Park Avenue Summer is the fictionalized story of the revamp of Cosmopolitan magazine in the early 1960s. The novel is full of glamorous fashion, fancy lunches and dinner dates, and other glimpses of high society. Unfortunately, the plot fell flat for me. Our protagonist Alice is your typical small-town girl who somehow lands a position as a secretary for Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown through a series of meet-cutes. There is some mystery of Alice’s family, but I confess I have already forgotten the mystery because frankly, it was forgettable. There is a love triangle with a “bad boy” and “sensitive guy” and the whole thing was so contrived that I am bored writing this review. Alice was your basic Mary Sue, which I found annoying. Now I am struggling to remember why I gave this book 3 stars and not lower.

I think I am just in a bad mood from multiple weeks of self-isolation as I write this review. This book isn’t bad, it’s just forgettable. Read it on your next beach vacation, or on quarantine when you need some historical fiction to escape the insanity of the world right now.

Some stats:

• Finished on March 14, 2020, took 6 days to read

• 368 pages

• 3 stars on Goodreads

• Genre: Historical Fiction, Glam Society

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