Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton: book review

Social Creature (2018) is set in New York City.

Louise and Lavinia meet by chance. Louise is 29 years old, has nothing, and is in therapy. Lavinia is the social creature. She is 23 and has everything: ‘Stick with me long enough and I promise—things will just happento you. Like they happen to me,’ she says to Louise. Together, they will party until they are both famous writers travelling the world.

Lavinia likes entering places illegally, for fun, like the Central Park Zoo, and she likes partying until dawn. Louise can’t afford to party, nor buy party clothes, until she meets Lavinia and wears her dresses, and takes her money, and moves into her apartment. Louise even has Lavinia’s boyfriend Rex.

Everything is great. Being a pessimist, Louise waits for everything to go bad, because ‘things always turn.’ Six months later, Lavinia’s parents threaten to put a block on her access to her credit card and their money. Lavinia’s 16-year-old sister Cordelia arrives at the apartment looking for Lavinia.

Obsession, deception, theft and lies are out of control. Everything is toxic: toxic friendships with shallow lives and obsessive behaviours.

The characters are not likeable and the plot is a female-version of a well-known film – The Talented Mr Ripley. The start is slow and the ending is predictable.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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