Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

 

Second book club book #16

This book is hard to sum up. It's good. It paints a wonderful picture of a slice of life in 1930's NYC, but the snippet is complex. It's hard to tell who the book is really about, and it definitely has multiple messages, which complicates things.

If compelled to give an opinion, which these blogs are ultimately all about, I'd say I liked this one specifically because of the characters. The year in the life this book covers gives each character a complete arc. Nobody ends near where they start, and accomplishing that for this cast is an admirable feat.

It's quite a fun group in Rules of Civility though:

• Katey is the "career" girl, whose innovation, talent, and smarts carry her.
• Evelyn is the opportunist who struggles to find that perfect escape from the life she has to work to lead.
• Tinker (what a great name) is the charmer with the hard lessons on the horizon.
• Hank is probably the most intelligent guy in the crowd, but he's battling between self-expression, addiction, and duty.
• Anne is the high society dame who's hard to resist.

This list only hits the characters that reoccur the most, but there are plenty more. Many of which complete smaller arcs of their own, moving on to a new place from where they begin within the course of the story. It's so well done.

The only complaint with this book is that, for me, it was hard to feel like anything was really happening because of the tone. Everything is delivered at a more even clip, no matter how huge it all really is in the lives of these characters. Sometimes, I found myself flipping back a page or two to soak it all in.

However, overall, this is a very well-done novel, and an enjoyable read. Nicely done and recommended for anyone in need of a period piece that's outside of the Regency era in Britian.