a fortunate age. joanna smith rakoff. (300)

i picked up a fortunate age after reading smith-rakoff's blurb on the back of emma forrest's your voice in my head.  it sounded like a book i would be interested, twentysomething trying to make life happen in nyc.  in fact, i was shocked that the work didn't make it onto flavorpill's list of books to fill your the 'girls'-shaped hole in your life.  it seemed like it was girls but in the nineties.  however, after reading the book, i discovered why it was probably off of the list, this work is simply mary mccartney's the group (which was on the list) but with the characters' names changed and set in the nineties.  it was such total plagiarism that i had to give it a one star on goodreads and wrote this review:

Rakoff more like ripoff!  I had deja vu the entire time I read this novel, I felt like I had read it before and in fact, I had.  Instead of reading this, you should just read Mary McCarthy's "The Group".  This book is an "homage" to it but really, she just took McCarthy's novel and changed the character's names and the decade to the 90's.  The whole time I was reading, I kept wondering how this book was ever published, I mean it should be illegal to copy another author's like Smith Rakoff did.

i mean i get that authors will allude to other works or do retellings, even fan-fiction is fine since you are simply taking character's names but writing your own work, but what smith rakoff was just plain copying.  i mean how did her publisher and editor let this book see the light of day?  were they just banking on the fact that the group is kind of dated and current readers have never read it?  i mean i will say that most of the goodreads reviews either didn't mention the group, or admitted to never reading it.  but still, i can't believe that this book was allowed to be published.

in addition to that, i can't help now but i think of smith rakoff has a coattail writer.  last year, she came out with a book about your time with j.d. salinger, which i was tempted to read, but didn't since he was a recluse.  but it seemed like she used his name to sell her book, i mean it was called my salinger year.  and after reading this, i can't help but accuse her of stealing from mccarthy.

but seriously just read the group, instead of this.  i hate to waste so much time on this novel, but have to call out this copycat.

lily and tuck were kay and harald.  both kay and lily's wedding opened the book, as their deaths closed it.  just like kay, lily became the breadwinner, and just like harald, tuck, was a horrible husband.  tuck cheated on caitlin, a character that was exactly like norine, the girl that harald cheated with.  i even think caitlin's justifications for tuck's cheating were the same ones that norine used.  just like harald, tuck had kay committed must like lily, and both claimed their wives were hysteric.  the only difference was that kay may have committed suicide while lily died from the flu.  however, both husbands were  unwelcome guest at the funerals.  i also have to add both husbands were arrested after involvement in a protest that took place in a hotel.

beth was dottie.  both had a sex adventure at the  beginning of their story.  where as dottie lost her virginity, beth just had some weird sex.  though beth ended up marrying the person she had sex with, just like dottie, she had second thoughts about her marriage.  both women worried about still being in love with her first love (for dottie this was the man she lost her virginity too.) both women had close relationships with their mother and got advice from their moms on this matter.

emily was polly, both were the poor ones of the group and have a family history of mental illness.  they both have affairs with married men who are separated from their wives.  however, these men's wives still have power over them, in original gus' wife had him see a psychoanalyst while curtis' wife made him join AA, in the end, both men return to their wives.  just like polly's dad who suffered from mental illness went to live with polly, emily's sister who suffered from mental illness went to live with emily.  everything is fine and dandy when they move in, i even think polly's dad, like emily's sister help make improvements around their apartment.  both become socialist/communist, and started to be a financial drain.  however, emily and polly both end up marrying doctor's they meet due to this drain on money, polly married the doctor she met donating blood, emily married a doctor that helped her when she got injured as her second job (this doctor she had met previously when trying to get help for her sister.)

sadie was a blend of priss and helena.  she was helena because both discovered about their best friend's affair.  she was priss, because she struggled with motherhood, though while priss struggled to get her baby to breastfeed, sadie couldn't get her son to stop.

and caitlin is norine, both had affairs with married men and then justified it with politics.  they also both end up divorcing their husbands then remarrying rich jews.  both show up and make a sense at the funerals of the women whose husbands they slept with.

tal was lakey.  the one that everyone was in love with, and just like lakey spent most of the novel, aboard.  i kept on expecting tal to come out in the end just like lakey did, showing up at the funeral with her lesbian lover.  but i guess smith rakoff figure to cut back on some of the copying.

don't know who dave was, but i mean smith rakoff needed to have one character of her own.

ps i also didn't like how lightly she treated 9/11.  i mean the fact that she mentioned it in emily's storyline explaining that her sister came in two days after that seemed odd to me.  i also wonder if travel to nyc was stopped due to 9/11 and if so, then she should have had emily's sister come in a different time.