Rocketgirl's Full Review: Jean Stone - Trust Fund Babies
Jean Stone is the author of a large number of general fiction type novels. This is not my usual pick. Reading about rich people's problems is so far from reality that I never can get up much sympathy for the characters who generally cause their own problems. This one was different though.
Mary Beth, Nikki, and Gabrielle are cousins who grow up wealthy due to the Atkinson family fortune. They are so used to it they don't even really understand what wealth is just what their life style is. When they come of age they only know that they now get to make their own decisions of how the money will be spent. The three girls grow up and go their separate ways, each the recipient of millions of dollars set up in a trust fund.
One day, the trust fund administrator Lester leaves town, apparently taking the money with him. Carla, his assistant, is left with the disasteful task of breaking the news to three people she is sure are going to be hysterical. Mary Beth has always lived the rich girl's life. She is in the midst of planning an expensive wedding for her daughter when she hears the news. She first goes into denial, then panics when their caterer wants $78,000. Nikki, who has largely used her money for charitable causes doesn't fear for herself, but wonders what will happen to the children she is helping. Gabrielle saved her money in a secret Zurich bank account where her husband didn't even know about it.
The rest of the story is dedicated to discovering how the women will cope with being broke, how they will find out what happened to their trust fund, and if they can ever repair some of the hurt and secrets from the past that forced them to move away from each other.
The story takes place mainly in New York and Martha's Vineyard, where the girls grew up. Again, normally I couldn't care less about rich people hangouts, but this is the setting of Nikki's day camp for sick kids with AIDS. She lives modestly, works in a bakery, and runs her camp. She is more like an ordinary woman. The setting of the story sounds like any other beach side setting, rather than some place that most of us can't afford.
I liked Nikki's character of the girl who puts her money to good use. I also enjoyed Gabrielle's character, who lived a happy life with her husband in Italy, but did not use her money to influence him, or to make life too easy for herself. Though I didn't like the person of Mary Beth, I enjoyed how she was characterized as the spoiled rich girl who always got everything she needed, then all of a sudden has to auction off her belongings to pay for a wedding and for her mother's nursing home. Ultimately she finds compassion and becomes a better person.
Overall, I enjoyed this story. The pacing was a bit slow at times, with a bit too much narrative to describe settings. But most of the time, the story was interesting, the dialogue revealing and direct, and the characters sympathetic. They do eventually find out what happened to the missing trust fund administrator and the missing money. They also uncover a family secret that has been buried that no one knew about. Though the ending is a bit abrupt, it does have a "happy ever after" feeling about it that is appealing. I will likely seek out other novels by this author.
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