Any description about a book that begins with Mad Men and The Devil Wears Prada immediately grabs my attention. Renée Rosen’s Park Avenue Summer lived up to all of my expectations and more. Set in 1965, Park Avenue Summer follows the summer of Alice Weiss, a young woman headed to New York City to do good to her mother’s memory and to have a fresh start. Alice lands a job at Cosmopolitan with the help of her aunt on her mother’s side, and working for Helen Gurley Brown, who wrote Sex and the Single Girl, opens a lot of doors personally and professionally.

One of the things I liked most about this was the attention to detail, Rosen’s ability to bring the past to life and make it fresh and modern, and Alice’s growth from a relatively naive Midwestern girl to a confident woman. Helen Gurley Brown’s take-no-shit attitude helped launch Cosmopolitan from the society magazine it was before to the vibrant, in-your-face magazine we still recognize today. I always tend to forget how much the 1960s shifted public perception of a lot of ideas and behaviors we take for granted today, and Rosen’s story of the fictional Alice Weiss and the very real Helen Gurley Brown makes me want to read more about the history of Cosmopolitan and the publishing industry of New York in the 1960s. Rosen thankfully gives a list of recommended reading at the end of this book that will be incredibly helpful in starting my own research.

I also loved the portrait of New York City Rosen painted in her novel. Rosen captures the cutthroat reality of the city while also maintaining that the city is full of dreams just within your reach if you’re willing to make the effort. NYC is a magical place for me, and I love seeing that balance portrayed so well in fiction. I love stories about women coming into their own, stories about the publishing industry in all its forms, and, of course, stories about New York City, and Renée Rosen’s Park Avenue Summer was the perfect blend of all three. Be sure to check this one out at the end of the month!

Historical fiction introducing a fictional character, Alice Weiss, to help tell the story of the groundbreaking Helen Gurley Brown. Alice arrives in NY from Ohio, hoping to make her way in the big city in the 1960’s . The sense of time and place is strong and sets the atmosphere for the fight against the male dominated magazine world. Alice becomes Ms. Brown’s assistant, while trying to find her own direction. Recommended; thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy.

Living in New York City had always been a dream of Alice’s mother, and Alice decided that is where she wanted to be so she could fulfill her mother’s dream.

When Alice arrives, she finds New York as glamorous and frightening as she thought it would be, and she finds a job working with Helen Gurley Brown, the editor of COSMOPOLITAN, a pretty scandalous magazine for the 1960’s.

We follow Alice as she works with and comforts Ms. Brown in the whirlwind office that Ms. Brown creates.

Ms. Rosen definitely puts the reader into the story with her terrific descriptions of activity in and out of the office, and she brought 1960's New York alive as we were allowed to join in the daily lives of the characters.

It was fun following Alice around and hoping she would fulfill her dreams of becoming a photographer.

A few secrets about Alice's family kept the story line juicy along with stories of her love interest, Erik, even though it seems pretty difficult to be juicier than Ms. Helen Gurley Brown.

Ms. Helen Gurley Brown certainly was someone to be reckoned with and someone who gave Alice the courage to keep on trying to reach her goals.

PARK AVENUE SUMMER is filled with Renee Rosen's meticulous research, detailed description, and is an all-around-fun, educational read.

The ending was heartwarming. If you have loved Ms. Rosen's other books, you are not going to want to miss reading this splendid, delightful read. 5/5

This book was given to me as an ARC by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Renee Rosen, Author of "Park Avenue Summer" has written an intriguing, captivating, enlightening and thought-provoking novel. The Genres for this Novel are Fiction and Historical Fiction.  The time-line of this story is 1965, and takes place in New York City. The author describes her characters as ambitious, competitive, complex and complicated. I love the way the author vividly describes her characters and landscape in this story.

This reminds me of "Mad Men" and also the women's movement in the sixties. Alice Weiss, wants to be a photographer and leaves her small town to arrive in New York looking for a job. Alice goes to a friend of her late mother who sends her to work for Helen Gurley Brown, the first female Editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine.  Helen Gurley Brown's responsibility is to bring the failing magazine back to life.  Alice helps assist Helen, and is witness to the competition, betrayals, and difficulty still in a business that is  still run by men. There seem to be reasons why certain people want to sabotage the magazine. Soon Alice is not sure who is her friend, and who will betray her.

I appreciate that Renee Rosen brought us back to the sixties, and the memories that I have of that period. I would highly recommend this wonderful novel to readers who enjoy Historical Fiction. I received an ARC from NetGalley for my honest review.

Such a fun book...great glimpse into a real turning point of our history, and one of the leading style icons of that era. The characters (fiction and non fiction) were entertaining and real...

This book is a captivating look at an amazing woman and a turning point in history that would eventually revolutionize women’s magazines everywhere.

Alice has a dream of becoming a photographer. Everyone back home in Ohio loves her photographs, so she thinks she is ready to chase her dream in New York City. It doesn’t take long for her to realize that she is a little fish in a big pond. After several interviews she is fortunate enough to get a job as a secretary to Helen Gurley Brown, the new editor-in-chief of the Cosmopolitan magazine.

This story was just as much about Alice as it was about Helen. Even though it is told from Alice’s perspective, I was mesmerized by Helen and her vision for the magazine. The Cosmopolitan is in a downward spiral and Helen was brought aboard to save it. She has big plans for the magazine and feels she knows best what “her girls” want to read. The only problem is that her bosses don’t share her confidence and continuously try to derail her vision.

This book is the perfect blend of fact and fiction! I absolutely loved it! Both Alice and Helen’s story lines were captivating. I was in awe of Helen and her determination. Her thinking was so far outside the box, it was often cringe-worthy to everyone around her. She is in a man’s world fighting to break out and let her voice be heard. Alice learned a lot by working for Helen, but nothing more important than to chase your dreams and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t.

Most of the story was spent building up to the July issue of the Cosmopolitan magazine. I could hardly wait to see how it turned out and had to stay up later than I would have liked to see how it would all end.

Not everyone will agree with the direction that the Cosmopolitan magazine would take, but there is no denying that Helen’s drive and forward thinking was light-years ahead of her time!

Mad Men meets The Devil Wears Prada as Renée Rosen draws readers into the glamorous New York City of 1965 and Cosmopolitan magazine, where a brazen new editor-in-chief--Helen Gurley Brown--shocks America and saves a dying publication by daring to talk to women about all things off-limits...
A delightful historical fiction/coming of age novel about the beginnings of Cosmopolitan magazine under Helen Gurley Brown. I really enjoyed learning about how she changed this magazine and about the girls that worked with her. Great characters and could not put this down once I started. 5 stars

Alice Weiss arrived in NYC with little more than her late mother’s camera and the name of her mother’s friend Elaine Sloan. Alice had left Youngstown, Ohio after her long term boyfriend, Michael, broke their engagement and married another woman. She hoped for a career as a professional photographer. Elaine arranged an interview for Alice with the new editor of the flagging Cosmopolitan magazine,Helen Gurley Brown. Helen had never edited a magazine but had written a best seller about young women entitled Sex and the Single Girl.

Hearst publishers were convinced that Cosmopolitan magazine, a once popular magazine filled with fiction stories for women, was losing money and should be shut down. However they gave Helen Gurley Brown a chance to save the magazine. Helen decided to turn the staid magazine into a tantalizing guide to young single working women. She encountered lots of opposition from the Hearst executives but finally proved them wrong and made the magazine a success.

Alice’s job as Helen’s secretary was an important one and Helen relied on Alice for everything from typing and making appointments to picking up Helen’s cat from the vet. A coworker named Eric started dating Alice in an effort to learn about Helen’s plans but soon the relationship became a steady one. Alice didn’t love Eric but enjoyed the intimate evenings alone in his Park Avenue apartment. Then Alice met Elaine’s young friend Christopher and Alice was smitten.

This book examines the life of a single woman in working in publishing in NYC in the mid 1960s. The author uses many real locations in NYC as well as real people (Helen & her husband, some famous authors, several Hearst executives and even a famous photographer). However Alice, her friends and coworkers are all fictional. The author relied on information from a trusted associate of Helen to create the book. Helen died in 2012.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, this ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Park Avenue Summer is a nostalgic trip back to 1965. One thing I liked about this book was the descriptions of all the New York landmarks and other famous spots. I could imagine Ali in spots like Tavern on the Green and the Dakota. Another thing I liked was all the name brands mentioned, not just in the magazines, but also in the stores and what the characters wore from clothing to perfumes. The story was a good one about a fictional woman Ali, Helen Gurley Brown's secretary when she first started at Cosmopolitan. The struggles Helen had starting the magazine with her brand on it is depicted very believably. Along with Helen's story is Ali's coming-of-age story about her dream to become a photographer. I enjoyed reading about the time period and the lives of these women who were trying to make it in a man's world.
I received an Advance Review Copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

I loved this book! Alice is a small town girl from Ohio with big city dreams where she meets up with a friend of her deceased mother who helps her find a job in New York City with Helen Gurley Brown. Alice begins working with Helen Gurley Brown during the months leading up to her launch and redesign of Cosmo.

4.5 stars.

This book was a bit of a slow start for me but once it got moving I didn’t want to put it down.

The setting and time period was a new to me read. I found the premise of the magazine world fascinating. It is a world that I know nothing about. It was very frustrating to be reminded of how much women have struggled in the corporate world.

Alice became very real to me and her struggles at times brought me to tears.

Loved this book and the great integration of fictional characters with a robust portrayal of actual people and places that were prominent in New York City during the mid-sixties. Quickly became invested in the story and enjoyed the book from beginning to end.

Alice Weiss moves from Youngstown, Ohio, to New York City in 1965 to pursue her passion for photography and finds an apartment on top of a butcher shop and an interim job as secretary to Helen Gurley Brown who has just been hired by the Hearst Corporation as editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine. Although already famous for writing Sex and the Single Girl: the Unmarried Woman’s Guide to Men, Careers. The Apartment, Diet, Fashion, Money and Men in 1962, Helen Gurley Brown has had no experience editing or even working at a magazine and her hiring has people scratching their heads. HGB does have smarts and chutzpah, though, and uses these qualities to shake up the magazine industry, raising Cosmo’s circulation to a million copies a month and quadrupling ad revenue while at the same time winning Alice’s admiration and inspiring her to follow her dream.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC of this book.
Put a small town girl in NYC in 1965 and find her a job at Cosmo as Helen Gurley Brown's secretary and you have a story that moves right along. A lot is revealed about AGB that is not commonly known as well as interesting details about Cosmo, living in NYC in the '60s and what it is like to be thrown in the middle of this. An enjoyable read.

I want to thank NetGalley and Berkley for this advance copy. I truly loved Park Avenue Summer. I am a big fan of this time period. I loved all the characters and the setting in 1960s New York. Alice was a very believable character and I really liked reading about her career choices and watching her grow up. I truly enjoyed reading about Helen Gurley Brown and seeing the relationship between her and Alice and learning how she started Cosmopolitan magazine. This is a great read.

Loved this book as I always loved Helen Gurley Brown, her book Sex & the Single Girl. I was 13 in 1965, growing up in the NYC area, when the story takes place and HGB has taken over at Cosmo. I became an avid reader of Cosmo in It’s heyday ( the 70’s) and I looked forwrd to and cherished my copy every single month, even as it got more and more “ daring”. So the whole story resonated in time and place with me; details about 1965 were on the money! Today HGB would be very un -PC, but she was and still is to me an icon. This book was everything and more! I loved it from the very beginning to the end! Highly recommend!

An interesting look at Helen Gurley Brown, the woman who made Cosmopolitan the magazine it is today through the eyes of Alice Weiss, a typical small town girl who has to learn how to make it in New York as well as find herself. Good, but ultimately not a tremendous standout from her main character.

This was such a fun book! I loved the forward-thinking depiction of Helen Gurley Brown, and this book reminded me a lot of a '60's version of the Devil Wears Prada. Alice Weiss is a young woman who moves to New York City to begin a new life away from the heartache she left behind in her home town. She begins work for Gurley Brown as her secretary just as Cosmopolitan is beginning its transformation from a respectable ladies magazine to one more in tune with the single girls of the 1960's. Weiss is a relatable main character and she encounters some bumps along the way as she begins to discover what she really wants out of life.

An interesting look at one young woman's foray into the sexual revolution at the heels of the revolutionary herself, Helen Gurley Brown. We are privy to what the woman behind the office door was like as well as the fearless, smart and ready to kick some publishing butt woman we know. What the world didn't realize is that when the door closed after meetings or when the office was quiet, this courageous woman was often reduced to crying spells and long phone calls to her husband for support. Only her secretary and husband really knew how badly she needed to turn around Cosmopolitan and strike a blow for working women everywhere. This is not just a great historical look at a formidable woman executive at a time where there weren't many to be found, but also a look at the changing times and ways that Helen Gurley Brown influenced a generation of young women.
My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

I love Renee Rosen and her writing so I was really excited to read her latest book Park Avenue Summer. This historical fiction novel takes place in 1965 in New York City. Helen Gurley Brown became the editor-in-chief to help revive the then failing Cosmopolitan Magazine. No one realized that she would try to change the entire look of the magazine to focus on what women really wanted to read. Unfortunately, the male executives through curveballs to fight against her success.

Helen hired Alice to be her secretary and personal assistant. Alice found herself being Helen's champion throughout the transformation by doing whatever she needed and being her personal cheerleader. As the stress of the newly revamped magazine is about to be released, Alice learned that she too can conquer her fear of being strong and independent while doing what she loves.

This is one you won't want to miss reading! I received an Advance Review Copy of this book. All opinions are my own.