3.5 stars. Billed as "the Mad Men of the 21st Century," Christopher Stoddard's <i>The Virtuous Ones</i> follows a group of PR firm employees, celebrities, and influencers through their tumultuous lives and their desperate attempts to keep up appearances. Each chapter follows the point of view of a different character, with the first and last chapter being from that of the same character.

Stoddard doesn't shy away from revealing the ugliness underneath the sparkling veneer of these characters' lives: amid all of the namedrops of designer brands and lifestyle products, sex, drugs, crime, and a whole lot of bad behavior abound. Stoddard's blunt and to-the-point writing style does an excellent job juxtaposing the glamor with the ugly underside of these lives. In contrast with the bluntness, there is also a lot of vividly descriptive imagery, which also lends well to the narrative.

As others have mentioned, this isn't a laugh-out-loud satire; it's more subtle. Stoddard sketches out believable characters that you can imagine actually existing and actually doing the things they do, even if they seem extreme. But be warned: when I say these characters behave badly, it's a bit euphemistic. This book discusses topics that might be distressing for some readers, so proceed with caution. On the whole, <i>The Virtuous Ones</i> is a timely and relevant satire of the rich and famous, and a haunting look into what lies beneath the surface of all that glitz and glam. Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book early!

4.25/5
Where to begin with a novel like this; I guess I'd like to start by saying I wasn't sure at first. For the first fifty pages, I had a rough time reading the novel. Not for the writing style, because the writing and the language I loved. Some moments were too lyrical for me, but for some odd reason, I loved the lyrical moments. The purple prose was like music to my ears. Now when it comes to characters, I can't say I have a favorite; all of them were vile. However, they all fell right into the books themes and they fit perfectly. The book wouldn't work without these characters; even at moments when I wanted to give this book up; but I powered through and I'm glad I did because at the end, more themes were added. And this rather short novel became a jumble of topics and I quite enjoyed how the author handled the situations revolving around the world around us today; especially in the last couple of years. With all the heartache around us, more people need to view the articles and listen to the people. Times are changing and all people should be listened to and the old ways need to adapt.
#TheVirtuousOnes #NetGalley

This book is a lot of things -- some of it 'good' and some of it 'bad'. But that all depends on where your morals lie. The satire in this deals with topics most people are afraid to acknowledge, including the now-ever present need to have a desirable depiction of ourselves on social media. The characters in this book commit morally despicable acts in order to achieve this, or consider these morally despicable acts before ever doing them. The writing style is similar to that of Brett Easton Ellis, with very blatant and witty descriptions of actions that can be disconcerting. It writes our reality into something seemingly very dystopian. It definitely isn’t for everyone to consume, but it does pose a question over morals and how we apply them to ourselves in real life. Regardless, this proved to be a quick and reflective read that was overall very enjoyable.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

I’m the first to rate and review this book. Nice. Or noooice. So here we go…
The Virtuous Ones are anything but. That’s the satire of it, presumably. They are vain, vapid, vile, vicious, and venomous.
They are also a very specific class of people – famous and fame-adjacent, moneys, groomed to the nines, and career-driven.
And yes, none of the fame is deserved and none of their careers really matter in the grand scheme of things, but hey, that’s modern fame-obsessed, social media-addled world for you.
There’s a rapey (and not even the only rapey character in here) rapper and his posse and a PRM firm hired to manage him and his new charity-base show.
Chapter by chapter the narrative alternates to feature different players in this elaborate and ultimately vacuous performance. So it’s mostly one of those terrible people doing terrible things to each other sort of satires. But it does a good job of reflecting many aspects of a current zeitgeist, mainly that of the undeserved fame and its repercussions.
Sex scandals, race scandals, social media scandals - all sorts of things this story doesn’t shy away from.
And, because it has to deal with a PR firm and moral ambiguity, the comparisons to Mad Men are inevitable. Although the two are really very different beasts.
This book isn’t a sort of LOL satire, it’s subtler, darker. Lots of ugliness here you can’t joke away. So maybe not for everyone, but an interesting and a well-written book. And such a quick read. I went through it in one sitting 1:30 to 4:30 or so. This may not be a book to love per se, since it is so unlovely by design, but it's certainly a sort of thing one can appreciate. Thanks Netgalley.