“Bright Young Things”
Freedom, you finally have freedom from all the things you grew up thinking were your only choices. You go to the big city to make something of yourself. That’s how life will end up for Letty and Cordelia; they come from Union, Ohio and find out what they were missing out on all along. This novel, “ Bright Young Things”, is by Anna Godberson and it is worth the read. Cordelia and Letty leave Union, Ohio just hours after Cordelia’s wedding to a man named John. They’ve always dreamed of going to the big city of New York and becoming something everyone said they could never become. They pack everything they own, which fits into one suit case each and get on a train to the big city. On their first night they get a taste of what the speakeasies are like. Cordelia admits she came only to find whom she thinks is her father, Darius Grey. He is a famous bootlegger, and from all the stories her aunt told her, she knows he is her father. The girls end up fighting and Letty is left with close to nothing because Cordelia is the one who brought the money. Cordelia sets out to look for her father and introduces herself as his daughter to him at one of his parties. He realizes quickly that she is telling the truth because she speaks of her mother who passed away. Not only does she have a father now, she also gains a brother named Charlie. Cordelia meets her new best friend, Astrid Donal, who is dating her brother. Her life is now getting so great living in the famous bootleggers mansion.
Meanwhile, Letty has not as good of luck. She becomes friends with the girls from a woman’s shelter who help her get a job at a speakeasy as a cigarette girl. People discover her talent as a singer, and one man named Amory tricks her and says she will be the singer at a party. She finds out during her performance that he just wants her to strip for men at bachelor party. She feels as if life couldn’t get worse, but it does. Letty gets fired, kicked out of the girls home and is poor.
Cordelia starts courting with her father’s enemy’s son, Thom Hale. She has to sneak out to see him through a hidden tunnel in her house. One day she goes to see him but he doesn’t show so she goes back to the. She arrives to her father who is shot and killed; they assume it was one of the Hales. She goes to get revenge but runs off. When she gets home she has a guest waiting in her room; her best friend Letty finally reunites with her.
The cover of the book shows a picture of Astrid Donal in a very expensive looking dress. The way she loos and is dressed shows that the book takes place in the roaring twenties. She looks very expensive and flirty, yet classy. The book talks a lot about what they decide on wearing, so the cover gives you an idea of just