Brooklyn Girls
The first in a new series that will follow five twentysomething women who share a Brooklyn brownstone centers on Pia, a chic, spoiled European expat whose parents have issued an ultimatum that she must find a job or move back to Switzerland. After failing at jobs in an office and a restaurant, she impulsively buys an old food truck and starts her own business, Skinnywheels, serving healthy meals to Manhattan office workers. Skinnywheels is improbably successful, which is fortunate since she owes a large sum of money to a menacing loan shark. British transplant Burgess seems inspired by such popular television shows as Girls and Two Broke Girls, which also follow young women making their way in Brooklyn. Replete with raunchy dialogue, drunken partying, and a mania for fashion, this book is at once derivative and entertaining. The scenes with all the girls gossiping and bickering work best, which bodes well for their continuing adventures in future installments. --Aleksandra Walker