All We Ever Wanted by Emily Giffin: A Mother's Crisis of Values, Familial Ties, and Sympathetic Understanding

"Finch is either completely innocent or a total sociopath. He's either more like his mother or exactly like his father. I have no clue which one it is, but I will find out." from All We Ever Wanted by Emily Giffin

There is a reason that Emily Giffin's novel All We Ever Wanted is on the bestseller list immediately upon publication. She is a fine writer who delivers defined characters caught in a complicated knot of the "he said, she said" variety, and rolls out the plot so the reader is hooked and, as the story progresses, can't resist being sucked into the current of ever-deepening revelations.

She incorporates issues of #Me Too, class, and race into the central story, along with youth issues of social media and peer pressure, so the novel feels relevant.

The plot revolves around Finch Bowning, just accepted into Princeton, whose family is extremely wealthy. His mother Nina came from modest roots, while his father Kirk was from one of Nashville's elite even before he became even wealthier. They seem to have everything.

Then there is Lyla, raised by her single father Tom. Lyla is on scholarship at a private school where kids like Finch are clearly from another world.

Then at a party one night, a photograph is taken and circulated, bringing crisis into all their lives.

Nina's own experience offers her insight into Lyla's situation and she wants justice for Lyla. Nina must consider the values her husband has brought into their family, where money is more important than people and anything can be bought. She is forced to evaluate her entire life as she seeks to walk the fine line between what is right and the bonds of family.

I had not read Giffin before and was very pleased with this book.

I won an ARC through LibraryThing.

Read an excerpt at
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/550983/all-we-ever-wanted-by-emily-giffin/9780399178924/

All We Ever Wanted
Emily Giffin
Hardcover | $28.00
Published by Ballantine Books
Publication June 26, 2018
ISBN 9780399178924

Laura & Emma by Kate Greathead

Laura & Emma by Kate Greathead follows the relationship between mothers and daughters, told in vignettes against the changing times between 1980 and 1995. It is a comedy of manners novel with loads of laugh out loud moments.

Laura comes from a wealthy New York City family descended from a Robber Baron whose inherited wealth supports her. She has a degree in English and a job through the family. She envies self-made people.

Laura has never been in love. Her mother's favorite saying is that it doesn't matter who you marry--you will end up thinking, "Anything would be better than this!"

The book begins with Laura pondering that a husband would be nice to have around the apartment if the window were swollen or the fire detector battery needed replacing. She wouldn't have to wait until morning to call the super.

She dresses in Fry boots and a flowered Laura Ashley skirt and turtleneck sweater--a uniform she wears all of her life. (I had those fry boots and made a Ralph Lauren full skirt. Unlike Laura, they went to the Goodwill long before the 1980s were over!) She has no intention of having children, no interest in marrying. She is concerned about the environment. She has The Enchanted Broccoli Forest and Moosewood cookbooks but rarely cooks.

In 1980 while her parents are away, she stays at their home for a week. She is surprised that a man is also staying there. She assumes he is a friend of her brothers, and he does tell her stories of their time together in boarding school. Before the week is out, he charms her into bed with him. The next day he is gone.

He was not a friend of her brother's but a house-crashing burglar. The one-night stand leaves her pregnant. Laura makes up a story of artificial insemination with donated Swedish sperm. Emma is born, and Laura does her best as a mother, hoping to give Emma a life different from hers, apart from artificial high society values. She finds an apartment on the border of Harlem--but on the 'right side' of the street.

I laughed out loud so many times. Laura goes on a date and notices the man has earrings. She decides they aren't meant to be, but the earrings turn out to be his daughter's stickers.

Laura's friend Margaret explains she has joined "the club", seeing a "shrink." After years of marriage, she sometimes looks at her sleeping husband, whose snoring keeps her awake, and thinks that it is a good thing she didn't have a gun in her bedside table.

Don't worry, things turn out fine for the marriage. But what a clever scene to talk about the idea that "it doesn't matter who you marry, one day you'll be sitting across the table from him, thinking, Anything would be better than this." I'm pretty sure husbands think the same thing about wives. I'll ask mine the next time I am wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt to keep warm--my Oompa Loompa look according to him.

The book was promoted in terms of, "if you liked Ladybird or Gilmore Girls." Gilmore Girls included a single mom at odds with her wealthy parents, and Ladybird showed a teenager wanting the freedom to find her own way. The themes are similar.

We learn about Laura by her actions and passivity. She is the least self-aware character imaginable. Her inner conflicts are hinted at without an overt authorial voice. We make connections about Laura by implication.

Emma, on the other hand, is sharp as a tack. As a preschooler she asks Laura why they don't live "in their neighborhood," that is where their friends and stores are.

I know readers who do not like this book because 1) it is episodic, without a strong linear plot; 2) it is character-driven without a lot of inner dialogue; and, 3) it is open-ended.

But I enjoyed it. I love a good comedy of manners. Laura's inability to deal with adult intimate relationships, Emma's zeroing in on the inconsistencies of their lives, and the gaps between mothers and daughters all feel real.

I received an ARC from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Laura & Emma
by Kate Greathead
Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: March 13, 2018
$25 hardcover
ISBN: 9781501182402

The Joy of Margery Sharp

I have adored the novels of Margery Sharp since I came across Cluny Brown in a Philadelphia used book store some 30+ years ago. When I saw it along with Sharp's The Nutmeg Tree offered on NetGalley I knew they were just what I needed to read. One needs to read all the witty, funny, lovely books one can, especially during this presidential campaign season.

Margery Sharp (1905-1991) started her career writing for Punch and serialized magazine stories. Her first novel appeared in 1930 and her last in 1977. Her novels are comedic yet insightful, witty with a deep humanity. Several of her novels were made into films, including Disney's animated versions of her children's Rescuer series. Open Roads Media is publishing ten of Sharp’s novels as ebooks, and I hope she finds a new generation of fans.

Set in pre-war Britain, Cluny is an orphan living with her uncle, a stolid plumber who loves but does not understand her. He describes twenty-year-old Cluny as 'plain as a boot'. He complains that she 'does not know her place'. Cluny is either very naive and unworldly or game for any new adventure.

When her uncle is away and a plumbing emergency is called in she decides to tackle the job herself.

"The correct costume for a young lady going to fix a gentleman's sink on a Sunday afternoon has never been authoritatively dealt with: Cluny had naturally to carry her uncle's tool-bag, but as an offset wore her best clothes."

She fixes the problem and requests to clean up. She is coaxed into trying out the upscale bath in the customer's bachelor pad, and then to indulge in a cocktail, and was to stay for a party when her uncle arrives. He decides that Cluny must go into service where, perhaps, she will learn her place--and stay out of trouble.

At least going into service would be an adventure.

Cluny had height and a blank expression, the making of a Tall Parlour-maid. Inexperience is a plus: she will be properly trained on the job. She is sent to Friars Carmel. Col. Duff-Graham who has met the train to pick up a Golden Labrador takes her to Friar Carmel. Cluny and the dog bond and she is invited to visit on her day off to walk the dog.

Cluny is to serve a household consisting of two Old English types: a master who has retired from hunting and now writes letters to chums across the British Empire, and a mistress whose passion is her garden. Their son Andrew is concerned with the situation in Europe and has brought home a Polish refugee, Adam Belinski. No one quite know what Belinski does, but he becomes 'The Professor' and is treated royally; he quite likes it but feels it is undeserved. His escape from Europe was not just because he was a Pole in Germany--he is also an inveterate Ladies Man.

"Within a few days Friars Carmel, for perhaps the first time in its history, boiled with passion."

Andrew is in love with Betty Cream, whose beauty attracts every male who sees her. And Belinski is one of them. On the other hand, Belinski and Cluny seem to be at odds with each other--the Pole even throws Gulliver's Travels at her from a window!

Meanwhile walking the Colonel's dog Cluny meets the village chemist who arranges his schedule so he can walk with her every week. Cluny's very plainness and simplicity meets the chemist's approval. She encourages his attention.

In an unexpected twist ending, which includes a man stealing into a woman's bedroom, screams in the night, a quick getaway, and couples ending up with their proper mate, the novel wraps up with Cluny finding her place in the world.

Cluny Brown is about a young girl discovering who she is; in The Nutmeg Tree we meet a woman who believes that her past choices limits her future.

It begins with Julia in the tub singing The Marseilles while her furnishings are being repossessed. A curvaceous thirty-seven year old, Julia loves people and men love Julia. She is broke and soon will be homeless. The bath also holds a grandfather's clock, dishes, and other things with some value--to be sold to the local antique dealer for travel funds. For after sixteen years apart Julia's daughter Susan has requested her mother's presence. Susan is in love but her paternal grandparents and guardians have other plans for her.


Julia was a nineteen-year-old chorus girl when she woke up with Sylvester Packett, a WWI soldier who was passing through. When she told him about her pregnancy he wanted to do the 'right thing' and marry her. She was sent to his parents in the country while he went France and his death.

Julia tried to fit into the refined and quiet country life. She tried for a year and seven months before returning to London and the 'bad' life of the theater. The Packetts tried, too. After Julia was fully out of Susan's life, the Packetts offered to make Susan their heir and gave Julia seven thousand pounds in stock. Mrs. Packett thought Julia should open a cake shop. Of course, Julia tried her hand at staging plays and lost everything.

Julia knows her failings and faults. Now recalled by Susan she wants to appear respectful. She buys Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga to read, the first novel she has ever bought. She fancied it was the right sort of book for a lady to be reading.

On the trip she meets a traveling trapeze artist who falls for her, and she is quite smitten herself. He wants to marry her, and a regretful Julia must leave him behind and go to her daughter.

"if she [Julia] took lovers more freely than most women it was largely because she could not bear to see men sad when it was so easy to make them happy."

She endeavors to reform herself during the visit to the Packetts and her daughter.

"She had often wanted to be good before. She had a great admiration for goodness, she loved it sincerely and humbly, as a peasant loves a saint. if she had never been good before it was not because her spirit was unwilling, but because the flesh was so remarkably weak."

She passes pretty well until she meets Susan's young man Bryan and realizes they are two of a kind, both a 'bad' sort. He is not good enough for Susan. It is an unsuitable attachment. Bryan also recognizes a fellow free spirit in Julia.  The battle for Susan is on.

Susan is a prig and a perfectionist, a college student who needs a project. Bryan has become her project. She just knows she can help him make something of himself. Bryan just wants to knock about a bit.

Julia is a delightful character, flawed and feckless and bright and joyful. There are hilarious scenes with Julia secretly reverting 'to type' and handling the men who pursue her. Both Julia and Susan undergo an experience of self-recognition, necessary to their development. Very Jane Austenish! The novel ends with a true wish fulfillment happy endings.

I am delighted to have revisited Sharp.

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Read more at the Margery Sharp blog at https://margerysharp.wordpress.com

Cluny Brown, ISBN: 9781504034258
The Nutmeg Tree, ISBN: 9781504034326
by Margery Sharp
Publication April 12, 2016
Open Road Integrated Media