Everybody Rise - Book Review

In Stephanie Clifford's debut Everybody Rise, Evelyn Beegan fakes her way into a group of socially elite rich people in order to build membership for a social media site for socially elite rich people, a job that she also sort of faked her way into. A former private school kid, she has a background into this crowd, but she's never quite been a part of it. Thankfully, she's a fast learner.

But while she's surfing on her wave to the top, her lawyer father's illegal actions threaten to bring down the Beegan family and Evelyn believes it's up to her to save the day no matter the cost, both figuratively and literally.

This was a much-buzzed about book at Book Expo America 2015, and, yes, I'm just now getting around to reading my ARC of it. But it was worth the wait. You know what's going to happen, but Evelyn is such a trainwreck that you can't look away. She spends so much time trying to be like other people, will she ever be able to just be herself?

I can see how some people have not liked the book. Evelyn is a hard character to have sympathy for because she really does become a psycho social climber, and it almost feels nice when she gets her comeuppance. You don't want to like the richy rich people who are so snobby, but at times, you really can't root for Evelyn. I'm not even sure she redeems herself in the end, but if her friend Charlotte (the only person in this story who seems to have some perspective and commonsense) forgives, I think the readers can, too.

Everybody Rise is published by St. Martin's Press and is on bookstore shelves now. I received a free advance review copy at BEA 2015 with no obligation to review.