All We Ever Wanted Was Everything | Janelle Brown | Great book for moms. daughters and book clubs

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything | Janelle Brown | Well-written debut

books:

All We Ever Wanted...

	All We Ever Wanted Was Everything Janelle Brown Spiegel & Grau, 2008 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 23 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

A smart, comic page-turner about a Silicon Valley family in free fall over the course of one eventful summer.

When Paul Miller?s pharmaceutical company goes public, making his family IPO millionaires, his wife, Janice, is sure this is the windfall she?s been waiting years for ? until she learns, via messengered letter, that her husband is divorcing her (for her tennis partner!) and cutting her out of the new fortune. Meanwhile, four hundred miles south in Los Angeles, the Millers? older daughter, Margaret, has been dumped by her newly famous actor boyfriend and left in the lurch by an investor who promised to revive her fledgling post-feminist magazine, Snatch. Sliding toward bankruptcy and dogged by creditors, she flees for home where her younger sister Lizzie, 14, is struggling with problems of her own. Formerly chubby, Lizzie has been enjoying her newfound popularity until some bathroom graffiti alerts her to the fact that she?s become the school slut.

The three Miller women retreat behind the walls of their Georgian colonial to wage battle with divorce lawyers, debt collectors, drug-dealing pool boys, mean girls, country club ladies, evangelical neighbors, their own demons, and each other, and in the process they become achingly sympathetic characters we can?t help but root for, even as the world they live in epitomizes everything wrong with the American Dream. Exhilarating, addictive, and superbly accomplished, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything crackles with energy and intelligence and marks the debut of a knowing and very funny novelist, wise beyond her years.

for more information click here

Great book for moms. daughters and book clubs

I couldn't put this book down, and didn't want it to end--both cliches, but both true in this case. It started slow for me, because the first chapter is focused on Janice, the older of the three women in the book, and not necessarily an immediately sympathetic character, at the moment that her husband, CEO of an ultra-successful company, lets her know that he's leaving her for her best friend. Somewhere between "I'd leave her too" and "I don't know if I want to read about that", though, I found myself hooked by the writing. It was clear this wasn't just going to be another ampowered first wives book, and it's not.

What follows is the story of not just Janice but her two daughters as well, nearly-thirty Margaret, the most-likely-to-succeed girl who hasn't been able to pull it off, and the youngest, a teenager as reluctant to face up to reality as her older sibling and her mother. All three are busy hiding their problems from each other, which lets them put off dealing with things themselves. What makes the book fun is watching them yank the scabs off of each other's wounds, and then all figure out how to deal with them.
I loved this book. It was a good read--something to get lost in, well written and engulfing and a real pleasure as well. I just sent a copy to my mom.

for more information click here

Well-written debut

In Janelle Brown's "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything," Janice was left by her husband, Paul for her best friend/tennis partner after his pharmaceutical company went public and the family became millionaires overnight. His departure caught Janice completely off-guard, and she was left alone with their two daughters, Margaret and Lizzie. Both daughters had problems of their own - Margaret, was recently dumped by her actor boyfriend, found herself in massive debt when her feminist magazine failed, while Lizzie who slept around with different boys in her high school became known as the slut. All of the three women did not know of one another's problems/issues, and their situation became more complicated when they found out that Paul may soon stripped Janice of her well-deserved money from the stocks.

This was a well-written novel that touched on contemporary issues that affect most families. The author was able to describe her characters vividly, making them seemed like real people with real issues. She was also able to illustrate the complexities of each of the relationships in this book, making this an engaging read. This was a great debut for the Janelle Brown, and I look forward to her next novel.

for more information click here

Nothing really

Bad things happen in threes: A mother and two daughters.
Yet another middle aged woman gets dumped by her hubby for another woman. This time instead of a job or BFF coming to her rescue, her two dysfunctional daughters show up. Losers every one, how would they could "help" each other seemed implausible. The cover and title made me want to love it. It is well written so that's why the three stars, but it really was kind of depressing.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

products you might be interested in