Vixen by Jillian Larkin (2010)

I was going to stop listening to this book on numerous occasions, as it was such a teen view of love and relationships, but I stayed with it as the setting intrigued me, which is why I picked it up in the first place. I had recently read a non-fiction book about the prohibition, so this was fiction in the 1920's with speakeasies, flappers, mobsters, jazz, blues, hidden drinking everywhere. Most of the action took place in Chicago, and I have actually been to the Green Mill in Chicago today. The main characters are all rich society types with parents who are too busy to be involved with their children, who are supposed to lead these debutante lives, but are drawn to the exciting world of the speakeasies.

Gloria is the good girl, engaged to Harvard grad Sebastian, with side kicks Lorraine and Markus. Cousin Clara comes in, supposedly from the farm in Pennsylvania, but actually sent by her parents to get away from a wild year as a flapper in New York City. I could not take the teen-age "Oh, he looked at me, he must love me" nor when the relationships started getting serious, and in some cases mean and vindictive, I could not believe that this was all happening to 17-19 year olds. The story was told by the different characters, and so the story jumped around in time, as one character did not continue the story where the other left off, but jumped back or forward a few hours or days. In one place I was sure the author made a mistake, putting her characters in a situation that only happened quite a bit later, but in an audio book, it is hard to "flip back" to check it out. I liked the setting, that the author did try to tackle race and class issues, but I do not think I will read any more, as I just realized this was just the first in a series "The Flappers."