Upper East Bride by David Kirby

Megan O’Malley is a working-class, aspiring journalist from Ypsilanti who moves to New York City and is unexpectedly hurled into the madness of uber-rich Manhattan, with its competitive consumption, preposterous pretensions, massive financial fiefdoms, and the over-indulged wealthy, whose hordes of help keep the silver polished, the chateaubriand perfectly cooked and the martinis exquisitely dry.

Megan is soon swept off her feet by the city’s most celebrated wealthy bachelor, Rexford Bainbridge, III, better known in the gossip columns as “Sexy Rexy.” When he proposes to her, Rex’s stunned circle of friends, including a cabal of Type-A socialites, reluctantly agree to take the decidedly down-market Midwesterner under their comically pompous wings and guide her through a massive makeover.

As Megan pursues her dream of journalism, she must navigate a brave new life of ridiculous opulence, relentless snobbery and stinging ridicule, mostly directed at her. When everything comes crashing down, she is shunned by the ladies who lunch. Can Megan claw her way back to respectability and financial stability, while also delivering a fitting comeuppance to her mentors-turned-tormentors? This rags-to-riches-to-rags social satire unearths the dark, hilarious underbelly of class warfare in contemporary Manhattan.