My problem with this book is it ended, as all stories must, although in real life the story just goes on and on until someone dies. Well contrived and well written tale of poor girl meets rich guy and somehow it all works out, or seemingly so. Rich guy wants to give it all up for his squeeze but in his world that just doesn’t happen as in it is “not allowed” by the family. Not only is she not as well off but there is an ethnicity issue. So, family trots out the big guns and rich boy tells them to get lost. Next family ploy is to use more emphatic means, however poor girl does not mean girl is without smarts. As the story progresses it is hard not to become involved in and cheering on the seemingly mismatched pair, and all seems to go smooth and then as mentioned the story ends. To find out how it ends, read the book. Five big bright stars for this one.

Such powerful, raw emotion throughout this entire book. Elise knows that she will love Jayme from the moment she meets him. He comes from a world of privilege while Elise's life has been filled with anything but privilege and opportunity. The two of them find a love that fixes everything they didn't know was broken and find a way to fight for it while the world continually tries to tear them apart. I was wowed by this book from the very start!

Points for a super cool cover design! White Fur by Jardine Libaire captured my attention right away with this one line description:

A stunning star-crossed love story set against the glitz and grit of 1980s New York City

1980’s + New York City = a book I will want to read.

Synopsis:

When Elise Perez meets Jamey Hyde on a desolate winter afternoon, fate implodes, and neither of their lives will ever be the same. Although they are next-door neighbors in New Haven, they come from different worlds. Elise grew up in a housing project without a father and didn’t graduate from high school; Jamey is a junior at Yale, heir to a private investment bank fortune and beholden to high family expectations. Nevertheless, the attraction is instant, and what starts out as sexual obsession turns into something greater, stranger, and impossible to ignore.

The unlikely couple moves to Manhattan in hopes of forging an adult life together, but Jamey’s family intervenes in desperation, and the consequences of staying together are suddenly severe. And when a night out with old friends takes a shocking turn, Jamey and Elise find themselves fighting not just for their love, but also for their lives.

This novel masterfully dances through conflict and resolution, expertly avoiding areas where cliche could weigh it down. The pendulum often swayed back and forth between me rooting for Jamey, or Elise. As a couple, was I rooting for or against them? My feelings changed almost as frequently as the pages did. I am someone who lives on the CT coastline, and I know Newport, New Haven, Bridgeport, and NYC, and the author has nailed the details of each location. There is a lot of sex in this novel, and it tethers these characters together, in ways both sweet and vicious. Thank you Net Galley...I can't wait for publication to see if others will be as moved as I have been.

I hate giving a book such a low score but I couldn't finish this as the bad language was just excessive and misplaced. I realise I sound like a nun when I say that, but it was too overly graphic which was a shame as the story was a good one - girl and boy from different sides of the track from different backgrounds. I felt this was meant for a much younger and edgier audience in their twenties?

Jamey is a trust fund Yale student surrounded by people with an extreme sense of entitlement and Elise is a high school dropout from all over Connecticut as long as it's the wrong side of the tracks. So begins this love story of two parts. The first part deals in the two getting to know and fall for one another in a passionate and exuberant way as only youth can understand. The second part deals in the friction of class and the struggle to continue to grow together. There are a few twists that I will not go into (better you learn them on your own), but ultimately I really enjoyed the beginning but was a bit let down by the directions the book went. I've already heard comparisons to a modern re-telling of Romeo and Juliet, and while I disagree with this assessment I did recognize the influence. Thank you to the publisher for inviting me to read this early through netgalley.

This is a gritty story of a raw desperate love, a clash of worlds colliding, of power, race, privilege, when the dirt poor, school dropout, mixed race and street smart Elise meets Jamey in New Haven, Connecticut where the two coincidentally happen to be neighbours. Jamey is a Yale man, whose path in life is laid out, determined by his wealth conscious, emotionally distant parents, and by virtue of his class. The eponymous white fur is a jacket Elise has managed to acquire and wears constantly. This is no sweet romantic affair, it is a full blooded lusty, high octane brutal passion, a twentieth century Romeo and Juliet with drugs, guns, cruelty, violence and mental health issues set in the brash lights and culture of New York.

Elise is not happy to be hostage to the demanding nature of her emotional need for Jamey. Jamey has been conscious of an emptiness in his life, and in Elise he believes he has found the answer to the questions in his life and love. He has a position in New York and asks Elise to move there with him, thinking their relationship will be more sustainable there. His desperate family are willing to do whatever it takes to break them up but Jamey doesn't care, all he wants is Elise. It is a fascinating look at the stultifying, rigid, and limiting world of white privilege, a straitjacket from cradle to grave. Elise's family is more flexible and accepting, their edgy world is more geared to survival in sharp contrast to the playground of Jamey's world. Is it possible for their love to survive with all that stands against it? Loved the 1980s vibe of New York City and culture. Highly recommended. Thanks to Crown Publishing for an ARC.

I was blessed enough to be pre-approved by the publisher via Netgally to receive a free E-Arc of the book. My personal review of the book is as follows:

The writing style of the book is (in my personal opinion) like walking around in a painting, the descriptions are realistic, gritty, and at times just plain raw. For me personally I felt like it took me awhile(A hundred pages or so) to connect with the main characters/the storyline apart from the writing style it’s self.

The main characters were both(in my personal opinion) very flawed(in different ways) however the hearts of the characters always seemed to be able to shine through. In my personal opinion this book is a mixture between a gritty 80s “Romeo and Juliet” and “Bonnie and Clyde”, I can’t really explain why because the book isn’t out yet (It’s publication date from the information on Netgally is May 30th 2017).

I feel like if you are a fan of “West Side Story” you’ll probably really like this book Overall I personally rate this book a 6 out of 10

I loved the sound of the premise of this book, but I must admit that I was not able to hang with it. The novel is written in the present tense and I found it too clunky to read in it's entirety. No rating since I did not complete, but heads up on the present tense writing.

This was an interesting take on the star-crossed lovers story. It was at times confusing, intense and romantic set in New York City during the 1980s. The main character, Jamey and Elise, are from two different worlds. Jamey come from a namesake and money, while Elise doesn't even know who or where her father is. They have a tumultuous relationship that is looked down upon by his family but full of love between them. The story grabs you from the first page. A very good novel, but on the gritty side and probably not for everyone.

White Fur is the coat Elise always wears. White Fur is also a modern day Romeo and Juliet story. Jamey born to wealth, child of a former Hollywood starlet, Tory and his investment father Alex. Jamey truly grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth and his future is granted with financial success. Now he attends Yale and rooms with his best friend Matt. Elise on the other hand, grew up in the Bridgeport, CT slums who ran away from home even before she was a teenager. She has street smarts and common sense, but no material possessions. She moves next door to Jamey and Matt with a friend Robbie. This is how Jamey and Elise meet initially.
There is a very strong sexual chemistry immediately with these two and it seems they can't get enough of each other. Initially I felt, their relationship was mostly sexual, but during the course of the novel, it becomes obvious that they care for each other, and fall in love. Jamey hides his relationship from his family and walks away when they express their strong disagreements. I felt Jamey could have done a lot more to defend Elise and I felt he made one wrong decision after another. The two move to New York for Jamey's summer break from Yale and an internship he has lined up there. Throughout the novel, I felt Jamey was missing something and his initial interest and relationship with Elise was a form of rebellion against his family. It's also obvious that Jamey craves true love which he didn't get from either of his parents, and tries to find it with Elise. I liked Elise's character much more, she has tried her best against odds to be always there for Jamey. She also tries to make amends with her mother and family . Overall, this is a "can't put it down" book, well deserving of 4 stars. The ending is a little strange, that's why I didn't give it 5 stars.
Thanks NetGalley, Crown Publishing and the author Jardine Libaire for the advanced copy.

This one wasn't for me, but I still might recommend it to people looking for gritty, urban romances.

Your lights are on, but you're not home
Your mind is not your own
Your heart sweats, your body shakes
Another kiss is what it takes
You can't sleep, you can't eat
There's no doubt, you're in deep
Your throat is tight, you can't breathe
Another kiss is all you need

Robert Palmer - Addicted to Love



Elise is street smart; she has no illusions about her life, the kind of girl who grew up on the “wrong” side of the tracks in the projects in Bridgeport. She knows who she is, but she also knows how others see her, and she knows she wants better for her life. She leaves home, runs away, trying to leave behind the mother she loves, but can’t live another day with, and her younger siblings who need her protection.

She has no real place to go, no real money to live on, so when she finds an unlocked car one night, she crawls in. Desperate for sleep. When Robbie and his boyfriend-of-the-night / the owner of the car return and find her, they see her for what she is.

”An elegantly sad runaway in generic white sneakers and gold bamboo earnings.”

Robbie takes her home, rescuing her from a far worse fate, and they become roommates. Friends.
It is out of this window in this apartment where Elise first sees Jamey with Matt, two guys from Yale. They live in the townhouse next door, a relic and reminder of better days in the neighborhood, stately, glimmering with the fractured, dancing lights of the chandelier, fallen from grace.

Without pausing to think, Elise heads out, not wanting to wait for that chance encounter, she knows she has to grab this chance herself. Fate is fickle.

And so, Elise and Jamey meet, she’s wearing her signature white fake fur jacket that a girl gave her in exchange for a half-eaten can of chips. Matt does almost all the talking; Jamey introduces himself but not much more.

”But, it’s the dimpled one, Jamey—she didn’t know he could exist until tonight; it’s like she was watching a jet cross the sky then realized it’s a bird. She has to reorient herself.

Jamey is the son of money, his mother a Hollywood starlet in her day, his father an investment banker. Power. Jamey has the manners that come with money, a projected life following in the footsteps of his father at the firm handed down through his grandfather.

When Jamey is offered an internship in New York City, he invites Elise to join him for a week or two, suddenly realizing how much he’s come to want her near. Little by little this leads to more.

They fall into this lust, raw, gritty lust, it permeates everything. Almost everyone else is against this relationship; each of them tuning out those who try to warn them that this has no chance of ending well. The more they are cautioned, the less they hold onto that convention of caring what others think. They move from being enthralled by each other to spellbindingly obsessed, this raw physical passion, inescapable. A love born of clinging to each other in a world destined to turn against them, and lust.

New York City in its 1980’s fusion of lust and grime and greed, the neon lights adding that glittering aura of the era and the location that has it all, from every level of the “haves” to the “have nots” living as neighbors, behaving as strangers. From Trump Towers to the darker streets that exist outside the reach of its glittering lights, those years, the days and nights in this magical city come alive in Jardine Libaire’s “White Fur.” For me, this was the real magic of this story, of this novel, the streets and the city come alive as though it were a fairy godmother overlooking this fiery, passionate couple, seemingly destined to those all around to end in flames. Perhaps that is what stars are made of, and perhaps it is up to the stars to decide their fate.



Pub Date: 30 May 2017

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Crown Publishing / Hogarth

This book was intriguing. The characters are well-defined and stay in your head. The book almost made me uncomfortable; it was like watching a car accident, and you can't turn your head. It is for adults only. I thought I should put that in there, since my reviews are usually about YA books. The only bad part of the book was the sudden ending. Since I read it on my Kindle, I didn't realize it was coming to a close. I was a little disappointed with its ending.

I was given this book for an honest review.

I flew through the first half and the writing style/sentence structure/characters felt reminiscent of Bret Easton Ellis. I didn't necessarily like the two main characters or sense a connection outside of a sexual one, but I was interested enough as to what would happen to them. I basically saw their relationship as a) Elise not stopping until she could make Jamie "hers" and b) Jamey just showing up for the blow jobs and unconventional hook ups with someone his family would be/is appalled by. The last half felt sloppy, rushed, and random; it took everything in me to just push through til the end. Not a good random, a 'manic, obsessive, half-baked, running away from reality' random.

New York in the late 80's where Elise and her roommate from the wrong side of the tracks are living next door to two Yale boys who think they are living dangerously. One night with Elise and soon Jamey is over every night swearing they are through and then staggering home the next morning emotionally and sexually drained. Once Elise decides he is the one there is nothing Jamey or his well to do uptown family can do to keep them apart. But to stay together Jamey must give up everything - money, future earnings, friends, family and his sanity just for a girl in a white rabbit fur coat. Raw and intense, their story draws you in like the idea of binge watching your favorite reality show. You know you need to stop reading and you can't believe that people could live like this but you are powerless until the final chapter. Elise is sweet and brutal and Jamey is learned but emotionally naive. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

“You go through life thinking there’s a secret to life. And the secret to life is there is no secret to life. There is just the palest blue light seeping through the curtain, there is Elise’s long hand, there is just this kiss, this cathedral of a moment when she presses her mouth to his, her eyes brimming with crystals.”

First of all, apologies for how long it has taken me to get this review posted. This is just the kind of book you have to read multiple times. Every page sent chills down my spine, every line made me light a cigarette and begin writing myself. This is hands down, one of the greatest novels I’ve read in years.

The storyline is raw, unusual and compelling. But what really makes this book, is the author’s style. She unapologetically writes about love with vigorous grit. A story about a girl and a boy, from entirely different worlds, who fall in love and make a life together, despite thier families and grueling pasts.

Despite how enamored I am with this novel, I do have a problem or two. First, the ending. It felt rushed and scattered and I feel as if the entire novel could have been much stronger had it ended any other way. My second issue is with the fact that the story is set in 80’s, yet the story doesn’t remind you of this detail. Regardless, I would recommend this book to anyone and will definitely buy myself a phsyical copy once it is released.

I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.

I recieved this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Author’s website: http://jardinelibaire.com/

Be sure to buy the book when it comes out on May 20th!

<B>White Fur</B> is a novel about a young couple, Elise and Jamey, living a wild life thirty years ago. They start out in New Haven where Jamey attends Yale and quickly move to lower Manhattan at a time when it wasn't the most expensive real estate on the market. Elise is a very young woman who has grown up knowing poverty, domestic abuse, and life in public housing. Jamey is equally young but definitely from the upper part of the one percent. His family's money is old and his mother is a flashy ex-movie star.

Elise and Jamey connect like two lightning bolts and the reader gets to go along for the ride. The novel offers wonderful images of gritty NYC and the people who used to be there. It is a bit cleaned up from the city I knew in the seventies but it definitely bears little resemblance to the New York we know now. The big question posed in this story is will Elise and Jamey make it together? Will they survive and stay in love? It is the universal story laid out in a new and crazy narrative that sets the reader on edge from the first page.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Hogarth Press (May 30th 2017).

This book just wasn't for me. It follows the relationship of Jamey and Elise, who come from two different worlds. Jamey grew up in an extremely rich society while Elise came from a poor family/neighborhood. I didn't find the story interesting enough and the writing was alright, nothing too spectacular. Others will find it enjoyable, I just need a little more excitement in the books I read!

Thanks Crown Publishing and netgalley for this ARC.

This is a little too contemporary for me. I thought I would still like it but it was hard to get thought