Summary: Penelope “Pepper” Bradford is recently engaged and has taken a board position in her new upscale apartment building. Yet, she still feels unhappy and directionless — maybe her new and much older neighbors can show her a little direction and exactly how to live.

Carnegie Hill was definitely a “judge by the cover” NetGalley request and honestly, it didn’t quite live up to how cute I found the cover. There is a decent mix of characters and it was fun to see all of them interact with each other but there were a lot of tropes used that I don’t particularly like, which isn’t anyone’s fault but my own. There were also a lot of time jumps and overlaps that puzzled me, all interspersed with moments that should have felt big — and were obviously meant to be meaningful — but fell somewhat flat for me.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this a decent book overall but it’s just not for me, not yet anyway. Let me know if you’ve read this one and what you thought!

Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinpress for this e-ARC!

Carnegie Hill is the story of Penelope “Pepper “ Bradford a rich socialite who has no job, no career and little else to spend her time in her day but to plan her wedding to her high powered financier Rick and be part of the co op board at her new co op, Carnegie Hill. The book follows the lives of Pepper and the people who reside in the building. All of whom have very interesting and somewhat entertaining lives for the wealthy of NYC. Poor Pepper while she loves Rick is too busy with picking out napkin colors and bridesmaids dresses to realize that she is not the only girl Rick is paying attention to. You must read the book to find out if Pepper and Rick can set their relationship back on course. But this book is well worth the beach read and the time to spend nosing into the lives of the rich elite of NYC. Carnegie Hill is a great “chick lit” read. A must not miss.

Carnegie Hill, by Jonathan Vatner, is a story centered around Pepper Bradford, a young, wealthy woman without very much direction in life who moves in with her fiance to a fancy co-op in NYC. Over the course of the novel, we see inside the lives of a few of the tenants and employees of the building, as they navigate life in the co-op.

Unfortunately, this story fell pretty flat for me. I really liked the concept of all of these people’s stories connecting in different ways, but Vatner’s execution of it was often choppy and seemed forced much of the time. The main character, Pepper, leaves so much to be desired, and her character, whom we are supposed to care about, has little redeeming qualities. Had her character development been stronger, I think that I would have become invested in the story sooner than I did.

However, although it took me longer than I would like, I did start to become more interested in Pepper’s story, and finding out how her story ended, as I read. I think that Vatner missed an opportunity to showcase Pepper as a strong female character, instead of a vapid, lost girl in her early 30s who is clueless and overwhelmed.

Ultimately, I did give this book 3 stars because it picked up towards the end and I thought many of the supporting characters were well-developed. I only wish that the same attention had been paid to the main character.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press / Thomas Dunne Books for the free electronic ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review originally written April 17, 2019, and published August 06, 2019.

Full review will be posted on GoodReads ( https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/93354926-jennifer-m ) on 08/01/2019, closer to the publication date. Thanks so much to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advanced copy!

When I requested the ARC for this book it was completely based off of the description, and I have to start by saying it was not quite what I had been expecting. I think I went into it expecting something along the lines of those wedding themed romantic comedies where it all centers around the heroine being caught between her perfect and loving fiance and her crazy and overbearing parents, but it all works out in the end. What I got instead was the larger scale soap opera that touches on all of the different love stories within the walls of the Chelmsford Arms, and dealing with much more serious subject matter than I had been expecting.

All of that being said, by the end I LOVED the stories and the way that they were told! Each story had a lot of heart, and each showed very different sides of love, and all with a diverse cast of characters. I will say that the chapter lengths were pretty lengthy (the novel is split into three parts with 18 chapters in total, but each totally many more pages than a typical chapter that you would expect), so at times I found that it could be a fairly slow read. But over all I still very much enjoyed it, and I would highly recommend it to any of my friends that want to spend a few days eavesdropping in on the lives of the upper class on up Carnegie Hill.

The tenants of a wealthy apartment building in New York City try to navigate love and marriage. Couples at each stage - first dating, just married, long married, look to the others to try and figure out what makes a relationship last and if their relationship is worth working on.

Carnegie Hill disappointed me. There were some great characters but their individual stories didn’t really feel like a whole story. The writing style bothered me the most- jumping back and forth in time, giving immense detail for a day in someone’s life then speeding through months.

I’m not sure what the author was trying to accomplish here. We have a 33 year old main character that has yet to grow up. She doesn’t have a job, just recently moved out of her parents’ house and is in therapy. She's mad at her parents, who don’t trust her fiancé. But he is suspect, the kind of guy that admires his friends’ ability to hide his infidelity.

We hear not just from Pepper, but Rick, her fiancé, also other residents of the Chelmsworth Arms and a porter there as well. As the blurb spells out, Pepper seeks confirmation that long term, happy marriages are possible. But as she discovers, it’s not easy and her older neighbors all have their problems. It deals with love and forgiveness (of self and others).

This book just dragged for me. I’m not sure I can blame the pace of the book so much as my lack of interest in the characters. It wasn’t that they were likeable or unlikeable, I just couldn’t get invested.

This isn’t a bad book, it’s just not a particularly good one. One of the plotlines designed to allow Pepper a peek into her neighbors’ lives was positively gimmicky.

My thanks to netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance copy of this book.

CARNEGIE HILL, by Jonathan Vatner, focuses on Penelope "Pepper" Bradford, a woman, at age thrity-three, whose maturity to adulthood has been stilted by her spoiled upbringing. Pepper has recently moved with her fiancé, Rick, into the Chelmsford Arms, an elite and expensive co-op building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Pepper has a new home, a new man, and is in a new chapter in her life. As Pepper wades through all of this, she finds out that what she should want and what her soul tells her she wants are two different things.
Vatner creates a world within the walls of Chelmsford Arms of the financially elite lifestyle in New York City. Pepper is a well-developed and layered main character, but unfortunately at times comes off as unappealingly spoiled and unaware of how the world works around her. Vatner does do an excellent job, though, of creating a wonderful cast of supporting characters in the building, all of which are likable in their own way. As the story progresses, the reader is rewarded with the emotional growth of many of the people around Pepper and although there are some uncomfortable but captivating turns towards the end of the book, the novel ends on a hopeful note for everyone.
CARNEGIE HILL is an entertaining and insightful book about the New York elite and also reminds us that everyone can grow as people now matter how much money or how old you are.

I had high hopes for this book - smashed to smithereens. Everyone was unlikeable, everyone was damaged, entitled, and name dropping all over the place. There is a love story that destructs by being “dismantled from the inside”. Oversexed, crazy sexed, not enough sex, “vulgar and morally suspect” - and that is the author’s description so where can we possibly go from there?!

The story was a shade wide of believable. A newbie with no career, no credits, and less experience elected to the Board of a stodgy old coop in NYC. I suppose it happens but gaining the upper hand and taking over, that’s is a large stretch. A husband who can’t keep it in his pants, a gay couple struggling not to be outed while wanting to be “out”. Everything in this book was out of nowhere and everything gets thrown into the mix and thrown at the wall to see if anything will stick.

I received this book from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.

Carnegie Hill by Jonathan Vatner is the story of the people who like in the Chelmsford Arms co-op in New York City. We are first introduced to Penelope “Pepper” Bradford and her fiance rick. Pepper has no job, no kids, and no real idea what she wants to do with her life. When she joins the co-op board to give herself some purpose. When her future marriage to Rick is in a state of turmoil due to his suspected cheating and her parents dislike of Rick, she turns to her older neighbors for advice, not realizing that their marriages aren’t as great as they appear to outsiders. Throughout the novel, we get a look into the lives of the couples at Chelmsford Arm, the staff who serve them, as they struggle to free themselves from their unhappiness.

I really enjoyed this book. The writing by Jonathan Vatner was wonderful. The word choice and the way all the different stories flowed together made this such an enjoyable read. The characters are not all very likable, but they are definitely unique and eccentric. At first, Pepper was the exact opposite of a person I would care about, but by the end I really grew to like her character. I found the examinations of the different marriages to be insightful and intriguing, despite not being married myself. I would have liked to get to know the characters a little better, and I felt that the weaving of all the different vignettes together didn’t allow me to do that as well as I had hoped. Overall, I enjoyed this novel and if you’re looking for an easy read that you can get lost in, then this is the story for you.

ARC provided via NetGalley in exchange for my honest and thoughtful review.

ARC received from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Honestly, it’s hard to review this book because I found it so boring. The characters were awful - so self-centered and not at all relatable - and the storyline just didn’t grab me. Not one I would recommend to others.

Review Title: A Story of Human Connections for All Ages
3 Stars

I was uncertain at the beginning of this interesting, funny and touching novel whether I would stick with it, mainly because of the protagonist (a 30-something, recently-engaged young woman from an elite background) and the setting (Upper East Side co-op apartment building in New York.) I didn’t think I would really relate to either. Much to my surprise, I was quickly drawn into and engaged with a world far outside my own experience, due to the interesting variety of characters who live and work in the building. The story skips among different points of view, from Pepper’s, the young woman we meet in the beginning, to various older residents, including two interesting older couples, to a young gay employee who falls in love with an in-the-closet Russian co-worker.

I liked how all the different stories were resolved at the end, though it felt a bit disjointed at times, almost as if I were reading a collection of short stories that were sometimes intertwined. When I read the author’s afterword, it didn’t surprise me to learn that he had originally written them as separate pieces.

In any case, it was an engaging book overall, though not without its sad parts, but ultimately uplifting and a testament to the universal humanity we all share no matter our age or circumstances. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for allowing me access to the ARC of this novel.

Carnegie Hill is a well-written story of the many residents and staff membersof the Chelmsford Arms in New York City. This book isn’t a quick read. Prepare to spend days or even weeks soaking it all in. But that’s not a bad thing. Some books shouldn’t be rushed, and this is one such book.

Carnegie Hill explores love between several couples at many stages of life and love. The plot isn’t twisty and tantalizing. Rather, it takes its time and revels in being honest and sweet and at times, painful. We follow Pepper and Rick, brand new residents and newlyweds. We get to know Birdie and George who, after 40 years of marriage and dealing with depression, are re-thing forever. We watch Francis and Carol struggle as they keep secrets from each other. We cheer hard for Caleb as he chases forbidden love with Sergi. With many more colorful characters, this book is a gem.

I went back and forth on this book. There were times I found the plot / characters interesting, and other times when I was so bored. I found most of the characters to be really unlikeable, except for a few gem moments for each. Francis, in particular, was thoroughly obnoxious, and I wanted Carol to leave him almost as soon as we met them. In all, I was glad to finish the book and get some resolution, but didn't love it enough to really recommend.

When a newly engaged young couple moves into a multi-million dollar apartment in an elite old building on New York's Upper East Side, we soon learn that they -- and the much-older couples in their building -- do not have the perfect lives they may project to outsiders. Great story, with multigenerational characters we truly come to care about.

This book was just fab. I really felt like I was living in a New York co-op while reading this book, and it was so beautifully written. I think that Jonathan really got the measure of the petty squabbles and minutae of living in such a place, plus I loved the story line of a marriage that breaks slowly down. Absolutely brilliant.

How was this tagged as a romance? I guess train-wreck was too on point. Seriously though, I ended up loathing 99 percent of the characters in this book. Even the one person I didn't loathe, I seriously disliked because he outed someone. I am surprised this wasn't an Oprah Book Pick since every time she loves a book I usually have this reaction to the book.

"Carnegie Hill" follows the residents and a man who works at a co-op in New York. Yeah. I am trying to come up with something pithy here, but that's all I got. Vatner switches POVs from various people throughout this book. We have Pepper (trying to go as Penelope) Bradford newly engaged to Rick. We have Pepper and Rick's next door neighbors, Birdie and George. We also have Francis and his wife Carol. We also follow a porter that works at the building, Caleb.

Pepper was exhausting. She is an heiress based on context clues and doesn't have a job. Though she's had other relationships end due to her parents commentary, she's happy and in love with Rick. Moving into Carnegie Hill she has a chance to prove to them that she can do something meaningful and joins the co-op board. Of course she finds out that the board is full of a lot of elderly residents who seem okay with the co-op being predominantly white. Pepper is what I call white outraged. Angry about it, but really doesn't try to do anything except complain about others. She's also beyond exhausting about people having "secrets." This is mentioned throughout the book. I really wanted to tell Pepper that's called boundaries and mind her own damn business.

Pepper's fiancee Rick was a hot mess. No spoilers, but what the hell. At one point I wondered if this author was taking a jab at therapy or what because what some of them were saying had me going the hell.

Birdie is trying to get her recently retired (or told to retired or be fired) husband George to take an interest in his life again. She wants them to move back to Canada or just do anything else. Instead George spends a lot of his time sleeping and avoiding leaving their apartment. I don't even know what to say. Birdie read as heartless and George was a confusing character to me. I don't know what he wanted exactly. I get feeling like it wasn't fair that he was pushed out of his job and then the next one he took he was fired from due to him not getting technology. But the spiral felt so fast to me as a reader. And then it just continues for about a year.

Francis, also exhausting. He's similar to Pepper wanting to complain about the rich and elite but not do much about it. Him trying to get Caleb to read books and acting as if he understood his life was....well it was something.

Caleb seemed to be there to give the everyday man's perspective, but I found his world view to be too simplistic too.

There are secondary characters in this one (too numerous to count) and they jumble through the characters stories. Everyone started to read as a caricature to me after a while. I really started to cringe every time Pepper and Rick popped up because I just needed a break from that slow moving disaster.

I have to say that the writing wasn't that great. I think switching from Pepper, to Birdie, George, Francis, Rick, and Caleb didn't help. I honestly had no energy for half of the characters and the lies and mess they were telling themselves and others. The whole book felt disjointed and read like a bad play. I don't know if Vatner was going for something humorous or what. Or was trying to say something pointed. Whatever it was, it flew over my head. Oh wait, it made marriage seem like a hellscape of never ending snide remarks and anger that the person that you married isn't doing exactly what you want in the moment though you are constantly changing your mind.

The flow was not good. The character POVs were lopsided. We spent most of the book with Pepper. I don't know if this could have been fixed if we just stayed with Pepper and Rick or what. Everyone was so underdeveloped.

The book takes place in New York over the course of a year I think. Though a few places are mentioned like Central Park, for the most part the book doesn't do a great job of exploring New York. Everything felt claustrophobic after a while since everything takes place in apartments or at therapist offices.

The ending felt unfinished to me.

I was so excited about this book. I love New York City and glimpses into the elite social scene. Sadly, though, this book was way too shallow for me. I expected a bit of that knowing the characters would all be rich socialites, but I hoped at least some of them would be endearing. Nope- they were mostly just frustrating and selfish. Then, after being introduced to these self-observed snobs, I was supposed to sympathize with their dramatic problems: cancer scares, muggings, and suicidal thoughts. And I just really couldn’t gather myself enough to care.
Pepper was an aimless, spoiled girl who basically got married to spite her parents then complained about her husband the entire book. And the rest of the residents of the Chelmsford Arms all complained about everything, too. At first their banter was entertaining - like the first co-op board meeting - but it got old quickly.
“We have Earl Grey, ginger peach, gunpowder green, jasmine green, and lavender mint,” Nate recited.
“You don’t have plain black tea?”
Nate pursed his lips. “I’m afraid not.”
How childish and annoying. You have five tea options: pick one.
Vanter tried to incorporate more than just the aforementioned issues, too, like race, psychology, and divorce, but, again, the characters just weren’t likable enough for me to really feel for anyone. The only two who sort of grew on me were Sergei and Caleb and their LGBTQ “angle,” but their relationship didn’t always come across as very believable to me and was a little too neatly tied up.
I suppose anyone who loves the super snobby side of the NYC social scene might enjoy this book. Or someone who was raised with money in the city or sits in a co-op board and could actually relate might get a kick out of parts. I personally wished I could, but certainly could not. Also: I would not recommend this book to anyone who’s triggered by the considerable mention of suicide.

I did not finish this. I feel bad but it just wasn't for me. The characters were annoying and whiney.

I really enjoyed the book and the characters. .