Violet Trapp comes from an impoverished, dysfunctional family in
Florida. Through hard work, she manages
to get into college where she meets Stella Bradley who is her opposite: gorgeous, pampered and wealthy. They become best friends. After graduation, Stella sets off to tour the
world while Violet gets a job in cable news in New York, a job in which, by
dint of hard work and talent, she achieves success and promotions. When Stella returns from her jaunts, she uses
her family connections to also get a job with the same cable news network. Soon she overshadows Violet’s hard-earned accomplishments
by becoming a star anchor. Will ambition
bring their friendship to an end?
Neither of the two women is likeable.
Violet works hard but she allows herself to be abused by both Stella and
her family; in her desire to be accepted by the Bradleys, she allows them to
treat her like a servant. For most of the
book, Violet is totally passive and never hesitates to rescue Stella from her
poor choices. Of course, she is
ambitious; she uses people and sacrifices everything for her ambition. Stella is charming but narcissistic, a
spoiled rich girl. Only when she sees
Violet’s success does she stop being frivolous, but she is motivated by
jealousy. Stella means star and she certainly does not want to
be overshadowed by anyone.
The pivotal event, where Violet finally reacts to Stella’s manipulations
and abuse, is far-fetched. Considering
her previous behaviour, it is totally inconsistent. There is a big difference
between using people to advance one’s agenda and doing what she does. She can’t ever bring herself to be honest
with Stella and express her frustrations, but she can do this and risk losing
everything? She goes from being a shrinking violet to
being Iago? And then there are her
confused emotions. At the beginning, she
often speaks of her love for Stella.
Later she says that she is “pretending to love” Stella. But then she confesses that no one would be
an adequate replacement for Stella: “I’d
never love him the way I loved her.”
Another issue with the book is that some events are just thrown in for
no reason. For instance, Violet is told
that her parents, with whom she has had no contact for years, might contact the
media and ruin her reputation. That
threat is never mentioned again.
The novel is very slow-paced. It
is not until two-thirds of the way through the book that something actually
happens. Until then, the only interest lies
in determining whom to dislike more: the
manipulative, self-centered Stella or Violet whom her friend aptly describes as
“’a leech . . . a suck-up’”? Violet is
the narrator so her opinions about herself and Stella may be motivated by
self-interest but her actions reveal her true personality.
This novel was just not for me.
There is nothing wrong with ambitious women, but both Violet and Stella and
most of the other people in the novel show only the dark side of ambition.
A more balanced perspective would have been more realistic.
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