Prospect Park West Book Review

Prospect Park West
Author: Amy Sohn
Pages: 379 pgs
Reading Level: Adult

My Stars: 2 Stars

Depicts characters as neurotic, selfish, unfeeling and unable to love and commit. I know everyone has problems but the fact that we can work them out and live full fulling lives, apparently escapes this neighborhood. The storyline made me feel depressed and was hard to follow. I think I might have read this at a wrong point in my schedule.

Synopsis: BROOKLYN'S FAMED PARK SLOPE neighborhood has it all: sprawling, majestic Prospect Park; acclaimed public schools; historic brownstones; and progressive values. Among bohemian bourgeois breeders, claiming a stake in Park Slope has become a competitive sport.

In the park, at the coffee shops, and on the playgrounds of the neighborhood, four women's lives come together during one long, hot Brooklyn summer. Melora Leigh, a two-time Oscar-winning actress, frustrated with her career and the pressures of raising her adopted toddler, feels the seductive pull of kleptomania; Rebecca Rose, missing the robust sex life of her pre-motherhood days, begins a dangerous flirtation with a handsome neighborhood celebrity; Lizzie O'Donnell, a former lesbian (or "hasbian"), wonders why she is still drawn to women in spite of her sexy husband and adorable baby; and Karen Bryan Shapiro finds herself consumed by two powerful obsessions: her four-year-old son's well-being and snagging the ultimate three-bedroom apartment in a wellmaintained, P.S. 321-zoned co-op building. As the women's paths intertwine (and sometimes collide), each must struggle to keep her man, her sanity...and her playdates.

From the perennially hot author and columnist Amy Sohn comes a smart, sexy, satirical peek into the bedrooms and hearts of Prospect Park West.