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justvaporlock's review
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
engelsthecat's review against another edition
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
completebore's review
dark
funny
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
beledit's review
4.0
White City is a sometimes funny and at times heartrending story of a young man struggling to redeem himself after his life is destroyed by his family, his friends and his own deeply flawed decisions.
Ben is the epitome of the spoiled rich kid you’d love to hate. A child of a wealthy, South Dublin family, brought up with nothing but the best; the best house, the best school, the best vacations, the best clothes. Now he’s enrolled to do a PhD but with money flowing into his bank account every month, there’s no need to do anything but party.
‘South Dublin’ is more than a geographical area. In Ireland, it’s code for wealth and ostentation — for good schools, expensive homes, the ‘right’ kind of Dublin accent, golf, yachting and rugby clubs.
It’s all just fun and games, except it isn’t. Ben has grown up in an emotional vacuum with a work-obsessed father and an alcoholic mother, neither of whom seem to have any space in their lives for the son. His friends are drink and drug buddies. And then his father is arrested on a €600-million fraud charge and Ben’s money tap is switched off. We enter his life when he’s in rehab, looking back on the past, his family and the friends to whom he became a disposable pawn in a diabolical get-rich-quick scheme.
Anyone who would be even attracted to the scheme proposed by Ben’s former classmate is hardly deserving of much empathy. Eventually, we watch the whole thing go down the toilet. Ben is oblivious, stupefied by drugs and booze. It’s hard to watch.
The narrative is an interesting juxtaposition of Ben-then and Ben-now. The Ben who has been through rehab and gained important insights recounts the Ben who was flailing in a drug-hazed mess. It’s well done and it works. His whole life he has been surrounded by unscrupulous, profiteering frauds. Now he is struggling to see beyond the con and find out who he really is.
White City is not the first satire of its kind, exposing the dirt beneath the exterior gloss of wealth. Unlike many of those novels, however, this one succeeds in making the hero a likeable character, for all his weaknesses.
Note: I deliberately don’t use the word ‘privileged’ to describe Ben’s background. ‘Privilege’ is a term that is becoming increasingly politically loaded. It annoys me that a very useful word is being misappropriated. This book is just one of a zillion reminders that ‘privilege’ does not mean ‘if you’re rich, or come from a wealthy background, you de facto have a charmed life of unalloyed happiness’ (and by extension, no right to complain about anything, ever, so STFU).
My thanks to Netgalley for giving me a free copy of this book. All my reviews are 100% honest and unbiased, regardless of how I acquire the book.
Like this review? You can find all my reviews on my book review site: BelEdit Book Reviews
Ben is the epitome of the spoiled rich kid you’d love to hate. A child of a wealthy, South Dublin family, brought up with nothing but the best; the best house, the best school, the best vacations, the best clothes. Now he’s enrolled to do a PhD but with money flowing into his bank account every month, there’s no need to do anything but party.
‘South Dublin’ is more than a geographical area. In Ireland, it’s code for wealth and ostentation — for good schools, expensive homes, the ‘right’ kind of Dublin accent, golf, yachting and rugby clubs.
It’s all just fun and games, except it isn’t. Ben has grown up in an emotional vacuum with a work-obsessed father and an alcoholic mother, neither of whom seem to have any space in their lives for the son. His friends are drink and drug buddies. And then his father is arrested on a €600-million fraud charge and Ben’s money tap is switched off. We enter his life when he’s in rehab, looking back on the past, his family and the friends to whom he became a disposable pawn in a diabolical get-rich-quick scheme.
Anyone who would be even attracted to the scheme proposed by Ben’s former classmate is hardly deserving of much empathy. Eventually, we watch the whole thing go down the toilet. Ben is oblivious, stupefied by drugs and booze. It’s hard to watch.
The narrative is an interesting juxtaposition of Ben-then and Ben-now. The Ben who has been through rehab and gained important insights recounts the Ben who was flailing in a drug-hazed mess. It’s well done and it works. His whole life he has been surrounded by unscrupulous, profiteering frauds. Now he is struggling to see beyond the con and find out who he really is.
White City is not the first satire of its kind, exposing the dirt beneath the exterior gloss of wealth. Unlike many of those novels, however, this one succeeds in making the hero a likeable character, for all his weaknesses.
Note: I deliberately don’t use the word ‘privileged’ to describe Ben’s background. ‘Privilege’ is a term that is becoming increasingly politically loaded. It annoys me that a very useful word is being misappropriated. This book is just one of a zillion reminders that ‘privilege’ does not mean ‘if you’re rich, or come from a wealthy background, you de facto have a charmed life of unalloyed happiness’ (and by extension, no right to complain about anything, ever, so STFU).
My thanks to Netgalley for giving me a free copy of this book. All my reviews are 100% honest and unbiased, regardless of how I acquire the book.
Like this review? You can find all my reviews on my book review site: BelEdit Book Reviews
annemariewhelehan's review
dark
sad
fast-paced
3.5
A privledged SoCo Dublin life, a fraudulent property deal in Serbia, drug addiction.
Very fast paced. I enjoyed it.
Very fast paced. I enjoyed it.
o_max16's review against another edition
dark
funny
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
vincentea's review
dark
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
wordsofclover's review
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use and Drug abuse
eims86's review
5.0
'In some secret corner of my brain I felt a tug, and then a slump, as if some crucial beam or joist had finally given way to rust or metal fatigue.' This is how antihero Ben reacts to the news that he is to be cut off by his parents at the age of 27, in the midst of an investigation into his father’s financial wrongdoings. Half-writing a novel called Decay: A Report, struggling through a PhD, and with no income other than a stipend from his parents, Ben is in a quandary. Fending for himself leads him to a call-centre job, an actress girlfriend, a drug addiction and a dodgy property deal in Serbia.
Privileged and scornful of pretty much everyone, but also funny and self aware, Ben is one of the most entertaining antiheroes I’ve read in ages. Visiting his thesis supervisor, he muses: ‘Here was a vision of the life I might already have earned, if it had ever occurred to me that I needed to earn anything.' At times, he’s oddly relatable: a frustrated artist, he dreams of living alone in a cabin in the woods, with nothing but books and wine for company. His friend group is made up of ‘a loose assortment of junior scholars, zine-editors, slam poets, bloggers, graphic designers, publishing interns and student journalists … We went to book launches and flirted with each other ... We complained loudly and often about how Dublin was being taken over by vulture funds who had rendered the city unaffordable for artists. We lived on allowances from our parents, or in apartments in boomtime residential units bought for us as graduation presents.'
Power has a way of introducing characters with a phrase or two that makes them startlingly familiar. The crowd at a funeral: 'Cousins, uncles, aunts, family members, all with similar faces, like different editions of the same book.' The Lads, the crew of private school ex-rugby players who ensnare Ben in their dodgy business deal: ‘that granitic crew of jocks and jeerers, those slab-like avatars of heedless privilege, with their monster-truck shoulders and their buzz-cut designer dos.'
Power wrote a brilliant Irish Times piece about why it took so long for his second novel to appear (Bad Day in Blackrock, his excellent debut, came out in 2008). It’s been worth the wait – White City is beautifully written, relentlessly entertaining, and everything is earned.
Privileged and scornful of pretty much everyone, but also funny and self aware, Ben is one of the most entertaining antiheroes I’ve read in ages. Visiting his thesis supervisor, he muses: ‘Here was a vision of the life I might already have earned, if it had ever occurred to me that I needed to earn anything.' At times, he’s oddly relatable: a frustrated artist, he dreams of living alone in a cabin in the woods, with nothing but books and wine for company. His friend group is made up of ‘a loose assortment of junior scholars, zine-editors, slam poets, bloggers, graphic designers, publishing interns and student journalists … We went to book launches and flirted with each other ... We complained loudly and often about how Dublin was being taken over by vulture funds who had rendered the city unaffordable for artists. We lived on allowances from our parents, or in apartments in boomtime residential units bought for us as graduation presents.'
Power has a way of introducing characters with a phrase or two that makes them startlingly familiar. The crowd at a funeral: 'Cousins, uncles, aunts, family members, all with similar faces, like different editions of the same book.' The Lads, the crew of private school ex-rugby players who ensnare Ben in their dodgy business deal: ‘that granitic crew of jocks and jeerers, those slab-like avatars of heedless privilege, with their monster-truck shoulders and their buzz-cut designer dos.'
Power wrote a brilliant Irish Times piece about why it took so long for his second novel to appear (Bad Day in Blackrock, his excellent debut, came out in 2008). It’s been worth the wait – White City is beautifully written, relentlessly entertaining, and everything is earned.