Rating: 
Summary: A Terrific Book Not To Be Missed
Review: This is a really good book. It reminded me of Gatsby, The Philadelphia Story, The Last of the Savages, St. Elmo's Fire, and The Secret History. The author addresses a number of big generational issues without sounding pretentious. The narrative is always entertaining and the writing is rich and gorgeous in places. I'm looking forward to the movie, although the book is terrific in its own right. I hope they cast Gwyneth as Kate and the bongo-playing Matthew M. as Nick. Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos might make a good Harry.
Rating: 
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: While Macy's writing was exceptional, I found the actual story to be disappointing and redundant. Macy is no doubt a writer who knows New York and its upper classes, however the story failed to capture my soul.
Rating:
Summary: Macy's very talented but deserves a better editor
Review: Ms. Macy is a very talented writer - whole paragraphs could be lifted and read alone again and again - but deserves a better editor. Because this Fitzgeraldesque world is familiar to everyone who reads American fiction, special care should have been taken to avoid obviousness. The clearest example of a character who should have been depicted less crudely (as well as less cruelly) is the sister of Nick. She is described as "obese", as having dyed blond hair and black roots, and foul mouthed. The reader would still have got the narrator's point, that lower middle class people are overweight and common, had this poor woman been described as merely "fat" rather than obese. Also, an editor determined to keep this novel from being cliched would have spotted the Catholics-are-not-our-kind-dear attitude of most of the characters as being passe by the early nineties. A vigilant editor also would have pared down the references to Black Watch, Glen Cove, et al. When a novelist cites actual places and schools too often, he's being lazy, he's allowing the name itself to evoke what his writing should. If I seem hyper-critical, it is because I see such real talent in Ms. Macy's writing and hope she avails herself of editors who do not allow potential marketing angles (a movie about boarding school chums! Yale! Greenwich!) to cheapen the novel itself.
Rating:
Summary: Lovely
Review: Caitlin Macy has written a novel that captures a very small, very interesting clique in New York. It also captures the feeding frenzy of the early 90s and to this end deserves to be applauded. It is frustrating that so many readers have found the novel "elitist": the narrator is poor, after all, an outsider looking into this world rather than an insider looking out. I think Macy has also captured the mindset of the endangered and beleaguered male preppie better than any writer I can think of in the last decade or so. The book is charming, insightful and intelligent. One almost feels protective of it after finishing it. A shame it has to be offered for public consumption, as it will most likely be too subtle for some palates...
Rating:
Summary: Dont Kill the Messenger
Review: Fundamentals of Play is a fantastic book. It is the perefect combination of wit, play, engaging story and social commentary. Macy's insights about New York culture and her obvious kinship with the city, its architecture and atmosphere make this a true city novel in the best sense. Those who critique Macy for writing about the wealthy miss the point. The wealthy, or those apsiring to be so, are fit and fascinating subjects for novels, or so Austen, Fitzgerald, Fielding rightly demonstrated. The human condition is compelling no matter what someone's net worth.
Rating:
Summary: A Thoughtful Volume
Review: This book is a thoughtful and funny novel with frequently brilliant observations and turns of phrase. Macy's dialogue is sharp, wry, and natural. The plot is interesting and makes sense. I strongly disagree with another review which suggests that Macy does not have a perspective on the world of wealth that she spins so well. Indeed, it is precisely her distance from that world through the wealth-poor narrator that forms the core of the book. It's a great read!
Rating: 
Summary: The Rich Are Different
Review: And thank god I'm not one of them. This is another entry in the chronicles of the self-absorbed and not very interesting traumas of people who are rich and spoiled and have no idea what life is like for the rest of the world. Worse, it seems to have been written by someone who also doesn't know the difference but who will no doubt be laughing all the way to the bank.
Rating: 
Summary: A vanishing breed
Review: Take "The Great Gatsby", throw in "For Kings and Planets" and Whit Stillman's movie "Metropolitan", a tiny bit of "Mysteries of Pittsburgh", darken with a dash of "A Season in Purgatory" and you have "The Fundamentals of Play". But if that sounds dismissive, it isn't. The review in Salon.com was so good that I broke my own rule and ordered it in hardback. Beautifully written and fascinating description of the old American aristocracy. [If prep school memoirs make you retch, you may want to skip this, though] Couldn't get a fix on the appeal of Kate, the object of the narrator's adoration, but that is probably the point. Some really nicely-drawn characters and memorable scenes and settings make this a good read.
Rating:
Summary: stick with the original
Review: I've read Gatsby. In fact, I've read everything of Fitzgerald's, the letters the short stories. I don't think Ms. Macy necessary has, but she has read Gatsby. Reading this book reminds me of those Star Wars ripoffs that spread out like a virtual diaspora after the initial trilogy was completed, where there seemed a desparate need to continue the legacy of a great story that alas, had come to an end. They were all plagued with these italicized voiceovers, which paraphrased lines from the movies. "The Force is strong within my family. I have it, my father has it. My sister has it." And so on.Macy, sadly, despite her Yale/Columbia lineage seems content to do the same with TFOP. Her use of the word jaunty, along with the word chin, recur with the sad frequency of someone who read the description of Jordan Baker a time too many. And the plot is practically ganked straight from Gatsby. The descriptions of how lousy it is to be poor, educated and a manhattanite are straight out of the soliloquy that Nick delivers as he is contemplating Broadway at dusk. Even worse, the dialogue that comes out of these characters is sad, uninspired, and even if accurate, virtually unreadable. If you want to read a book that does gatsby justice, I suggest picking up The Catcher in the Rye, instead.
Rating: 
Summary: A sad waste of a gifted writers talents & the reader's time.
Review: Caitlin Macy is a very talented lady-she'd have to be to keep me hopeful enough to finish this book. She has an elegant and engaging prose style, shows flashes innovative dialog and a good sense of pacing. All of that is on display here-yet this is an awful book. The story-such as it is-surrounds the various desires-often bordering on obsession-of three old college acquaintances with one Kate Goodenow. For this concept to work Kate obviously has to have some element of extraordinary attractiveness and/or allure that's evident to one and all-hopefully including the reader, this being a novel-to justify and provide context to the strength of these men's obsessive behavior. The problem is Kate comes across as little more than a boring social snob of very little intelligence, less appeal and virtually no visible character. As one reads this abomination the primary reaction one has is to repress the need to scream "Grow up you twits!!!" about every 5 pages or so. All of the characters apparently have-and hold-their respective important jobs solely through their elevated social status-no one ever seems to do a jot of work. Yet, they all seem to feel oppressed and put upon in their professional lives. At least they are projected as having professional lives, which is much more than can be said of their personal lives, which appear to consist of little more than an interminable and inexplicable process of impetuously satisfying whatever morbid, stupid or ridiculous notion crosses their mind at any given moment. It's a testament to Macy's writing ability that I stayed the course to see if any sign of sense or maturity would appear on the scene-it didn't. All in all, as sad a waste of Macy's talent in writing this as I experienced in reading it. Groucho Marx once observed "This is not a book to be put aside lightly-it should be thrown with great force!" This would be a good candidate for such advice. One can only hope Macy will develop the ability to provide characters and stories equal to her talent in the future.
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