Illustration for the New York Times book review of Marlowe Granados’ “Happy Hour” about two twenty-somethings living the quintessential carefree New York summer, reserved for the charming, beautiful, and effortlessly cool.
“By the end of her summer in the city, she has a sharpened sense of where charm can take her — of where she might like to go and how she might go about getting there. “You can’t buy charm, but you can certainly spend it,” she observes as the book nears its close. “You can certainly withhold it too.” - Molly Fischer