Dan's Papers - June 6, 2008 - Dan's Book Review: LoveHampton

If you've ever wished to score a spot on a makeover show and become a whole new you, beware - you just might get what you want. That's the lesson learned by Tori Miller, central character in Sherri Rifkin's debut novel, LoveHampton (St. Martin's, 2008). Tori starts out as an Old Navy-wearing Eliza Doolittle, emerges as a Trina Turk-clad princess, and finds the transformation causes a throng of handsome rich men to chase her as fast as their Guccis, Porsche Boxsters and private jets can carry them.

Problem is, Tori finds, metamorphoses do have their limitations. First, what if it gets out that you were a geek before becoming a glamour puss? Or, worse, that you're still the same old nerd inside underneath all the labels. Throw in that you've actually fallen in love with Mr. Old Money and Mr. Up-and-Coming Money, and that they're in love with you, too (or at least act like they are). How does a dweeb-to-the core cope?

But LoveHampton, which is divided into 50 "Hamptons Unwritten Rules," isn't out to throw cold water on anyone's party-hopping summer. In fact, it's an enjoyable primer on what to wear and where to wear it.

Tori, still stinging from being dumped by her longtime boyfriend, Peter, has spent a few years recovering by schlepping about in pajama pants and "ratty tank tops," letting her hair get greasy, and throwing herself into a career as a TV promo producer.

The reader is first introduced to Tori when she's heading to a Park Avenue South restaurant to meet prospective summer housemates. Tori's never done the share house thing before and reels from panic attacks as she enters the restaurant. Mind you, this isn't just any summer share. These people are possibly the coolest career girls and most desirable men to ever inhabit planet Earth. And they don't take in just anyone.

But Tori gets in, thanks to her two business partners, a male couple who slyly got her on "Three-on-One," a makeover show. After a fashion advisor/spiritual advisor/life coach has decked her out in high-end fashions, and makeup and Ayurvedic skin care experts have gone to work on whatever couldn't be covered by Prada or Dior, Tori is reborn.

At the restaurant, groundwork is laid for "Hamptons Unwritten Rule #2: First impressions - especially when made at the pre-summerhouse dinner - last a summertime." Leah, the stock Queen Bee character in any mean-girls story, constantly flips her poker-straight hair and calls people out for rule infractions (like being late, which Tori was). Fortunately for Tori, Leah's overbearing personality is offset by the more welcoming expressions around the table. They are supposedly in their 30s, but tend to talk like teenagers ("I am so coveting your blouse!" and "I can totally drive you!"). But, hey, Andrew is wearing a Rolex, presumably not the Canal Street variety because he's an investment banker, and Cassie, a beauty editor at Elle, looks to be the same size as Tori. Hmmm, all those free samples...this could work.

As Tori makes the Memorial Day trek to see the house for which she has paid so dearly, she learns "Hamptons Unwritten Rule #6: Getting there is half the battle on a typical summer weekend, but the whole battle on a holiday weekend." (A rule that needs no explanation to readers of this publication.) Upon arrival, she settles into the new fun-Tori, makes up for lost time, and wakes up Saturday morning with a hangover courtesy of Pink Elephant and Dune nightclubs.

It's not even the Fourth of July before Tori learns "Hamptons Unwritten Rule #16: You can never be too rich or too thin, but you can be too eager. And too naïve."

"I decide not to tell Cassie that this is the first Hamptons benefit that I've ever been to," Tori tells the reader. "I have noticed in my dutiful weekly reading of Hamptons magazine that there are at least three big charity events on the calendar every weekend, with huge price tags attached to their tickets."

A fast learner, Tori soon realizes that benefits are not attended only by Letitia Baldridge readers. "Hamptons Unwritten Rule #17 is "Charity-Schmarity. Before you do anything else, claim your swag bag." In a hilarious scene portraying how much the good cause "Love Heals at Luna Farm" is on the minds of her new, hard-earned friends, Tori narrates, "Once we have our Scoop-branded bags in hand, our swag-reconnaissance team makes a surprise pit stop at a garbage can outside of the tent. I watch them as they expertly start digging though the bags, yanking out unwanted items, such as brochures for teeth whitening, hair removal, and information about the charity, to toss them in the bin. Only after the bags are rid of the extraneous goods, leaving only the 'good stuff' - such as MAC cosmetics, a $50 gift certificate to Henri Bendel, a Cole Haan leather key chain, a DVD set of the latest season of 'Entourage' from HBO, bottles of Voss water and the like - do we proceed to the car to lock our bounty safely away."

Of course, none of Tori's success is going to go down right with Queen Bee Leah, whose personality in a crime novel would make her a prison matron. Still flipping her perfect hair and pivoting on her Manolos throughout the book, she tries to make life miserable for Tori, and starts to sniff out the secret of the makeover.

There are a few surprises, and much is predictable, but even if you know who should end up with whom, you keep reading because while you're on a trafficky Jitney ride or scrunching your toes in the sand under an umbrella, you're having fun with these characters. You want the earnest few to find true love, and the jerks to find each other.

Some scenes get downright slapstick, such as when Tori stuffs pillows under her bedcovers and goes crawling through garbage outside a summer house to escape detection from housemates when she's broken one of the rules. But for the most part, Rifkin's playful prose keeps the novel moving, so that it doesn't get tedious even when fashion name-dropping and stock characters may threaten to bog things down, and when the characters start to seem like teenagers rather than adults ("Hey, you got your peanut butter in my chocolate!" I say.)