Product Description

Bright young things required for big project...Six young people respond to the advert in The Times - all clever, all disaffected with their lives, all looking for an escape. What they least expect is to find themselves prisoners on an island, at the mercy of...who? Their needs are well provided for with a comfortable house and provisions but there's no telephone, no television and no way to escape. The bright young things have to start working out why they're there and how to get away before it's too late...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #443651 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 439 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
"Bright Young Things wanted for big project. SAE to PO Box 2300 Edinburgh." From the 2,000 men and women who respond to this intriguing ad, six are chosen: Anne, Jamie, Thea, Bryn, Emily and Paul. All are pulled into a bewildering world arranged for them by a stranger of whom they--and we, the readers--know nothing.

Best-known for her "Lily Pascale" mysteries--Dead Clever and In Your Face--Scarlett Thomas's new novel takes the genre of suspense and twists it. Part I opens with a series of brief character sketches of the bright young things--all, in one way or another, are discontented, looking for the way out that the advertisement appears to promise. Part II begins with the shock: "Where the hell are we?" "Is this some kind of island?" "Please tell me I'm dreaming". Our heroes have woken up outside the front door of a deserted house. "They were all lying next to each other, like a row of dead bodies". To survive, they must solve the puzzle of why they are here and what the mysterious orchestrator has in store for them.

"Why us?"' asks Emily, proposing a (lengthy) game of Truth or Dare. The suspense of the plot turns on the answer to that question, but it's a suspense that the uneven pacing of this novel finds hard to sustain. Scarlett Thomas concocts a heady mix of sexuality and psychology but, like her characters, the narrative falls short of the ordeal it presents. Sharing the curious emptiness of its protagonists (the more we are told about them, the less convincing they seem), Bright Young Things reads more like a script than a novel--something's missing. --Vicky Lebeau

Review
'A generation defining masterpiece' Matt Thorne; 'A compulsive, edgy thriller' Loaded; 'Sassy and confident' Mike Ripley on Dead Clever; 'Lily Pascale is...a sassy character full of contemporary hipness and uncurbable curiosity... Classic investigation with the right dash of modernity' Time Out on In Your Face; 'An ingenious mystery' Scotsman on Seaside

From the Publisher
Review from NOVA magazine
Review from NOVA magazine'An exciting generation X utopian dream.'

Customer Reviews

Pretentious, too trying, ackward
I was disappointed with this book having enjoyed Thomas's previous books. I found many of the characters underdeveloped, the story didn't go anywhere and yet seemed to serve as just an opportunity for the author to demonstrate her knowledge of popular culture--but to do so cloaked in characters that we all see as being too pretentiously cool, therefore allowing Thomas that cover for her own trying coolness. The ending was terribly disappointing--felt like she didn't know how to end it. The book did keep my attention and I read it in one day--compelled to find out how it ended--but I was so disappointed...I will read more of Thomas's novels, but hope she returns to some of her early styles.

Great idea, but a bit disappointing
Having read Popco (and really loving it) I was a bit disappointed by Bright Young Things.
The basic idea is quite clever, six twenty-somethings apply for a job adverised in a newspaper and wake up on a desert island...
The book is packed with references to computer games, Kevin Smith films, Blur albums etc, which is why I think so many of the reviewers have raved about how 'contemporary' it is. I got the refernces but couldn't help feeling that they were meant to make me feel as if I was part of the 'gang'. It was all a little too self-conscious for me.
Sometimes it felt like a practice run for Popco, which is a far more developed novel and written much better.
It's OK for beach reading but if it's your first go at a Scarlett Thomas novel, I'd read POPco instead.

Far more subtle and complex than the cover would imply
I only bought this book because I'd stumbled across the website of the author (from the site of someone I know) and you might want to go there to see if you like her writing style or not (the Amazon review rules stop me putting the url in - for some reason - but it contains the words 'bookgirl' and 'org'). It was my enjoyment of the site that led me to the book. I don't think I'd have been interested otherwise - I am mistrustful of books with brightly coloured covers and the title and quotes about zeitgeist gave me the impression of an empty piece vaguely (and not interestingly) about 'contemporary relationships'.

I'm saying all this because I was very very wrong. Yes, it's about a group of young people in contemporary Britain; yes, there are lots of cultural references which may not age well (bad news if you're planning to read this book in twenty years time); and yes, there are (conveniently) 3 men and 3 women stranded on this island - but the result is subtle and moving, a cumulative effect belied by the simple progress of the story.

On some ways it's a fantasy work - the plot device of stranding the characters on an island is (just about) plausible, but plausibility isn't really that important. Much like in Sartre's Huis Clos (where 3 characters are in a room in hell that they cannot leave) it isolates the characters from society and forces them to think about what they want from life. As a result of this, the characters engage in some confessional/philosophising monologues that some readers may think are unlikely - but I was taken up in the freewheeling speculative nature of the story and had no problem with this (preferring it, in fact, to a reticent realism). Also, where other authors (such Ian Banks or Ian McEwan) might use a kidnapping scenario to dive into an abyss - I was impressed by the redemptive quality of the story.

I suppose the author (that I know of) that this has most in common with is Douglas Coupland - a similar tone and a desire to niggle away at what 20 and 30 somethings think they're doing with their lives.

All in all, I rattled through it, enjoyed reading it and was left satisfied.