A Gorgeous Excitement: A Novel Audiobook

Quotes

• A Gorgeous Excitement is a propulsive read filled with vivid characters and a uniquely hilarious, if impossibly sad, mother-daughter dynamic. But the real star of the book for me is the finely drawn world of pre-Giuliani New York, seedy Times Square and all, whose rampant misogyny and racism still feel brutally relevant.

  — Holly Brickley, author of the forthcoming Deep Cuts

• Lush and thrilling.

  — Publishers Weekly

• Terrific debut . . . With the strong young characters and the skin-crawling atmosphere created by creepy men, crimes in the news, porn shops, and overheated adolescent sexuality, the book recalls another excellent true crime–inspired novel, Emma Cline’s The Girls. Carefully paced and beautifully written, this edgy coming-of-age novel succeeds on all counts.

  — Kirkus Reivew, starred review

• Terrific debut . . . With the strong young characters and the skin-crawling atmosphere created by creepy men, crimes in the news, porn shops, and overheated adolescent sexuality, the book recalls another excellent true crime–inspired novel, Emma Cline’s The Girls. Carefully paced and beautifully written, this edgy coming-of-age novel succeeds on all counts.

  — Kirkus Reivew, starred review

• Drawing on her own teen years and the notorious Preppy Killer of a young woman in Central Park, first-time novelist Weiner subjects smart, stymied, funny, and sympathetic Nina to harrowing, surreal, and funny predicaments complicated by class, misogyny, denial, addiction, and jealousy. Throughout, Weiner incisively captures the timbre of the time; the city’s beauty, madness, and terror; the stunning recklessness of young women; and the endless complexities of families.

  — Booklist

• A vivid snapshot of a bygone era and evocative coming-of-age story, A Gorgeous Excitement lives up to its title.

  — Margarita Montimore, national bestselling author of Oona Out of Order

• Lush and thrilling.

  — Publishers Weekly

• On the Upper East Side in the 1980s, Nina Jacobs is desperate to fit in. Throughout this absorbing, astute novel, she endures painful parenting, scurrilous gossip, and regular old teenage indignity—but when she starts getting close to a handsome, preppy regular at the local dive bar, things begin to look up. Or do they?

  — Town & Country

• Terrific debut . . . the book recalls another excellent true crime–inspired novel, Emma Cline’s The Girls. Carefully paced and beautifully written, this edgy coming-of-age novel succeeds on all counts.

  — Kirkus Reviews, starred review

• Drawing on her own teen years and the notorious Preppy Killer of a young woman in Central Park . . . Weiner incisively captures the timbre of the time; the city’s beauty, madness, and terror; the stunning recklessness of young women; and the endless complexities of families.

  — Booklist

• A mesmerizing story—both very much of its time and also timeless—of the young inhabitants of the (mostly) wealthy Upper East Side of NYC in the coked-up 1980s. A gripping, juicy, fascinating glimpse into a rarified world of a realm by now transformed.

  — Tama Janowitz, author of Slaves of New York and A Certain Age

• A mesmerizing story—both very much of its time and also timeless—of the young inhabitants of the (mostly) wealthy Upper East Side of NYC in the coked-up 1980s. A gripping, juicy, fascinating glimpse into a rarified world of a realm by now transformed.

  — Tama Janowitz, author of Slaves of New York and A Certain Age

• A Gorgeous Excitement is the rarest blend of charm and suspense, at once delightful and terrifying, an expertly written non-coming of age that also serves as cautionary tale, as quintessentially haunting as New York City itself. Read it on a bench in Central Park, but only before night falls.

  — Elisa Albert, author of After Birth and Human Blues

• “A coming-of-age story with a ripped-from-the-headlines plot, A Gorgeous Excitement plunges us into 1980s New York City in all its seedy glory. Cynthia Weiner’s novel is a pitch-perfect evocation of a bygone era. I read this brilliant debut with my heart in my throat.

  — Daisy Alpert Florin, author of My Last Innocent Year

• A Gorgeous Excitement is at turns both gorgeous and exciting. Cynthia Weiner offers a delicious response to Bright Lights, Big City, capturing vividly what it was like for a young woman in the louchely glamourous, cocaine-fueled, privileged white Manhattan of the 1980s.

  — Susan Jane Gilman, New York Times bestselling author of Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress and The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street

• A Gorgeous Excitement is a propulsive read filled with vivid characters and a uniquely hilarious, if impossibly sad, mother-daughter dynamic. But the real star of the book for me is the finely drawn world of pre-Giuliani New York, seedy Times Square and all, whose rampant misogyny and racism feel both dated and brutally relevant.

  — Holly Brickey, author of the forthcoming Deep Cuts

• A Gorgeous Excitement is a propulsive read filled with vivid characters and a uniquely hilarious, if impossibly sad, mother-daughter dynamic. But the real star of the book for me is the finely drawn world of pre-Giuliani New York, seedy Times Square and all, whose rampant misogyny and racism feel both dated and brutally relevant.

  — Holly Brickley, author of the forthcoming Deep Cuts

• I haven’t felt this kind of excitement reading a story set in the ‘80s since I first discovered Jay McInerney, Tama Janowitz, and Bret Easton Ellis. From the breathtaking prose to the thrilling glimpse of NYC circa 1986, Cynthia Weiner’s outstanding debut invites us into the introspective yet colorful and reckless world of 18-year-old Nina Jacobs as she navigates insecurity, obsession, and perilous social dynamics. A vivid snapshot of a bygone era and evocative coming-of-age story, A Gorgeous Excitement lives up to its title.

  — Margarita Montimore, national bestselling author of Oona Out of Order