When Life Gives You Lululemons

Emily Charlton is the main character of the novel. In the narrative present, she is 36 years old and is living in Los Angeles, California. She moved there with her husband Miles after leaving New York City, where she worked for years at the fashion magazine Runway under Miranda Priestley. Although Emily likes her job as an image consultant for celebrities, she misses the intensity and grit of New York. Further, she keeps losing clients to a younger competitor, and Miles is often away from home on business. Lonely and discouraged, Emily soon finds herself back on the East Coast, between jobs, and reconnecting with old friends in an attempt to get her life back on track.

Emily is a sarcastic, witty, and no-tolerance character who changes over the course of the novel. When she first arrives in Greenwich, Connecticut, to stay with her old friend Miriam Kagan, she has little interest in making sacrifices to fit into this elite suburban community. However, she soon reacquaints herself with Miriam and her old modeling client from Runway, Karolina Hartwell, and settles into this unfamiliar reality. Whenever she leaves Greenwich, she finds herself “oddly excited to get back,” although “she wouldn’t admit that to anyone” (143).