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A bland cocktail of preening and partying
Everyone Worth Knowing, By Lauren Weisberger, Simon Schuster, 367 pp, $23.95
Those groups of preteen females who used to gather around the television to watch ''Sex and the City" can now pick up a book that captures the same mentality. You want vacuous, petty, and superficial all wrapped up together in a book that mimics the shows ''Extra" and ''I Want to be a Hilton" and the E! channel? Try Lauren Weisberger's ''Everyone Worth Knowing."
Bette Robinson, young single New Yorker, lucks into a job with a large public relations company that involves partying, observing celebrities, and being seen at all the right restaurants and clubs. When she attracts the attention of Philip Weston ''graduate of Eton and Oxford, law degree from Yale, grandfather is a duke, father owns the majority of land between London and Manchester, exboyfriend of Gwyneth" and finds herself in his bed after a night of drinking, her boss at Kelly Company is thrilled. Why? Because Bette has managed to get her name, linked with Weston's, in all the morning's papers, and in turn the name of her company.
Never mind that the two did nothing but sleep, as Weston is a closet gay. The boss encourages Bette to continue the relationship in as public a way as she can. A mysterious unnamed gossip columnist seems to follow Bette around as she clubhops, getting all the Bette/Philip sightings into the news. She seems to know more about Bette than she should.
What follows is a series of namedropping, drinking, drugging, and partying until Bette finds, in a club bouncer, her true love. At one party,[url=http://www.sport.fr/economie/airmax.html]air max pas cher[/url], a group of nearly naked Brazilian lingerie models are used as room decor. The merits of a particular Hermes handbag, priced at five figures, are discussed seriously, and at least Bette's delightful Uncle Will, a gay columnist who watches over his niece with love and a jaded eye as to what really matters in New York society, laughs at the whole scene. For her 21st birthday, Uncle Will bought Bette a Louis Vuitton clutch bag, welcoming her, he notes, ''to what I hope will be a long life of shallow consumerism and brand worship."
Bette's best friend, Penelope, is engaged to a jerk, and Bette discovers him ''modelizing" a Playboy bunny. At least his activities provide a new party word.
The only refreshing and original concept in the story is Bette's book group made up of women who, like Bette, are addicted to romance novels. Otherwise, the book is obsessed with the same things as The New York Times's Sunday Styles section: hot celebs, hip restaurants, drinks, and clubs.
Two great quotes come from Bette's mingling with the socalled Beautiful People. One is ''I . . . followed Sonja and Philip to the front door, feeling like the chubby, uncoordinated child of two Olympic athletes." The other: ''I saw a girl crouched in a corner, sobbing quietly but with a pleased awareness that others were watching."
When will someone tell New Yorkers that outside of that little clique of Manhattan metrosexuals and homosexuals and a small group of preteen girls, no one else cares?