Twenty-six-year-old Rosalie Preston works by day as an advice columnist for the romantically perplexed readership of Girl Talk magazine. But her true passion is for the stage and for her fledgling theater troupe, the First Borns, a tight pack of friends and lovers who live (mostly) in the East Village. When Rosalie comes to the notice of suave Berglan Starker, a theater underwriter-and also the father of her best friend-she finds herself caught up in a very different affair from those she so jauntily untangles in her column for teens. Struggling to be savvy but sage, she is swept along by curiosity, a taste for adventure, and a penchant for those alluring complimentary toiletries in New York's ritziest hotels. Fame versus art, sex versus love, ambition versus friendship, room service versus restaurants: these are the choppy waters the First Borners must navigate-together and, perhaps ultimately, apart-in this delicious novel.

The best of what the chick-lit genre has to offer: it's wry, compelling, and keenly observed.-Library Journal What a delightful surprise....[Delbanco's] voice is fresh and wise....The angst here is warm and funny and has the true tone of excited urgency and humility that fuels youth.-Mary Ambrose, Boston Globe Absurdly entertaining....The wistful and wise-cracking Rosalie is a winning screwball heroine.-Mark Rozzo, Los Angeles Times Book Review