Rules of Civility is without doubt one of the most sparkling and delicious novels I have read in a long time. Set in New York just after the jazz age and on the eve of World War II, Rules of Civility seems to pick up where The Great Gatsby left us. And it has all the wit, energy and great storytelling that characterizes Fitzgerald’s work. On a crisp New Year’s eve, Katey Kontent and her boarding house roommate Eve are sitting in a bar, without dates, considering their future, when the very handsome Theodore “Tinker” Grey takes the table next to them and starts chatting them up. He has all the ease and assuredness that comes with being a member of the “in crowd”. The three leave together to celebrate the night and so begins a complex set of relationships. The story takes Katey into haute New York society and from her secretarial pool job to the highest echelons of the publishing industry. We get a very up close look into the social mores of the day through the eyes of a young woman who is smart, independent and way ahead of her time. She has no intention of being anyone’s “baby”. Rules of Civility has all the necessary ingredients – ambition, love affairs, betrayal, crossed loyalties and some twists and turns that make you want the story to go on forever. And it is almost impossible to read without imagining who would play each part in what will inevitably be a movie. You will love this book!

I really enjoyed this book. The main character was witty, charming and spunky. I loved the writing and as 20 something year old woman, I found I related to the main character and her dilemmas. I feel as though this book will stick with me as I make decisions about my future.

This book had been on my to-read list since it first came out, but when I got the chance to meet Amor Towles at a dinner co-hosted by Chapters/Indigo and Penguin, I jumped at the fortuitous opportunity that would "force" me to make time to read this wonderful novel. Reminiscent of F. Scott Fitzgerald's period piece, Rules of Civility dramatizes the highs and lows of America in the 1930s. The story is narrated by the main character, Katey Kontent, a highly spirited and independent woman; she is a surprise to encounter, especially in a book about the early half of the 1900s (which, for me, evokes images of a very male-dominated society), and yet she is quite definitive of the strength of the American spirit during the Depression. Her dry wit and sharp observations of the world around her are quite appealing and her ability to remain composed during times of potentially great emotional turmoil is admirable. Her friend, Eve, is not quite as amiable, but she is certainly a driving force in making Katey the stalwart character that she is. The novel abounds with what-ifs that pop up throughout its entirety, including and especially the relationships that might have been. In fact, the whole story rests upon the pivotal moment when Katey and Eve meet the enigmatic Tinker, and all three lives are changed forever. Readers will delight in the various quotable one-liners of Towles' debut novel. Plot & Pacing: 8 Towles’ plot will keep the reader interested until the very end. It begins with Eve in the present and jumps to the past, which is the main setting of the story, when she happens upon candid pictures of Tinker from years past. The initial meeting of the three main characters, the main conflict that occurs, and the aftermath of that event all work together to make for an interesting storyline. Only a few passages seemed slow to me. In general, the story kept me interested enough to keep reading and reading. With the variety of situations in which Katey and her friends find themselves, the reader won’t skip/glaze over too many paragraphs. You’ll want to find out what happens to these folks at the end! Characters: 8 In Katey, Towles has created a very strong, admirable woman who accepts her station in life but refuses to be stuck in it. She is decisive and determined … romantic and sympathetic. Tinker is so enigmatic that the reader fluctuates between thinking him charmingly mysterious and strangely dysfunctional. Eve will remind you of those old classmates at whom you would crinkle your nose and yet whom you secretly admired. When I read her, I imagine one of those old-Hollywood stars with high heels, fur coat, and big sunglasses. Setting: 9 New York City in the 1930s is a character on its own. Towles captures the spirit of the city that never sleeps, suffusing the novel with enough details that makes you want to jump back in time to see how the hubbub of today’s NYC began. It’s interesting to note that some of the places around back then still exist today! Style: 9 Lovers of the written word will delight in Towles’ turns of phrases and witty one-liners. His prose is reminiscent of classic writers without the tedious long-windedness from which other writers suffer. His quotations are rendered by indented hyphens rather than quotation marks, as the French most notably do, which lend to the fluidity of his characters’ conversations. You’ll delight in his quotable quips! Learnability & Teachability: 8 It’s great for the general library, but it’s even better for the classroom bookshelf! FOR TEACHERS: If you're tired of doing The Great Gatsby and are looking for more digestible/likable characters and story lines, try this novel on for size! It renders discussions on similar themes as Fitzgerald's, including love, loss, pivotal choices, power of money, the upper class vs. the lower class, and finding one's identity. POTENTIAL TEACHABLES: The humility of the 1930s (America between the Roaring '20s and WWI); New York in the 1930s; setting as character; the what-if butterfly game (which life moments are truly "pivotal", and which moments occur with no real butterfly effect); what makes characters likable, detestable, repugnant, etc.; satisfying endings; quotable quips; George Washington’s actual rules of civility.

I read this novel weeks ago, and have been thinking about how to review it ever since. On one hand, you've got this fantastic Gatsby-esque story, yet it feels unfair to call it that, as though it's trying to live up to something that's already been done, or worse yet, setting it up for failure by making such a claim. This is a story...about a girl, trying to discover herself and find her independance in a city and a society that would be just as content to chew her up and spit her out, during a time that was altogether charming and brutal, a story about best friends, unrequited love, cads, and tycoons. Yes, it has it all, but that's just it...no one thing dominates here, it's as charming as it could possibly be, but there are not life lessons, no "Aha!" moments, just a lovely story about a plucky girl, and a golden age, that I heartily recommend to those who, like me, just love a good story!

It wasn't one of those books I couldn't put down or that I was dying to get home to read. The story was slow to start and I was never fully captivated by the it and/or the characters. The few parts I did enjoy were short lived and replaced with "too-long" descriptions- I felt like the author was rambling on and on. Really disappointed by this book.

The funniest thing about this book was the moment when, about halfway through, I flipped to the back jacket sleeve and re-read the bio on the author. I just could not believe that a man could write a female character who was so endearing, unique and emotional in the environment she inhabited. The opportunities to make this book more about the late 30's and the upper class life that moved forward without a recognition of the Great Depression were there constantly. Yet Towles focused on the characters that interacted with each other and learned abouth themselves. Any author that can weave TS Eliot quotes into natural dialogue is my hero! If you are a Gatsby fan, read this book!

I don’t read a lot of ebooks – I’m very much a paperback reader. With ebooks I lose some sense of where I am in a book by not being able to look at it physically. I find it easier to flip back to find some plot point that I want to check or the context in which a character first appeared. So, when I was offered a chance to review Rules of Civility by Amor Towles in an ebook format, I hesitated. But drawn in by the book’s description on the author’s website I took a chance. I am so glad I did. Despite the format, I adored this book! The setting is Manhattan in the late 1930’s. The threat of the Second World War is in the distant future and life, for the most part, is good. The reader sees what New York City was like during that era through the eyes of a young woman surviving quite well on her own in that large metropolis. The author did a fantastic job describing the culture of the young and carefree in an exciting city - so much so that the city takes on a character all of its own. Cocktails, bars, apartments, neighbourhoods and iconic buildings all figure prominently in this book. If you love the romance and cultural aura of New York City, you’ll find plenty of it here. I really liked the protagonist, Kate Kontent. She’s a well-written character – smart, sassy, independent and with a good dose of subtle humour thrown in. She’s isn’t perfect; I picked up hints of envy in some situations and loneliness in others. It’s not that much was said, but rather shown (which I think is one of the trickiest talents a writer can develop and Amor Towles has it in spades). But Kate isn’t a wallflower; she acts on her instincts so that when she isn’t happy about something she takes steps to change it. And this is one of the reasons why the story moved along quickly and flowed so well. Dialogue between Kate and her contemporaries was also well done. I also really liked the portrayal of women in this era. It seems that women in the 1930’s are much further along in society than their later counterparts. The freedom of the earlier era was gone by the 1950’s as the standard of a woman’s worth was depicted with the iconic housedress-wearing female staying home and having babies. But perhaps that was the sign of prosperity. In any case, this freedom surprised me too – I’ve always assumed that any era before the 1950’s had to be a worse one for women in general, but I didn’t pick that up from this novel at all. I loved this book because I like NYC and I found the 1930’s era so interesting to read about. But to enjoy Rules of Civility you don’t have to like those things too because it offers so much more. This book is a well-written, well-rounded great story from an author that I’ll be putting on my must-read list for future books.