YA or STFU

The Celebutantes: On the Avenue, by Antonio Pagliarulo

Pagliarulo, Antonio (2007). The Celebutantes: On the Avenue. NY: Delacorte. 352 pages.

I’m kind of surprised it took me so long to find out about this series, especially since it has all the ingredients I typically enjoy in a new YA novel: bitchy, rich girl characters; series fiction formula writing style; a little smutty romance; and even a bit of mystery. That said, though On the Avenue, the first book in Pagliarulo’s “Celebutantes” series, has got all those fab features, the whole project doesn’t work as well as I would have hoped.

Here’s the rundown: when the fifteen-year-old Hamilton triplets–named Madison, Lex, and Park after the famous avenues in their native New York City–discover the corpse of a famous magazine editor in the cloakroom of the fundraising party organized by Madison, particular details of the murder tie the death to each of the girls in different ways. Each girl has a less-than-altruistic motive for solving the mystery: Madison and Park want to clear the names of the boys they like, both of whom have been named people of interest in the murder investigation, and Lex wants to clear the air so that she can launch her new designer clothing line. When another body is found even closer to home, the girls attempt to turn the publicity surrounding the murders to their advantage while they work even harder to solve the case.

This book exemplifies one of the truths readers of series fiction know and that series haters can’t imagine: not all series fiction–even if it seems to rely upon the same narrow bank of literary tropes–is created equally. Although “The Celebutantes” attempts to capture some of the “Gossip Girl” glamour, it fails–as, I have written, the “Private” series fails–to really animate and distinguish its characters from one another. Series of this type work well when the narrative encourages both our envy and our disdain. As with “Gossip Girl” and its more recent and (coincidentally?) triplet-centric spin-off “The Carlyles,” there’s a certain element of schadenfreude buried within what seems to be entirely brand promotion so that, for example, we end up feeling sorry for the rich bitch who loses all her money, even though we secretly think she deserves it. In “The Celebutantes,” the characters’ problems seem too big and too distant from those of the regular folks (like us) and, as such, they don’t even really serve as metaphors for our own issues.

So, yeah, I’ll probably read the second volume in the series–just to see if it gets any better–but, if given the choice, I’d pick the Carlyles over the Hamiltons any day.