, by Christina Schwarz (also the author of Drowning Ruth, an Oprah pick), is a story about two life-long female friends. Margaret, who fancies herself the Batman to Letty's Robin, quits her day job to write a novel. She figures she can crank out a good book in about year. Not surprisingly, she finds writing to be a tougher gig than she'd supposed. Beset by writer's block, she'll do just about anything to avoid work. Diabolically funny and bittersweet, the book is, most impressively, very well written. I found myself repeatedly re-reading paragraphs to savor the language.
Rating:
Summary: Drowning in Vanity
Review: As Margaret, our narrator, ruins several lives in her efforts to get her novel published, it becomes quite clear that All is Vanity would never have earned publication without the success of Drowning Ruth. While Ruth is suspenseful, I had difficulty even getting through Vanity. The characters are annoying and nearly impossible to empathize with, and become more and more despicable with each passing page. Wholly unsatisfying.
Rating: 
Summary: Lifestyles of the Rich and Fatuous
Review: Before I start, I'd like to clarify one niggling detail: I suspect that All is Vanity is not Christina Schwarz' second novel but her first. It's the semi-autobiographical ("write what you know!") effort that she resurrected after Drowning Ruth's (well-deserved) success. By adding a new front-end (a quote from Ecclesiastes plus a description of the protagonist, at age seven, carving Greek temples out of soap) and a zippy title, Schwarz managed to transform a dust-gathering manuscript into a respectable novel. All is Vanity contains two separate but intertwined plots. The focus of the first 2/3 of the book is writers' block, a malaise that's afflicted all of us. That section of the book is crammed full with lots of details that exude verisimilitude, although the premise-that Margaret, our protagonist, would quit her job (never quit the day job) to become a novelist when she has only a vague notion of plot or character doesn't feel quite real. Moreover, the snippets that emerge from Margaret's pen don't suggest that she has any talent for writing. However, the description of writers' block is dead on, and the tricks that Margaret devises to get herself unblocked and to prevent herself from obsessing about her lethargy are depicted with excruciating detail. The last 100 pages describe the efforts of Letty, Margaret's long-time friend, to ingratiate herself with the Los Angeles high rollers for the purpose of furthering her husband's career. As one familiar with both the California job market and real estate prices, I had a hard time accepting that a job in a museum would pay enough for Letty and her husband Michael even to consider buying a house they couldn't afford, furnishing it with only the best, opting for private schools and silly enrichment classes for the kids, and throwing parties for the purpose of impressing fly-by-night acquaintances. (If Schwarz had transitioned Michael into a higher-paying career-say, investment banking or venture capital-I might not have had to suspend disbelief. And Schwarz could have created some truly unctuous characters among Michael's associates. But no matter.) Reading about the lives of the Rich and Fatuous is the most entertaining part of the book. After forcing myself through the first 250 pages, I was only too ready to settle into the Italian chaises with the pink, orange, and lime green bands and watch as Letty and Michael racked up the toys. With Letty maxing out the credit cards and ultimately resorting to criminal activity to deal with the mounting debts, the outcome is inevitable. (Schwarz unnecessarily underscores the hapless fate of this caught-up-in-the-lifestyle couple by throwing in an investment disaster and termites). The only mystery is that Margaret is somehow blamed for causing Letty's problems when her only sin was to serve as a member of the chorus urging Letty and Michael into a life of untenable excess. It's hard not to feel sorry for Letty when her freeway to fabulousness turns out to be a road that dead ends in Winnemucca. Final score: three stars. Characters inconsistent, plot implausible, but the writing was captivating. And if no one else has claimed those Italian chaises, I'll take them.
Rating:
Summary: Captivating!
Review: Christina Schwarz has written a novel that is such a clever, but scathing indictment of the artistic hubris of average people, that it almost seems mean, or unfair. Unfair, because she has written an engrossing, fascinating novel - with a message - that brilliantly characterizes a woman who wants so badly to write an engrossing, fascinating novel - with a message. Mean-spirited or no, it's a great read. I finished it in two evenings, which is incredibly quick for me. It reads almost like a cautionary tale, but what really grabbed my attention and held it so firmly was the detail of the characters, and the very nuanced layer of heartbreak, betrayal and dissapointment that seeps through every paragraph somehow. I hesitate to give it all five stars, however, mostly because I feel like the backbone of the story doesn't really emerge until more than halfway through the book. The structure of the novel is clean, and it makes sense, the first half mostly devoted to the slow breakdown of Margaret, and the second half mostly devoted to Letty's downward spiral, and it does set up a cadence that fits nicely with the cringe-worthy (in a good way!) finale. Like others here, I felt a bit cheated by the synopsis on the book jacket. Instead of turning pages expecting to see the betrayal finally happen, it should have emerged as a nasty little surprise. I guess that's what I get for reading too much about the novel before starting it myself!
Rating:
Summary: This writer has range!
Review: Christina Schwarz's "Drowning Ruth" may have wider appeal, but "All Is Vanity" is deeper. I also found it easier to relate to, at least partly because it's set in contemporary times and the characters are a lot like people I know. "All Is Vanity" is also terribly funny, in a sly way. And although it does have that cautionary-tale quality that other reviewers have mentioned, the book doesn't leave you miserable, depressed, and ashamed of being human, the way serious fiction often does; Schwarz has her heart in the right place and her head screwed on straight, even if not all of her characters do. You'll have fun with this book.
Rating:
Summary: An Exploration of the Dangers of Desire and Greed
Review: Christina Schwarz, author of DROWNING RUTH (a novel I particularly liked), has a winner in her sophomore effort ALL IS VANITY. Margaret and Letty, now in their 30s, have been best friends since childhood. Married and living on opposite coasts, they are each struggling with an identity crisis fueled by personal ambition. They continue, even at a distance, to support each other via expensive phone calls and then lengthy email messages. Letty is raising her children and grappling with the upper middle class existence and trappings of her husband's new curatorial position at the Otis Museum --- struggling because, while he has the job, he has only the promise of the salary to match the lifestyle. So on very little money, Letty is refurbishing a home, forking out big cash for haircuts and throwing lavish parties. Margaret, sure that she was destined to be the author of the next great American novel, quits her job as a teacher at an all-female preparatory school to devote her time to writing. She soon realizes, however, that her dream is not an easily achieved reality. Despite her husband's penny pinching and constant reminders of their financial conditions, Margaret finds all means of distraction to keep her from writing, including painting the house, hanging out in coffee bars and, ironically, writing classes. When she does finally begin to write, the result is less than stellar. Her main character Robert lacks, well, character. He and his tale are anything but engaging and her writing quickly goes nowhere. But Margaret has advertised to everyone that she has taken the year off to produce a book. She MUST produce a book. Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Letty is confronting her own problems. Her husband's rise to a prestigious position dictates that she must create an upscale home and present the appearance of wealth and class for his new colleagues. Living a lavish existence comes at a cost and Letty's lifestyle becomes an example of consumerism run amok. Desperate for a plot, Margaret begins to see that, with some slight modifications, Letty's story is the story Margaret has been looking for all along. The crossroads of their desires become the fodder for Margaret's novel and she begins to manipulate Letty in unseemly ways. Rather than advising Letty to cut back and avoid being caught up in the pretension that surrounds her new L.A. acquaintances, Margaret encourages her to live high off the hog --- with disastrous results. ALL IS VANITY is an exploration of the dangers of human desire and greed. Schwarz's telltale wit is ever-present as she rolls out Margaret and Letty's intertwined fates with dark humor and empathy. Margaret, even in her manipulations, is a likable character, sadly misled by her pride and ego. And Letty is the victim of her need to "measure up." The entire time I was reading the book I found myself saying "no, no, don't do that" and yet oddly satisfied when they did the very thing I discouraged them from doing. To her credit, Schwarz does not wrap up her story in a neat resolution. Letty and Margaret, bruised and banged up, friendship shattered, tumble to a deserved ending. --- Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara
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