Book #11: The Perfect Manhattan

Book #11: The Perfect Manhattan
Authors: Leanne Shear and Tracey Toomey
Pages: About 445
Final Grade: A-
Buyability: 5/10
Status: Borrowed

First I'd like to preface this by saying this book earned its grade because I was surprised at how good it was. I'm using good as a relative term - no this was not Chaucer or Proust, hell it wasn't even Sophie Kinsella (whose writing style incidentally drives some people batty) but what it was an excellent, light, but gritty and fascinating portrayal of the under belly of the 'good' life and the 'night' life.

The story follows a recent college grad of Columbia who is saddled with debt and a slightly useless creative writing degree (perhaps why I relate?) named Cassie, who decides to enroll in bartending school, ultimately fails, but manages to lie and smile her way to the 'top' of the bartending scene, and indirectly, the social scene of Hampton's once she lands a gig at a hot club. Of course she deals with a romantic relationship with an extremely well-to-do Hamptonite, and it's quite obvious throughout the book how things will turn out in Cassie's love life...but I have to give the writers credit for the romantic conclusions they draw between Cassie and her boy James' love lives....they handled the relationship between them in a fairly realistic manner throughout, not the least of which was found in the end of the book.

But forget the love story or the 'thrill' of getting an insiders guide to Hampton's bar life - the thing I found most interesting about this book was the extremely graphic and somewhat digusting description of what it means to be a bartender. From the opposite side of the counter, suddenly all of the things Cassie internally dwells on rung true, whether exploring misogyny, sex, or wealth I always found Cassie to be exceptionally insightful - which gave this book the depth it needed to earn it an A- grade! I recognized the trappings of what I've heard from bartending (and waitressing) friends, and it also reminded me of an IPP presentation for the girls in the year above me in cre com who did a documentary on how working at a restaurant such as Earls encourages alcoholism. I found the lifestyles of the main characters in this book so insanely bizarre (getting home at 7 am and being up and at em a few hours later? hungover? ICK!) that it just drew me in regardless of the somewhat 'flat' characters throughout. As I said, the insights of Cassie probably came more from the two girls who wrote this book, former bartenders and likely aspiring writers at the time, and as such I found this a very valuable book in learning to tip and be a bit more polite at bars! A good read for anyone interested in a fun story that more than makes up for its lack of concrete plot in its insider look at the service industry.