A Gorgeous Excitement

Reviews

“Lush and thrilling.”—Publishers Weekly

“This book will haunt me for a long time. Cynthia Weiner is intimately familiar with the 1980s NYC preppy scene: close enough to recall its details, and distant enough to critique it intelligently. In this riff on the story of the notorious Preppy Killer and his much-maligned victim, Cynthia Weiner condemns the callous attitudes and conspicuous consumption of an entire strata of society ready to believe the worst of an outsider while refusing to see the truth of one of their own.” —Crime Reads

“On the Upper East Side in the 1980s, Nina Jacobs is desperate to fit in. Throughout this absorbing, astute novel, she endures painful parenting, scurrilous gossip, and regular old teenage indignity—but when she starts getting close to a handsome, preppy regular at the local dive bar, things begin to look up. Or do they?”—Town & Country

“Terrific debut . . . the book recalls another excellent true crime–inspired novel, Emma Cline’s The Girls. Carefully paced and beautifully written, this edgy coming-of-age novel succeeds on all counts.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Drawing on her own teen years and the notorious Preppy Killer of a young woman in Central Park . . . Weiner incisively captures the timbre of the time; the city’s beauty, madness, and terror; the stunning recklessness of young women; and the endless complexities of families.”—Booklist

“A vivid snapshot of a bygone era and evocative coming-of-age story, A Gorgeous Excitement lives up to its title.”—Margarita Montimore, national bestselling author of Oona Out of Order

“A mesmerizing story—both very much of its time and also timeless—of the young inhabitants of the (mostly) wealthy Upper East Side of NYC in the coked-up 1980s. A gripping, juicy, fascinating glimpse into a rarified world of a realm by now transformed.”—Tama Janowitz, author of Slaves of New York and A Certain Age

“A Gorgeous Excitement is the rarest blend of charm and suspense, at once delightful and terrifying, an expertly written non-coming of age that also serves as cautionary tale, as quintessentially haunting as New York City itself. Read it on a bench in Central Park, but only before night falls.”—Elisa Albert, author of After Birth and Human Blues

“I read this brilliant debut with my heart in my throat.”—Daisy Alpert Florin, author of My Last Innocent Year

“A Gorgeous Excitement is at turns both gorgeous and exciting. Cynthia Weiner offers a delicious response to Bright Lights, Big City, capturing vividly what it was like for a young woman in the louchely glamourous, cocaine-fueled, privileged white Manhattan of the 1980s.”—Susan Jane Gilman, New York Times bestselling author of Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress and The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street

“A Gorgeous Excitement is a propulsive read filled with vivid characters and a uniquely hilarious, if impossibly sad, mother-daughter dynamic.”—Holly Brickley, author of the forthcoming Deep Cuts Expand reviews