Product Description

South Beach in the late 1990s is a town of blink-and-you'll-miss-'em nightclubs populated by celebrities, models, mobsters, heiresses, drug dealers, drag queens, and fun seekers of all stripes. It's a place where the famous come to party like locals, the locals party like rock stars behind velvet ropes, and the press is savvy enough to know what not to report.

Rachel Baum is a sheltered, career-oriented everygirl when she moves to South Beach from her quiet Miami suburb, searching for a life less ordinary. Quickly making friends among SoBe's most exclusive scenesters, she spends her days building a career and her nights building a reputation. But in a town where friends become enemies faster than highs become hangovers, the life less ordinary turns into more than Rachel bargained for. As she pursues the endless party in penthouses, dive bars, after-hours clubs, and cocaine speakeasies, Rachel struggles to balance her goals and ambitions with the decadence and excess -- especially her drug-fueled, on-again off-again relationship with Yale-graduate-turned-addict John Hood -- that threaten to destroy everything she's always worked for.

With tremendous wit and razor-sharp insight, Diary of a South Beach Party Girl portrays the innermost sanctums of South Beach's privileged Beautiful People through the eyes of a no longer innocent heroine.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #356800 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 323 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In her debut novel, former party girl Cooper smartly focuses on the fringe freaks who fueled the nightlife in the nauseatingly hip late 1990s South Beach: über-publicist Ricky Pascal, petulant heiress Amy, sexy felon John Hood and a host of bar workers and bar hoppers who hobnob with the rich even as they scramble to make their own rent. Rachel Baum—poet, aspiring publicist and hard-partying diva—narrates the frenetic scene from a prime VIP-room seat. The air kissing, photo-ops and drug-and-liquor indulging is the price of admission to the much more subtle seduction of Rachel and her entourage. "South Beach was a town in the business of seduction," Rachel notes. "Sometimes the sheer, overwhelming beauty of the place and its inhabitants was so sharp, it was almost painful." Rachel's love affair with the South Beach party scene ends when her search for "stability versus chaos" takes precedence over the addictive charm of a community that so readily forgives and forgets every destructive bender she (and everyone else) goes on. But it hardly matters: South Beach—and all of its neon-vodka-narcotic glamour—is a much better draw than the predictable mellowing of a party chick. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"The biggest sensation since Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls isGwen Cooper's Diary of a South Beach Party Girl." -- JumpOnMarksList.com

About the Author
A fourth-generation Miami Beach native, Gwen Cooper moved to South Beach in 1997 and contributed feature articles to Miamigo magazine and the South Beach News. Gwen currently lives and works in Manhattan, most recently as special projects manager for Wenner Media, publisher of Rolling Stone and Us Weekly.

Customer Reviews

An outstanding first novel
Diary of a South Beach Party Girl ended up being a lot more than I expected, and Gwen Cooper is one hell of a writer. Her prose is warm, witty, and beautifully evocative, her characters are completely unforgettable, and her story is by turns so funny and so moving that I have to agree with the other reviewers who said they found themselves both laughing and crying. It's the kind of book that sneaks up on you--you think you're reading an interesting and light-hearted account of the wild and decadent South Beach scene, but when you get to the last page you find you can't stop thinking about the people Cooper so vividly describes and all their ups and downs. You also won't be able to stop thinking about South Beach and how gorgeous and glamorous it must have been in its "heyday." Cooper's descriptions of what was really going on behind all those velvet ropes makes you feel like you're in right in the middle of the craziness.

This is a story about a close circle of friends you'll wish you were a part of, a page-turning love story about a doomed romance you'll wish you had (even though you're secretly glad you didn't have to go through all that drama!), and a coming of age story that any girl, or even guy, will be able to relate to. I was almost angry when I got to the last page because I never wanted this book to end. I wanted to stay with Rachel and her friends in their exotic, exciting world forever.

Unplug the phone & prepare for a late night
I came upon my "pre-release" book by accident in a library/bookstore and wasn't sure if I should read it out of respect for the Author...well, my curiosity took over and after the first few pages I was HOOKED!! Gwen Cooper writes so that you feel there with Rachel. What a journey she was on. Most of us can identify in one way or another with the character, even having not lived in South Beach. The struggle with careers, falling for the "bad-boy" ect.. This is a MUST read!! I actually read it twice & have ordered this as a gift..

I'm moving to South Beach!
I wasn't sure how I would respond to this book based on the title but I was familiar enough with South Beach to know that it would, at the very least, be a fun read. It was hysterical! Gwen Cooper is a terrific writer and if I ever get the chance to meet her one day we're going to have a great time. I just know it! Run to the store, buy a copy of this book, and have a great time on the beach, any beach, and enjoy the visions of celebrity dancing around in your head.