Out of the Easy

There is this atmosphere in New Orleans. The heat and heavy humidity. The moss draped over the branches of ancient trees. The galleries on the second floors of homes. The excesses that mark everyday life. The permissiveness known but rarely discussed. 1950s New Orleans is captured wonderfully in Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys and anyone who has been to New Orleans can picture the scene.

Any book that starts with "My mother is a prostitute. Not the filthy, streetwalking kind." has something to offer. The narrator, Josie, named after a Madam, is seventeen. She's been on her own since age seven, sleeping above the bookstore in which she works. She also works every morning cleaning up the night's remainders after the girls at Willie's show more brothel, where her mother works when she isn't running away with Cincinatti, a dangerous but petty thief.

When the sophisticated and handsome Forrest L. Hearne, Jr. (in from Tennessee for the Sugar Bowl) enters the bookstore and engages her in intellectual conversation, she puts him on the list of fantasy fathers. When he is found dead the next day of an apparent heart attack, she feels something is wrong.

Josie's longing to leave the Big Easy, disassociate herself with her past, is her overriding goal. She is smart and college is a dream spurred on by an acquaintance, Charlotte, who attends Smith and prods Josie to apply. But how do you leave your mother who is up to her eyeballs in the Hearne affair? How do you leave the gruff but benevolent Willie or the 'nieces' in her house? And Cokie, the cab driver who befriended them when they arrived in New Orleans.

There are all kinds of characters in New Orleans and they appear in Out of the Easy; the ones you hate and the ones you love. Sepetys' writing is vivid. Her story is engrossing. Her characters are your friends. It's three months into the new year and already my Top 10 lists has a lot of candidates. I'm betting Out of the Easy will make the final cut. It'll be that easy! show less

This was a really enjoyable ride through the underbelly of 1950s New Orleans, and because it's told from the perspective of a girl trying to get out of it, all the details come that much more alive. The varied faces of each character and each event add to the lushness, and I liked how no character is absolutely good. Some are absolutely evil, but there are layers to all the good and in-between characters - depending, of course, on your definition of good, which is a part of what this book is about. Josie learns a lot throughout the journey that is this upheaval of her life, and she comes to see things and people differently than she did when she just wanted out. Each character is so deeply developed, even the characters who appear for show more only a brief time, like Charlotte. Although she is actually there for two brief scenes, and after that appears in the story only through correspondence, we really get a full picture of what she's about, how she fits into society and how she views Patrick and Josie.

The schemes to get out of New Orleans lie behind every shocking and devastating event in the book, and I like the way it builds up naturally, so that it seems an obvious thing that Josie is applying to Smith, although at the beginning of the book, both she and the reader would never dream of anything like that. I especially like the way Josie gets out at the end. The whole book is essentially about seeing things in a different light, about getting to the bottom of what each person is really about. And though Josie gets to leave New Orleans, the way she leaves is a statement about what she's learned. I love that it's not a fairy-tale ending. Josie has a hard life, and it will never get totally better - her past will always be a part of her. And that, i think, is what she is meant to understand from all the events of the book.

Full review on Reader's Dialogue: http://readersdialogue.blogspot.com/2013/03/out-of-easy.html show less

Due to copy and paste, formatting has been lost.

Out of the Easy was absolutely fantastic in every way. It had enough romance to keep a girl entertained, and a dash of danger, with a smidgen of humor. Morbid humor. But everyone knows that it's the best kind! There's no doubt about it, this book had me hooked from the very beginning. I'm struggling to put my thoughts into words.

Josie was absolutely amazing! Being named after a famous madam can't be all that horrifying (especially because it's Josie, which is like, the cutest name ever), but when you really think about it, it kind of is-- because she knows it. Maybe nobody else does, but she knows, and it weighs on her. One of the things that I liked the most about Josie was that she was show more gritty. Not that she was mean or dirty, but that she saw things as they were; and she wasn't afraid to call anyone out on it. She was AWESOME. I also love the idea that she lives (and works!) in a bookstore, because seriously. Is that not your dream?

The character interactions were superb. The way that Patrick, Willie, Jesse, Josie and Cokie all interacted was awesome. I didn't ever find myself doubting their exchanges, or doubting that they all really care for each other. It was as it is-- perfect. The pacing was good too-- I never found myself wishing that the story would move along, neither did I find myself wondering how I'd gotten from one point to another. It was the perfect blend of fast-paced and slower going. Fast enough to keep you interested, but slow enough as not to confuse you.

Because I'm a sucker for characters, I loved every bit of this book. You know what else I'm a sucker for? Good storylines. And this book has a totally amazing one: Josie's mother really is a prostitute. And a crook, but we won't go there. The coolest part is that Josie gets to interact with all the prostitutes-- she cleans house for Willie, so she talks to the girls. And they have their own little train of pretty awesome going on.

All in all, Out of the Easy was FANTASTIC. I loved the characters and the storyline, and I never wanted it to end. It was the epitome of amazing. I'm only stopping here because I'm absolutely sure that I could go on FOREVER about this epic book. show less

Josie Moraine is girl living in the seedy side of New Orleans, pulled between her prostitute mom and her seemingly impossible college dreams. A brilliant girl, I should say. A bright and salty smart girl, who has spirit and endurance and a very smart mouth in a time and a place where those are not necessarily the thing. Well-written, constantly moving story with great characters inhabiting 1950's New Orleans, with its small town gossip and big town crime.

I particularly loved a scene where Willie the Madam asks Josie how much she got for her first trick and the response is something like "I couldn't do it. He touched me and it made me sick, so I knocked him down and drew a gun on him instead"... and Willie says "Good for you."

That's a show more book I can get into.

I suppose, for full disclosure, I should mention that I went to Smith. Frankly, her idealization of the place made me more uncomfortable than not -- it's odd to see my college so rosily depicted, and even more to see its up-town airs in contrast with a gritty southern reality. It was a haven for me, though, and Josie Moraine would have fit right in. show less

I received Out of the Easy as an Early Reviewer ARC, so I am basically obligated to say something about it. But I am having a difficult time articulating what, exactly, makes it such a great read that I felt compelled to stay up until the wee hours to read it in one go.

The back-of-the-book synopsis does the story a disservice, I felt, by making the novel seem like every other YA/romance novel - chock full of cliché and the trope of the small town girl with the heart of the big city (or vice versa), looking to escape whatever is tying her down while meanwhile torn between two love interests. But then I realized, while trying to describe the book to my friends and explain why they totally need to read it as soon as it comes out in show more February (because there's no way I'm risking my copy getting lost), well, I realized that the synopsis is entirely accurate. It's just lacking in heart, or something.

Yet for all the risks of cliché promised by the synopsis (and how could you expect otherwise?), I don't think Sepetys falls into them. Or, at least, the most obvious of them. Yes, it's a story about a brothel in the French Quarter of New Orleans, but I can't say that any of the women living there are "prostitutes with a heart of gold". They're just ordinary women with their own needs and wants who happen to work in the sex trade, some better people than others. Yes, there is a love triangle, but it isn't really a competition between the bad boy and the trustworthy friend. Both of the love interests fall are long-time friends, neither are the dangerous bad boy compared to the other, and the question of romance for Josie is only one smaller aspect of the plot.

So maybe I've just figured out what makes Out of the Easy so good. Sepetys takes what could be a completely mundane, terrible, trope-ridden story and turns it into a compelling story about how Josie ends up leaving her life in New Orleans. Rather like she did with her first novel, Between Shades of Gray, Sepetys doesn't completely leave behind the tropes, and some of the story does follow what you might expect to happen, especially as it is being marketed as a YA novel - but, for me at least, that only makes the instances where she doesn't go the safe route all the more surprising and emotional. I could guess how the book would end, for example, but by the time I got to the last 30 or 40 pages, I could no longer say with certainty that the expected ending would, in fact, happen.

If there are weaknesses in Out of the Easy, I think it might be that some plot threads are tied off a bit too tidily. I like the ways it ends a lot, with hopefulness for Josie but no "ten years later..." sort of epilogue or postscript, but I can see how it wouldn't work for other people. It's not necessarily a happy ending, but I find it very fitting.

I enjoyed Out of the Easy a whole lot, and I think it's definitely worth reading. I'll be surprised if it doesn't eventually become popular with awards the way Between Shades of Gray did. show less

My work book club chose this book for October 2014 and I was eager to read it as soon as it was mentioned it was set in New Orleans. I was there for a conference a few years ago and when my husband and I started thinking of places to go after I retire New Orleans was top of my list. So I've been trying to read some books set there anyway but I probably would not have found this one on my own because it is classified as YA fiction. It's true that the main character is a teenage girl but the subject matter is all grown up.

Josie Is smart, good-looking and honourable and she has been taking care of herself since she was ten years old. She has a mother technically but her mother has done nothing to look after Josie. Josie's mother, Louise, show more is a prostitute who works for Willie Woodley, a famous New Orleans madam. Josie lives above a bookstore owned by Charlie Marlowe who lets her stay there in return for helping with the store. Charlie's son, Patrick, has been relying on Josie to help at the store while he is at home looking after Charlie who has been unwell ever since a robbery at their home. Josie also cleans at Willie's brothel and Willie relies on her to tell her what is going on in the house.

On New Year's Eve a handsome older man comes into the bookstore looking for a book of poetry by Keats. He chats to Josie and thinks Josie is a college student. Josie fantasizes that this man is her father so she is shocked when she reads in the paper the next day that he has died in a nightclub. Josie doesn't believe this death is natural and it turns out that she is right. Someone slipped him chloral hydrate in his drink and the dose was too high. When Josie's mother leaves town in a hurry with her boyfriend Cinncinnati and Josie finds the man's watch in her mother's room she realizes that her mother is involved somehow.

Josie has formed a plan to go to Smith College in Massachusetts but she doesn't know how she will get the money or even get accepted. She finds that all of her attempts to accomplish this get thwarted and she becomes more desperate. Soon she is lying to everyone who is important to her. Will Josie ever get "out of the [Big] Easy"?

I thought the author did a good job of portraying the French Quarter in New Orleans and the characters are well-drawn but maybe a little one-dimensional. Most characters were either salt of the earth or despicable and I don't find that most people are that one-sided. However, I enjoyed the book and I rooted for Josie all the way through. show less

I have been obsessed addicted to reading any book that is set in New Orleans for a very long time, since I was in high school and I discovered Anne Rice. I have been to New Orleans numerous times, the last time being the week before Katrina. And I have a very good friend who is a transplanted New Orleanian, and New Orleans is a place I would totally move to if I could. I had been waiting patiently for this book to be published, so when I saw it on NetGalley I had to request it. I was so happy when I was approved.

I downloaded this onto my iPad and started devouring this book like a beignet at Cafe du Monde, just less messily. I read at night until my eyes were closing, and took the book with me to work, where I read during my lunch and show more break. Then I read a little bit in the afternoon, but I only had ten more pages to read and I couldn't stop there, I had to know what happened.

Needless to say, I really enjoyed 99% of this book. The characters were all such different personalities, all of them endearing. Your heart went out to Josie - her life wasn't easy, but she had hopes and dreams, even though she didn't think she was good enough to achieve them. Willie Woodley reminded me of Belle Watling from Gone with the Wind, a sort of take no prisoners attitude, a tough as nails madam, but who had a soft spot for Josie. Josie's mother was useless and pitiful, but much of your pity evaporated with her continued horrible treatment of Josie. Josie's boss Charlie and his son Patrick formed the rest of her little family, along with Cokie, a taxi driver and driver for Willie. They all assist in helping Josie, (with the exception of her mother) who desperately wants to go to college and get out of the Big Easy, away from her mother and those who know her as the daughter of a prostitute. Josie's mother makes this nearly impossible, and her presence threatens to ruin her daughter's life at every turn. But Josie is resourceful, and has good friends behind her, and her story is captivating. You can't help but root for this girl. However, the ending was too neat and tidy and convenient. I thought it was a cop out, the easy way out of the story, a way to wrap it up quickly. I feel so much went into this story, that it shouldn't have ended so abruptly.

I loved the writing in this book - I felt like I was walking the streets of the Quarter with Josie, I saw what she saw and felt what she felt. Sepetys can certainly set a scene. My only complaint is the throw away ending, and that is not enough to stop me from wanting to read Between Shades of Grey. I think this book is worth picking up, even if it is just to enter the world of New Orleans Sepetys has visualized. show less