Very cute, the 1965 setting really freshened up the overdone working for a demanding editor at a magazine storyline. ( )

Park Avenue Summer is a read that is pure fun. Never too heavy, and just shocking enough to grip my interest. It combines real history (the making of the first issue of Cosmopolitan under Helen Gurley Brown’s editorship) with the story of a young woman finding her feet in New York. It’s a coming of age story of a magazine and a young woman.

Alice Weiss has left her hometown after her father has remarried and she’s been jilted by her fiancé. She’s moved to New York to try to become a photographer and in a way, feel closer to her dead mother who loved the city. She finds a job at Cosmopolitan magazine, which is undergoing some major changes under its first female editor, Helen Gurley Brown. It’s a big challenge, with old staff resigning left and right and budgets shrinking. Helen Gurley Brown is determined to make a magazine for the modern young woman after the success of her book, Sex and the Single Girl, but she faces a lot of roadblocks as the publishing company is aghast at some of her decisions. Alice is there to see it all, and gets entangled with her own Don Juan – Erik, who works for the (all male) upper management. It’s dramatic and full on, but Alice also finds time to work on her photography skills with Christopher, an up and coming photographer. As the pages of the new Cosmo grow, so does Alice, finding out some important things about her family and who she is.

The premise of the story is simple, but it’s very absorbing and engaging. Perhaps it’s because of the demonstratable rising of female control over a magazine that is for women or due to the nostalgia of 1960s New York City. (Alice lives in her own apartment on a secretary’s wage, and her dinner is often less than a dollar – can anyone do that these days?). It has a bit of the Mad Men mystique to it, but it’s much more female dominated (although the plumes of smoke and ashtrays are still ubiquitous). Sometimes the story is more about the magazine, but towards the end it gravitates much more to Alice and her life. It’s a nice segue after the tumultuous ride to the first issue of the magazine, but it’s not smooth sailing for Alice.

The writing flows freely and the story is easy to read and follow. It doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not – no mysterious symbolism or covert themes – it’s just pure fun. It’s well researched and the characters are clearly defined. At times it ran high with emotion and drama but the stakes never seemed too high to overcome. A definite escape or beach read that won’t disappoint.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com ( )

I. Loved. This. Book. So. Much. And I really didn't expect to! Thanks to whoever told me to read this. Can't for the life of me remember who, but I highly doubt I put this on hold myself given my incredible bias against historical fiction right now. Even when it showed up at the library I thought "Huh" to myself. Don't know why as I used to devour the genre, but these days none of it's been sticking with me. But this one, I actually turned on my light to read in bed, which I haven't done in so long. It was a complete treat, and the scenes all were painted so vividly that I could see it all unfold in front of me.

Can't place my finger on what it was about this that I adored so much, but Alice as a character was so well formed and so nuanced and so very relatable, and I admired her courage so much. I saw a lot of myself in her loyalty to her boss and her loneliness in moving to the city, so I'm probably biased.

I didn't know anything about Helen Gurley Brown, which is good, because if I had, I would have been concerned about the accuracy. But Rosen's author note at the end did an excellent job of explaining what was based in fact and what was fictionalised, which is something that I greatly appreciate as I discern these things for myself.

I can't say I'm going to jump to read more historical fiction, but I think this is one of my favourites of the year so far. ( )

When twenty-one-year-old Alice Weiss arrives in New York in 1965 from Youngstown, Ohio, to make her fortune, she dreams of becoming a photographer. However, the job she finds is secretary to Helen Gurley Brown, author of the scandalous bestseller, Sex and the Single Girl, recently named by publishing giant Hearst to resurrect the then-flailing Cosmopolitan magazine. By the time Alice figures out what has hit her, her life has been changed forever.

Alice represents the New York office world and what was then called a “gal Friday,” because, like her namesake in Robinson Crusoe, she does everything. That involves getting coffee or lunch, typing correspondence, taking phone calls, managing appointments, taking minutes at meetings, picking up Brown’s pets from the vet, running other personal errands, working hellacious hours, and receiving unsolicited advice about life, men, and career.

Most significantly to the story, Alice must decide whether to fend off the advances of a very attractive Don Juan executive who might be plotting against Brown, only one aspect of the complex office politics.

Forces within Hearst want to kill Cosmo and see Brown fail. Her superiors (all male, of course) nearly lose their lunches when they see how she plans to imbue the magazine with her frank vision of female sexuality, starting with provocative covers and articles about orgasms. Rosen brilliantly captures how an unrepentant woman occupying a corner office goes about making her mark — or how this inimitable woman does, anyway.

Brown’s feminism is decidedly heterodox, though, for her creed includes at least two dubious propositions: that a woman can and should use her physical attraction to advance her career; and that every woman should bed a Mr. Wrong, a skirt chaser with too much magnetism for anyone’s good, just to “get that out of her system.” For contrast, Rosen has Alice attend a lecture by Betty Friedan, where she hears a more appealing philosophy, though she remains loyal to Brown and sees wisdom in her mentor too.

Which fits, because Alice’s life reflects the story’s feminist themes, and Rosen deftly weaves the two narratives of Cosmo and her protagonist. But Brown’s the star here, the definition of larger-than-life, consummate actress, constantly outré, loyal to her friends, but always the center of attention. She’s good to Alice — mostly — but doesn’t listen particularly well, and her protégée needs that above all.

I like how Rosen seldom cuts an emotional moment too short and lets Alice feel deeply even though a whole lot is going on. One notable exception: Brown uses Alice as a prop during a presentation to potential advertisers in an exploitive way, yet the young woman only blushes, harboring no anger. But otherwise, Rosen’s protagonist has much to deal with, and the author honors that without flinching.

Nevertheless, two aspects of Alice’s life seem empty, or nearly so. First, she’s nominally Jewish, but, aside from fleeting references that suggest its importance to her, she doesn’t live it.

I’ve never been to Youngstown, but I’m betting there’s a hell of a difference between being Jewish there and in New York; shouldn’t Alice register this, especially since she feels lonely in her new environment? But she never even has cause to wonder that there seem many more of her coreligionists around; nobody ever pegs her as Jewish, whatever that means to them, or her; and her unabashed passion for certain nonkosher foods wants explaining.

Secondly, I don’t entirely believe this novel takes place in the mid-1960s, and not just because the dialogue occasionally includes present-day business-speak or idioms. The clothing styles, sexual attitudes, and workplace mores feel right, but there’s no Sixties vibe — no slang, manners, street life, or sense that the country is at war, in Vietnam and with itself (conflicts that would emerge even more strongly within the next two or three years). Nobody even thinks about those issues, and though Alice spends time in Greenwich Village, I get no hint of protest, counterculture, or avant-garde.

But Helen Gurley Brown did leave her mark. If you’d like a glimpse of what she did at Cosmo, Park Avenue Summer is an entertaining, often poignant story of a young woman struggling with heartbreak and dreams that feel beyond reach. ( )

As far as I know, have I never read a Cosmopolitan Magazine. It has never been my type of magazine to read. So why did I pick PARK AVENUE SUMMER to read? Well, I've wanted to read something by Renee Rosen for a while, I love reading historical fiction, and this book intrigued me. In this book, we get to know Cosmo's new editor-in-chief Helen Gurley Brown through young Alice Weiss who gets a job working as Helen's secretary. Alice dreams of becoming a photographer and this current position is just temporary. However, she quickly becomes very protective of Helen as lots of people work against her and her ideas. The question is, will Alice be able to fulfill her dreams one day?

READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW OVER AT FRESH FICTION! ( )