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"  This month&amp;#039;s fiction round featured young female protagonists (and a few hovering men) seeking their fortunes\u2014or at least their destinies\u2014in New York City. A tale of musical and personal obsession by young literary heavy hitter Arthur Phillips (Prague, The Egyptologist, Angelica) was edged out by Joanna Smith Rakoff&amp;#039;s debut group portrait of postcollegians on the make, while Samantha Peale&amp;#039;s inaugural effort, set in the calculating, commercialized art world, elicited a mostly sketchy response from our readers.  1. Joanna Smith Rakoff, A Fortunate Age (Scribner) Rakoff&amp;#039;s homage to Mary McCarthy&amp;#039;s The Group substitutes Oberlin graduates for Vassar&amp;#039;s. Following these earnest, bookish, arty twentysomethings through job hunting, relationships, and marriage, we get caught up in their career woes and dramatic mishaps while Rakoff simultaneously chronicles the dot-com collapse and then post-9/11 angst in the Big Apple. Starting with a wedding and ending with a funeral, Rakoff creates a deliciously flawed group of women and men whose intricate musings and overly analytical introspections make for a pleasant retreat into their self-centered universe. \u2014Penny Bernal, Encinitas, CA Moments of insightful writing flicker gamely here among long bouts of predictability. Weaving together many vignettes of these bright young things&amp;#039; longings for and struggles against acceptance from parents, professors, peers, and, most mystifyingly, themselves, Rakoff struggles as well to adequately flesh out each human character. \u2014Cate Rubenstein, Marina del Rey, CA 2. Arthur Phillips, The Song Is You (Random House) Julian Donahue wanders into a bar one night as an emerging artist and her band are performing. As he teeters on the brink of divorce and emotional collapse, the voice of Irish songstress Cait blends seamlessly with his ever-expanding playlist. Through his clever sound mixing, Julian lays bare the vast difference between infatuation and love, between untarnished idols and flesh-and-blood filial, familial, and romantic entanglements. Most lucid and captivating when read as a stream of consciousness rather than as a recounting of Julian&amp;#039;s memories and ministrations, this book is itself a flowing, lyrical arrangement\u2014the words almost begging to be read (or sung) aloud. \u2014Elizabeth Davis, Boonton, NJ If your MP3 player houses the soundtrack to your life, you&amp;#039;ll relate to Julian and Cait, who form an unlikely bond without actually meeting. Julian provides Cait written advice on how to advance her career, and her music on his iPod initially helps him heal from his painful past. But as Julian&amp;#039;s fixation with Cait intensifies and their contrived near-miss encounters intensify, the plot moves from merely improbable to outright ridiculous. \u2014Michelle S. Blunck, Seattle 3. Samantha Peale, The American Painter Emma Dial (Norton) Emma Dial, an artist in her early thirties, is toiling for a famous painter, Michael Freiburg, but is stalled in her own career. Both personally and professionally entwined with Freiburg, Dial experiences a profound psychic shift after encountering Freiburg&amp;#039;s friend and competitor Philip Cleary. It is inspiring to experience Dial&amp;#039;s transformation through her eyes, and Peale does a great job of portraying a seemingly weak-willed character who finds the strength to become an artist in her own right. \u2014Beth Brezinski, Scottsdale, AZ Somewhere within this portrait is a single woman whom we are supposed to understand and admire. But Emma Dial is neither compelling nor deep enough to have two accomplished, albeit narcissistic men desire her. Though this novel comes across as an insider&amp;#039;s peek into the hyper world of New York art, it falls flat and ends unsatisfactorily. \u2014Joanne M. Choi, Boston For details on becoming a Readers&amp;#039; Prize juror, e-mail us at eagerreader@elle.com. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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