Hamptons Beach Read Of The Day: The Wrecking Ball

Even though many people here in the Hamptons have a number of things in common with Alice, the leading lady of the London-set Wrecking Ball - like a boarding school education, endless access to money and drugs, and a life of parties, fashion shows, and travel - most aren't able to summarize it into one neat little novel, as Christina Spens' does here. The author, who was only nineteen when the book came out, wrote the novel from the first-person perspective of four characters living lavish lifestyles in London, post graduation - high school that is. While critics have said they see influences of Lewis Carroll (Alice In Wonderland... obviously), F.Scott Fitzgerald, and even Jean-Paul Sartre at times in Spens' writing, some have called it a beautiful, hellish, disaster. But, hey, sometimes the best forms of entertainment are. So even though this Alice is more likely to chase song-writers and millionaires than rabbits down magic holes, her adventures are worth the quick read.