The Darlings by Christina Alger

I recently finished reading an advance copy of The Darlings by Christina Alger.  I didn't hate it but I didn't love it either.  The story takes place around Thanksgiving of 2008 and revolves around the falling rich and mighty in New York.  It felt a bit like an attempt at mixing John Grisham and Candace Bushnell, not a combo I am fond of.  The writing style was definitely not bad.  The story moved along at a decent pace but it felt like the author needs to do a bit more work before she's really good.  I'm still galled over her using sea-faring metaphors when narrating from the point of view of a character named Marina.  The other beef I had with the story is that it's not very long and she changed the point of view to a different character (some of them very minor) for every chapter.  This is a device that can work well with a longer story, like the Songs of Fire and Ice series, but just ends up being troublesome for a book of this length.  The main problem I had with this book is that I couldn't relate to the characters and had a hard time feeling sympathy for any of them. For the most part, the plot moved in a predictable line.  Even the events that were fictional were easy to see coming.  That said, it was a fast read and not horrible.  I'm sure there are some people that will really enjoy this book but I don't think I'll ever read it again.