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    This Vacant Paradise: A Novel
    Unavailable
    This Vacant Paradise: A Novel
    Unavailable
    This Vacant Paradise: A Novel
    Ebook330 pages3 hours

    This Vacant Paradise: A Novel

    By Victoria Patterson

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “Patterson beautifully parses the consequences of one woman’s fall in this memorable, penetrating, fully achieved novel.” —The New York Times Book Review
     
    Story Prize and California Book Award finalist Victoria Patterson revisits Newport Beach in This Vacant Paradise, examining the intersections of economics, class, race, sex, and family expectations during the mid-1990s.
     
    Esther lives with her grandmother, a virulent matriarch who controls her family through her wealth. Esther knows that an advantageous marriage replete with social standing, familial and peer approval, and financial rewards will alleviate her struggles. But she has been known to self-sabotage, and her loved ones are rooting for her not to blow it with her latest beau, especially since she’s at the ripe old age of thirty-three.
     
    All is well until she begins a tumultuous love affair with Charlie, a local college professor known for his unconventional ideals as much as for his golf game and good looks. He sets a fire inside Esther, sparking and delivering her—whether by choice or not—from the insular, safe, and stifling confines of societal expectations to an alternate, unglamorous, and indefinable course. The result is a stunning debut novel: a powerful work of fiction sure to provoke and engage.
     
    “Patterson writes with the exuberance of a natural storyteller. Her cast is rich, her narrative sinuous and masterfully structured.” —San Francisco Chronicle
     
    “Considering the subject matter—the real housewives of Orange County—Patterson’s debut novel (after story collection Drift) is surprisingly sophisticated and nuanced.” —Publishers Weekly
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateMar 10, 2011
    ISBN9781582438726
    Unavailable
    This Vacant Paradise: A Novel

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    Reviews for This Vacant Paradise

    3/5

    13 ratings3 reviews

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    • 2/5
      I also disliked the book. I gave it two starts because it started out being interesting to me, but I did not finish it. The comparisons to Edith Wharton on the book's cover intrigued me, but these characters had very little to redeem them.
    • 1/5
      Why am I so sorry that I disliked this book so intently? One of the blurbers wrote "Think of England", which I loved. The main character is a modern day Lily Bart but engenders absolutely no sympathy. Plus the other seems obsessed with excrement in a very strange and noticeable way. Plus every character is reprehensible. I read into the night thinking something good would come of this. I was wrong.
    • 3/5
      I received this book for review through my blog. I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was drawn into the story and the lives of these characters.

      Stay tuned for a full review, as well as an author interview on my blog: Escapism Through Books.