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All We Ever Wanted Was Everything
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A smart, comic page-turner “executed with nerve and wit” (The New York Times Book Review) following a Silicon Valley family in free fall over the course of one eventful summer, from the New York Times bestselling author of Watch Me Disappear “Addictive . . . [an] unapologetically soapy mix of teen sex, quarter-life crises, food porn and mean-girl politics . . . a summery, old-fashioned page-turner.”—SalonWhen 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.
450 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 27, 2008
507 people are currently reading
6299 people want to read
About the author
Janelle Brown
9 books3,382 followersWelcome to my home on Goodreads.
A little about me: I'm the New York Times bestselling author of the novels PRETTY THINGS, WATCH ME DISAPPEAR, ALL WE EVER WANTED WAS EVERYTHING, THIS IS WHERE WE LIVE, I'LL BE YOU and the upcoming WHAT KIND OF PARADISE. My books have been New York Times bestsellers and published in a dozen countries around the world. My books tend to be page-turners with dysfunctional family relationships at their hearts; domestic dramas crossed with literary suspense. I'm also very much a California writer, and my books are set across the state.
I'm always happy to answer questions here, but you can also find me on Instagram and Twitter -- and if you visit http://www.janellebrown.com you can also sign up for my newsletter.
I've known I wanted to be a novelist ever since I was in first grade, when my teacher looked at the whimsical little books I liked to make (and the pile of books I checked out of the school library every week) and said that I could be an author when I grew up. I took her suggestion to heart.
It took me several decades to get to novel-writing, though. I first started off as an essayist and journalist, writing for Wired and Salon in San Francisco, during the dotcom boom years. In the 1990’s, I was also the editor and co-founder of Maxi, an irreverent (and now, long-gone) women's pop culture magazine. My writing has also appeared in Vogue, The New York Times, Elle, Wired, Self, The Los Angeles Times, and numerous other publications.
I've spent the fifteen years working on my novels, writing the occasional essay, and living in Los Angeles with my husband and two children.
A little about me: I'm the New York Times bestselling author of the novels PRETTY THINGS, WATCH ME DISAPPEAR, ALL WE EVER WANTED WAS EVERYTHING, THIS IS WHERE WE LIVE, I'LL BE YOU and the upcoming WHAT KIND OF PARADISE. My books have been New York Times bestsellers and published in a dozen countries around the world. My books tend to be page-turners with dysfunctional family relationships at their hearts; domestic dramas crossed with literary suspense. I'm also very much a California writer, and my books are set across the state.
I'm always happy to answer questions here, but you can also find me on Instagram and Twitter -- and if you visit http://www.janellebrown.com you can also sign up for my newsletter.
I've known I wanted to be a novelist ever since I was in first grade, when my teacher looked at the whimsical little books I liked to make (and the pile of books I checked out of the school library every week) and said that I could be an author when I grew up. I took her suggestion to heart.
It took me several decades to get to novel-writing, though. I first started off as an essayist and journalist, writing for Wired and Salon in San Francisco, during the dotcom boom years. In the 1990’s, I was also the editor and co-founder of Maxi, an irreverent (and now, long-gone) women's pop culture magazine. My writing has also appeared in Vogue, The New York Times, Elle, Wired, Self, The Los Angeles Times, and numerous other publications.
I've spent the fifteen years working on my novels, writing the occasional essay, and living in Los Angeles with my husband and two children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,070 reviews
November 17, 2009
This is a modern day morality tale in chick lit clothing. It draws upon every cliché of Suburban Wealthy Family Gone Wrong: divorce, teen pregnancy, anomie, pathological consumerism, alcoholism, drug addiction, promiscuity, overweightness, underweightness, bankruptcy---set in, no surprises here, California's Siicon Valley. You name the poison, the Miller family has quaffed it. Of course, the biggest, baddest villain is the husband/father, who announces in the first few pages that he is taking the zillions he has just made from taking his hyper-successful (of course) biopharm (of course) company public and going off to live with his wife's tennis (of course) partner. And wife of 20-plus years Janice is to get only crumbs in the divorce settlement. But, you may be saying, as I did, California is a community property state---he CAN'T do that! You underestimate the awfulness of husband and plot, which provides for a legal document the wife signs, complete with a clause buried in the midst of 25 pages, in which she unwittingly gives her rights away to all future company profits. This a plot contrivance which, in spite of its triteness, manages to also be wildly improbable. In fact, the whole book is just that---trite and improbable. Unless your taste runs to Lifetime TV in print and on steroids, avoid All We Ever Wanted at all costs.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 28, 2023
ordering a chocolate Sunday with all the trimmings... is it possible to eat it before it melts? can one really have it all?
January 12, 2009
Not a single character in this book was likable. Most of them had no redeeming qualities at all. One of the comments on the back says it is supposed to be satirical, but if that's what it is going for it seriously failed. We could call this book "portrait of a seriously overly materialistic, messed up, stereotypical Californian/Silicon Valley McMansion family." It was not enlightening because it was so stereotypical, it was not heart warming because the resolution was understated. It was not satirical because it was not over the top or funny. It was not social commentary because it lacked the commentary part (hence my use of the word portrait). What does that leave? Not much.
December 26, 2008
This book is another testament to American wealth, and the relative terms in which it is viewed. In the first chapter, Janice Miller discovers her husband's company's IPO will make them millionaires - $300 million, to be exact. More money than anyone can imagine. Suddenly, with that number in the forefront, their existing life seems poor, their house modest, Janice's Porche Cayenne a middle class car. Then Janice finds out her husband is divorcing her, and the money is suddenly a background to her devastation. Paul's decision to leave her for her best friend drives her to substance abuse of a new suburban kind. And while the money is still expected, the everyday tragedy of a housewife with nothing outside of her family comes into plain view.
Then there is Margaret, the eldest daughter. Too smart, too idealistic, she has clung to her failing magazine so long that it has sunk her into six-figure debt. Now, as her friends move into high-paying jobs, and her now-ex-boyfriend climbs higher in his lucrative acting career, she has nothing - and she takes herself home to Palo Alto to hide from her creditors. Although, of course, she tells her family, she is there to comfort Janice. They can't know that she, the smart one, the one most likely to succeed, has failed.
And there is fourteen year old Lizzie. Lizzie, who suffers from suburban banality like her mother, only of the kind unique to teenage girls. She has lost weight and been discovered by boys. Only without the protective training developed by pretty girls, she equates sex with love, and becomes the class slut. And as Lizzie struggles with her own problems, with her views on sex and her humiliation, her mother and sister are too wrapped up in their own despair to see hers.
What really struck me about this book though, was the constant taking for granted of money so common among the upper middle class. Margaret's friends spend a thousand dollars on a birthday dinner for a friend, and she is socially obligated to contribute her last $200 towards it (despite her careful, obsessive avoidance of ordering anything but a $17 salad). Janice is careful about money, but only the sort of careful you get on a six-figure income, where you can buy your entire grocery list at Whole Foods. Lizzie drinks the $8 milkshakes at the local upscale diner on a regular basis, and thinks nothing of ordering their $16 burger. Money is a macro-issue for Janice, as she battles her ex-husband for his IPO money. $48,000 a year, for Janice, is next to nothing, because her scale is set so high. Whereas Margaret, who has no access to any funds at all, counts precious dollars, one by one, and sees money on a micro-scale, refusing to ask her parents, still, for help.
What do we define as average these days for income? All We Ever Wanted Was Everything is a reminder that we expect too much. Everyone expects everything - a $300MM IPO, a startup that goes on to make thousands, a career in the arts that takes off and earns millions. Everyone wants this, and who ever gets it?
Then there is Margaret, the eldest daughter. Too smart, too idealistic, she has clung to her failing magazine so long that it has sunk her into six-figure debt. Now, as her friends move into high-paying jobs, and her now-ex-boyfriend climbs higher in his lucrative acting career, she has nothing - and she takes herself home to Palo Alto to hide from her creditors. Although, of course, she tells her family, she is there to comfort Janice. They can't know that she, the smart one, the one most likely to succeed, has failed.
And there is fourteen year old Lizzie. Lizzie, who suffers from suburban banality like her mother, only of the kind unique to teenage girls. She has lost weight and been discovered by boys. Only without the protective training developed by pretty girls, she equates sex with love, and becomes the class slut. And as Lizzie struggles with her own problems, with her views on sex and her humiliation, her mother and sister are too wrapped up in their own despair to see hers.
What really struck me about this book though, was the constant taking for granted of money so common among the upper middle class. Margaret's friends spend a thousand dollars on a birthday dinner for a friend, and she is socially obligated to contribute her last $200 towards it (despite her careful, obsessive avoidance of ordering anything but a $17 salad). Janice is careful about money, but only the sort of careful you get on a six-figure income, where you can buy your entire grocery list at Whole Foods. Lizzie drinks the $8 milkshakes at the local upscale diner on a regular basis, and thinks nothing of ordering their $16 burger. Money is a macro-issue for Janice, as she battles her ex-husband for his IPO money. $48,000 a year, for Janice, is next to nothing, because her scale is set so high. Whereas Margaret, who has no access to any funds at all, counts precious dollars, one by one, and sees money on a micro-scale, refusing to ask her parents, still, for help.
What do we define as average these days for income? All We Ever Wanted Was Everything is a reminder that we expect too much. Everyone expects everything - a $300MM IPO, a startup that goes on to make thousands, a career in the arts that takes off and earns millions. Everyone wants this, and who ever gets it?
June 20, 2011
The women of the Miller family are all falling apart.
On the day her husband's company offers its IPO, their stock holdings rocket up in price, making them rich beyond their wildest dreams. Janice is hoping that this culmination of years of hard work will be the spark their marriage needs to get back on track by allowing them to not worry about money. What she doesn't seem coming is the letter from her husband, informing her that he's leaving her and wants a divorce. To make matters worse, he's having an affair with her doubles tennis partner.
Oldest daughter, Margaret, lives in Los Angeles, self-publishing a women's magazine called "Snatch." She's recently broken up with her movie-star boyfriend, Bart and is living on maxed out credit cards while avoiding threatening phone calls and letters as she waits for a buyout from a media outlet. Margaret, it turns out, is the reason Janice and her husband "had to" get married back in their college days.
Then there's the youngest daughter Lizzie, who struggles with her self image and her love of food. She's working on losing weight and herself on her school's swim team and becoming popular with the teenage boys by sleeping with six of them over the course of six months. Lizzie's reputation is slowly starting to head south and she's losing what few friends she had.
All three Miller women are forced to come home and begin to confront the real demons facing them in Janelle Brown's "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything." At times, the story reads like your standard chick-lit storyline, but there are moments and flashes of real insight and understanding of these characters and their struggles. And don't expect any up-standing male characters in the book. The closest we get is the pool boy, who becomes Janice's drug dealer and Margaret's emotional summer fling (though things do get physical toward the end of the book). The soon-to-be ex-husband only shows up occasionally, usually in flashbacks and by sending over his assistant to get his clothes and things so he can properly move out of his house.
But no matter how cliched the situations get, Brown still manages to inject the story with some interesting observations and some wry character moments.
This isn't great literature by any means. But it's not necessarily light or fluffy either. It's somewhere firmly in the middle, which isn't necessarily a terrible place to be.
On the day her husband's company offers its IPO, their stock holdings rocket up in price, making them rich beyond their wildest dreams. Janice is hoping that this culmination of years of hard work will be the spark their marriage needs to get back on track by allowing them to not worry about money. What she doesn't seem coming is the letter from her husband, informing her that he's leaving her and wants a divorce. To make matters worse, he's having an affair with her doubles tennis partner.
Oldest daughter, Margaret, lives in Los Angeles, self-publishing a women's magazine called "Snatch." She's recently broken up with her movie-star boyfriend, Bart and is living on maxed out credit cards while avoiding threatening phone calls and letters as she waits for a buyout from a media outlet. Margaret, it turns out, is the reason Janice and her husband "had to" get married back in their college days.
Then there's the youngest daughter Lizzie, who struggles with her self image and her love of food. She's working on losing weight and herself on her school's swim team and becoming popular with the teenage boys by sleeping with six of them over the course of six months. Lizzie's reputation is slowly starting to head south and she's losing what few friends she had.
All three Miller women are forced to come home and begin to confront the real demons facing them in Janelle Brown's "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything." At times, the story reads like your standard chick-lit storyline, but there are moments and flashes of real insight and understanding of these characters and their struggles. And don't expect any up-standing male characters in the book. The closest we get is the pool boy, who becomes Janice's drug dealer and Margaret's emotional summer fling (though things do get physical toward the end of the book). The soon-to-be ex-husband only shows up occasionally, usually in flashbacks and by sending over his assistant to get his clothes and things so he can properly move out of his house.
But no matter how cliched the situations get, Brown still manages to inject the story with some interesting observations and some wry character moments.
This isn't great literature by any means. But it's not necessarily light or fluffy either. It's somewhere firmly in the middle, which isn't necessarily a terrible place to be.
September 5, 2008
I was disappointed by this book. I realize it is a satire but the story could stand at least a few comic, lighthearted moments. I found the story line depressing and it didn't let up - - I wanted to at least have a triumphant ending but it didn't happen. This book gave me nothing - not even entertainment. The story was well-written but I found myself just wanting to get through it.
November 2, 2008
Loved this -- never wanted it to end. The cover makes it look far less appealing than it actually was -- I probably wouldn't have picked it up if I hadn't read a review of it somewhere else. But it was brilliant: funny and clever and engaging, and the characters were absolutely spot-on.
February 8, 2015
Chose it from the cover art and blurb (yes, I'm a shallow reader) and read it in one session over a cup of coffee at Borders. Verdict: Eh.
The characters, despite occasionally threatening to show signs of unique personality or quirks, seem to fall back into well-tread stereotypes of women in crisis: the Stepford starter wife with her mother's little helpers, the washed-up overachiever watching her friends pass her by (to her credit, she at least acknowledges she's a cliche in-text), and perhaps most painfully trite, the underloved, overfed teenage girl who doesn't know she's being used for sex. We can see their pitfalls a mile ahead. Their stories are mostly unrelentingly grim, until their problems are, without fanfare, mitigated at the end - oh, she's clean, she declared bankruptcy and she had a convenient miscarriage! And now they play board games!
Beyond that, there's something weirdly anachronistic about the dot-com bubble era set-up, and the present tense jars a bit. Still, the writing isn't terrible, and individual moments ring true - and I did finish it, for what it's worth.
The characters, despite occasionally threatening to show signs of unique personality or quirks, seem to fall back into well-tread stereotypes of women in crisis: the Stepford starter wife with her mother's little helpers, the washed-up overachiever watching her friends pass her by (to her credit, she at least acknowledges she's a cliche in-text), and perhaps most painfully trite, the underloved, overfed teenage girl who doesn't know she's being used for sex. We can see their pitfalls a mile ahead. Their stories are mostly unrelentingly grim, until their problems are, without fanfare, mitigated at the end - oh, she's clean, she declared bankruptcy and she had a convenient miscarriage! And now they play board games!
Beyond that, there's something weirdly anachronistic about the dot-com bubble era set-up, and the present tense jars a bit. Still, the writing isn't terrible, and individual moments ring true - and I did finish it, for what it's worth.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
October 28, 2009Soon to be a movie starring Diane Keaton, Kate Hudson, and someone from the CW.
This isn't a compliment.
This isn't a compliment.
July 10, 2017
Brief summary
Janice is overly critical of her daughters and handles her impending divorce with alcohol and drugs. Her oldest daughter, Margaret, has just split with her famous boyfriend of 3 years (who is now dating another movie star), her magazine is going under and she's on the verge of bankruptcy. Lizzy is 14 and sleeping with any boy who shows interest in her because she thinks it will make her feel loved.
What I liked
These characters felt very real to me, probably because they are all so flawed. They all have issues that they're trying to hide from the world and each other. I'm happy that the book ends on a happier note. Janice, Margaret and Lizzy come clean with everything they've been hiding from each other and find a way to accept each other, flaws and all.
What I didn't like
Most of this book really brought me down. All of their situations are awful. It bothered me that Margaret was pushing Lizzy so hard to get an abortion.
Brief thoughts
This wasn't a bad book, but I didn't find it amazing either. The message I'm taking away from this is that wealthy people don't have it all, or even have it all together, and that everybody has to work for the things that matter most: family.
Janice is overly critical of her daughters and handles her impending divorce with alcohol and drugs. Her oldest daughter, Margaret, has just split with her famous boyfriend of 3 years (who is now dating another movie star), her magazine is going under and she's on the verge of bankruptcy. Lizzy is 14 and sleeping with any boy who shows interest in her because she thinks it will make her feel loved.
What I liked
These characters felt very real to me, probably because they are all so flawed. They all have issues that they're trying to hide from the world and each other. I'm happy that the book ends on a happier note. Janice, Margaret and Lizzy come clean with everything they've been hiding from each other and find a way to accept each other, flaws and all.
What I didn't like
Most of this book really brought me down. All of their situations are awful. It bothered me that Margaret was pushing Lizzy so hard to get an abortion.
Brief thoughts
This wasn't a bad book, but I didn't find it amazing either. The message I'm taking away from this is that wealthy people don't have it all, or even have it all together, and that everybody has to work for the things that matter most: family.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 31, 2014
The only delectable thing about this book was the cover. Unfortunately the ice cream was a mirage; instead I ended up slogging through the most tedious, vapid, boring novel I've read in recent memory. Each character is more superficial than the next - a portrait of writing with the absence of true human emotion and/or complexity. Even the title of the book - and the manner in which it is introduced - is as self-important and obnoxious as the characters. And spoiler alert - everyone is happy in the end. Yes everyone. All problems conveniently solved somewhere around ten pages from the end. Because isn't that how life really is? I bought this book for a quarter at my local library and I wistfully think of the 8 minutes of street parking downtown I could have purchased instead.
July 29, 2009
It's hard for me to identify with this woman's life - a woman whose husband becomes a multibillionaire, ditches his wife whose oldest daughter is going bankrupt and 15-year old daughter is sleeping around trying to find love. So, the mom starts using meth to cope. She has the willpower at the end to stop on her own, however...that doesn't sound accurate to me. It didn't influence my soul or uplift me. It was mildly entertaining.
Read
February 23, 2025A novel that ends where Brown sees its future: family members looking at their reflections in a television screen. The whole content and thrust of the book is the desire to be made into a series. Readers can relax with the undemanding prose, be comforted by the familiar walk-out-in-anger scnee-ending that betrays the lack of imagination and hard work necessary to carry something through to its end, and the faux-anthropology on the lives of the somewhat rich in a particular neighbourhood, where the evil of drugs is as present as elsewhere.
May 15, 2013
My supermarket sells used books for a buck (proceeds benefit breast cancer research), and so this is where I picked this book up. If I had been in a bookstore, All We Ever Wanted... would have been overlooked. I normally don't do "beach reads" or anything that has a pastel cover. Don't ask me why. But I felt an immediate kinship with the title -- sometimes I have that insatiable desire to have it all -- and let's face it: the ice cream, albeit a melted mess, looks pretty damn good.
In short, glad I splurged and shelled out my four quarters. All We Ever Wanted... felt like a sugary sweet piece of pink bubble gum; the kind of gum that surprisingly maintains its flavor. To me, it was a treat. The plot was well crafted and this kept the admittedly stereotypical characters as minimally insulting to my intelligence as possible.
I admired the way the author ended chapters so that I wanted to read more. I remember reading about Lizzie's (the youngest daughter) "most important" prayer to God which was almost left out in her silent conversation with the man upstairs; I literally gasped aloud. I woke my husband up. While I'm not going to spoil anything for you, I will admit that the secret itself wasn't so much a shocker (if you read the book, you'll know what I mean); it was more the way the writer nonchalantly tucked that little morsel in there. She was just crafty. I felt like she did that many times. Juicy details seemed effortlessly sewn into the plot patchwork.
But let me say that All We Ever Wanted... is far from some intellectually inspiring work of profound literary merit. You're dealt an ugly divorce that affects the members of its upper class family. So the mom is the stereotypical woman sporting tennis whites, concocting complicated dinners, and expecting her daughters to be proper ladies. The oldest daughter is the angry feminist (not to say that all feminists are angry; I am not) who revolts against anything characteristic of her privileged upbringing. The youngest is the high school slut. And finally, the dad is the instigator of the divorce, and he becomes the stereotypical prick.
The story events aren't the only saving grace for these "wah-wah" characters. I appreciate that the author gave them some depth. For example, while the mom and two daughters deal with their own very distinct inner conflicts, there are some overarching themes that make their struggles more alike than they are different. Fear of failing and not living up to others' expectations were struggles evident in all three characters' cases. And I am grateful that the author didn't try to beat this over my head. The characters' connections and similarities despite their outward differences were subtle and suggestive.
So if you are looking for a sweet treat to indulge in this summer, I say give All We Ever Wanted Was Everything a crack.
In short, glad I splurged and shelled out my four quarters. All We Ever Wanted... felt like a sugary sweet piece of pink bubble gum; the kind of gum that surprisingly maintains its flavor. To me, it was a treat. The plot was well crafted and this kept the admittedly stereotypical characters as minimally insulting to my intelligence as possible.
I admired the way the author ended chapters so that I wanted to read more. I remember reading about Lizzie's (the youngest daughter) "most important" prayer to God which was almost left out in her silent conversation with the man upstairs; I literally gasped aloud. I woke my husband up. While I'm not going to spoil anything for you, I will admit that the secret itself wasn't so much a shocker (if you read the book, you'll know what I mean); it was more the way the writer nonchalantly tucked that little morsel in there. She was just crafty. I felt like she did that many times. Juicy details seemed effortlessly sewn into the plot patchwork.
But let me say that All We Ever Wanted... is far from some intellectually inspiring work of profound literary merit. You're dealt an ugly divorce that affects the members of its upper class family. So the mom is the stereotypical woman sporting tennis whites, concocting complicated dinners, and expecting her daughters to be proper ladies. The oldest daughter is the angry feminist (not to say that all feminists are angry; I am not) who revolts against anything characteristic of her privileged upbringing. The youngest is the high school slut. And finally, the dad is the instigator of the divorce, and he becomes the stereotypical prick.
The story events aren't the only saving grace for these "wah-wah" characters. I appreciate that the author gave them some depth. For example, while the mom and two daughters deal with their own very distinct inner conflicts, there are some overarching themes that make their struggles more alike than they are different. Fear of failing and not living up to others' expectations were struggles evident in all three characters' cases. And I am grateful that the author didn't try to beat this over my head. The characters' connections and similarities despite their outward differences were subtle and suggestive.
So if you are looking for a sweet treat to indulge in this summer, I say give All We Ever Wanted Was Everything a crack.
February 2, 2013
Funny that this was billed as a great beach read - I like my escapist reads to be a bit less populated with unlikable characters and relentlessly dire situations, no matter how comic. The three women in the family were well drawn and interesting in a train wreck kind of way, but the father/husband was too ridiculously evil to be taken seriously. But I guess that made his comeuppance more fun.
April 17, 2020
This book was so full of constant cringing, it was almost artful how it was done. I can not recommend.
August 15, 2025
Picked this up for a book club and it was not at all what I expected! The cover has more of a beach read/chick lit kind of vibe when really I’d classify this one pretty firmly as literary fiction. I’d guess that’s the explanation behind the lower ratings as the cover sets up certain genre expectations that the author is definitely subverting in a really purposeful way.
For example, Margaret’s dog-walking arc reminded me of a Jennifer Weiner book I read years and years ago about a similarly down-on-her-luck kind of woman who finds love, purpose, a thinner body, etc., etc. through dog-walking. It was peak early 2000s chick lit and it felt to me like this book was either directly referencing that novel (or at least novels like that) and instead taking the premise entirely off the rails in a pretty gruesome manner. In short, Margaret’s salvation will not be a cute dog-walking gig.
Instead, Margaret, Lizzie, and Janice hit wall after wall in trying to resolve their problems on their own. There are no easy solutions and no handsome man is coming to save the day or pay off the credit card debt. Things just get messier until the women are finally forced to get vulnerable and rely on each other. This book was so ahead of its time - excoriating the “boss babe” expectations layered on women in the early 2000s and all the Silicon Valley self-blaming, woman-hating, “lean-in” kind of nonsense. In this book, the way out for these characters is mutual support - from each other and from unexpected friends.
A lot of people have noted that these characters are unlikable, but that wasn’t my experience at all. I found them messy and difficult, sure, but all three characters are in serious crisis, dealing with life-altering circumstances. Their behavior made sense to me and felt so human. In the face of various forms of betrayal, all three respond like people do. I found their characterization really rich, especially considering this is her debut. The dialogue was sharp and the shifting points of view actually felt like three separate voices. I found that the writing flowed beautifully and it was honestly difficult to put this down.
There was also something so nostalgic about this book. It felt like a kind of time capsule. It was published in 2008 as the world spiraled into a financial disaster from which we have never really recovered. The lifestyle depicted in this novel is one I remember from Desperate Housewives and early reality TV. The catastrophe to come lurks in the silent ads playing in the background of the final scene.
Ultimately, I found the ending really satisfying. It doesn’t tie things up in a neat bow, but all three characters have found safe harbor for now and are shoring up their strength for whatever will come next. It left me feeling comforted in a way - our lives can go completely off the rails, in directions we never would have expected, but they’re never really ruined, just different. Things change, but we figure it out somehow. I’ve been rewatching Gilmore Girls lately and Margaret and Rory (and me!) all grew up at a time when so much pressure was placed on teenagers getting into a “good” college and following a very specific path. It was imperative that we be perfect in every way or everything would result in disaster. At 36, having lived through more “historic” moments than I care to count, the peace and complexity of the final scene felt so resonant. Nearly everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and yet, we’re still here and we’ll do what we can tomorrow.
For example, Margaret’s dog-walking arc reminded me of a Jennifer Weiner book I read years and years ago about a similarly down-on-her-luck kind of woman who finds love, purpose, a thinner body, etc., etc. through dog-walking. It was peak early 2000s chick lit and it felt to me like this book was either directly referencing that novel (or at least novels like that) and instead taking the premise entirely off the rails in a pretty gruesome manner. In short, Margaret’s salvation will not be a cute dog-walking gig.
Instead, Margaret, Lizzie, and Janice hit wall after wall in trying to resolve their problems on their own. There are no easy solutions and no handsome man is coming to save the day or pay off the credit card debt. Things just get messier until the women are finally forced to get vulnerable and rely on each other. This book was so ahead of its time - excoriating the “boss babe” expectations layered on women in the early 2000s and all the Silicon Valley self-blaming, woman-hating, “lean-in” kind of nonsense. In this book, the way out for these characters is mutual support - from each other and from unexpected friends.
A lot of people have noted that these characters are unlikable, but that wasn’t my experience at all. I found them messy and difficult, sure, but all three characters are in serious crisis, dealing with life-altering circumstances. Their behavior made sense to me and felt so human. In the face of various forms of betrayal, all three respond like people do. I found their characterization really rich, especially considering this is her debut. The dialogue was sharp and the shifting points of view actually felt like three separate voices. I found that the writing flowed beautifully and it was honestly difficult to put this down.
There was also something so nostalgic about this book. It felt like a kind of time capsule. It was published in 2008 as the world spiraled into a financial disaster from which we have never really recovered. The lifestyle depicted in this novel is one I remember from Desperate Housewives and early reality TV. The catastrophe to come lurks in the silent ads playing in the background of the final scene.
Ultimately, I found the ending really satisfying. It doesn’t tie things up in a neat bow, but all three characters have found safe harbor for now and are shoring up their strength for whatever will come next. It left me feeling comforted in a way - our lives can go completely off the rails, in directions we never would have expected, but they’re never really ruined, just different. Things change, but we figure it out somehow. I’ve been rewatching Gilmore Girls lately and Margaret and Rory (and me!) all grew up at a time when so much pressure was placed on teenagers getting into a “good” college and following a very specific path. It was imperative that we be perfect in every way or everything would result in disaster. At 36, having lived through more “historic” moments than I care to count, the peace and complexity of the final scene felt so resonant. Nearly everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and yet, we’re still here and we’ll do what we can tomorrow.
April 11, 2023
DNF
A total train wreck👎- quit on page 150 - no interest and a waste of my time. I’ve enjoyed her other books but not this one. Shallow boring characters and way too much sex. Do I really want to read about a 14 year old girl who sleeps with 6 different guys and wonders why she is so popular? Nope!! Her much older sister has the same morals. And then there was their mother, you get the picture.
A total train wreck👎- quit on page 150 - no interest and a waste of my time. I’ve enjoyed her other books but not this one. Shallow boring characters and way too much sex. Do I really want to read about a 14 year old girl who sleeps with 6 different guys and wonders why she is so popular? Nope!! Her much older sister has the same morals. And then there was their mother, you get the picture.
December 24, 2024
A high calibre example of chick lit, though very much of its time. I really enjoyed this, especially the sharp characterisation!
November 20, 2025
Women power. I wish there was where are they now after 5-10 years
June 20, 2017
These are the book's opening words:
"June in Santa Rita is perfect, just perfect. The sun sits high in the sky -- which is itself just the right shade of unpolluted powder blue -- and the temperature averages a mild eighty-three. It isn't too hot to play tennis. Silk doesn't stick. The pool at the club is cool enough so that swimming is refreshing, and the summer fog that usually creeps in off the ocean is held at bay, its gray tentacles undulating right off the shore."
I chose this book as a distraction, thinking it would be a light and fluffy (like an omelette?), if somewhat indulgent, poolside reading pleasure I could leisurely tackle over the course of a few days. As it turned out, I read the whole thing in one sitting, trading in a good night's sleep for some unexpectedly thought-provoking, disturbingly reflective entertainment, and a brief nighttime nap instead. (The telltale dark circles under my eyes this morning were the price I had to pay for such a trade, but that's why God invented concealer.)
This book is full of searing, profound insights into what a slow descent into madness looks like, when idyllic facades become torn asunder and seemingly perfect lives are indelicately and permanently ripped apart at the seams. It's about the pitfalls of suburbia, the pangs of regret, the naivete and idealism of youth being replaced by the cynicism of adulthood, the nature of greed and avarice, the lies people tell themselves to compensate for the fluctuations in other people's loyalties and the disappointments and vicissitudes of time. It's also about the bloodthirsty entrepreneurialism of the Silicon Valley dot com boom era and the extravagant lifestyles, displaced morality and revamped definitions of ambition and success that ensued in its wake.
Author Janelle Brown discloses how she grew up in suburban Silicon Valley and was once herself a struggling twenty-something feminist editor working as a technology journalist during the dot com boom era. She says she was "both fascinated and appalled by the influx of this ludicrous wealth," and remarks how "Silicon Valley became the American Dream on steroids, distorted beyond recognition into something vaguely monstrous." The end product of her experiences, memoirs, and observations all rolled into one is this addictive and gripping novel.
On the same day that his company, Applied Pharmaceuticals, launches an IPO -- the stock sitting pretty at $113 a share only two hours after the opening bell announces they've gone public -- in the blink of an eye, Paul Miller's 2.8 million stock options net him a fortune that's almost a half a billion dollars.
All of this is overwhelmingly joyful news to his wife, Janice, who is utterly elated -- but strangely, cannot manage to reach her husband for the duration of the day. Her tennis partner stands her up. Things go wrong, one after another, all day long. Then she discovers that her husband has just left her -- ironically, for the tennis partner/"best friend," Beverly, who uncharacteristically stood her up that morning. She discovers this when a process server hands her divorce papers and then when Janice relentlessly rings her husband's office phone until he finally answers, Janice hears Beverly's voice in the background, saying "You need to tell her, Paul. She needs to know."
Worse still, she discovers her soon to be ex-husband plans to completely screw her out of the new fortune. Coifax, Paul's company's brand new product for hair re growth that showed an unprecedented 96% success rate in clinical trials -- Applied Pharmaceuticals in general -- the roughly $400 million in stocks from the IPO launch -- he's planning to keep all of it. And with an especially underhanded maneuver which Paul executed one year earlier, it appears as though he just might have a legal leg to stand on.
To top it off, her two daughters, Margaret and Lizzie, have dramas of their own unfolding, from which Janice feels incapable of protecting them. Margaret walked away from her own imploding life in Los Angeles after receiving Lizzie's pleading phone call begging her to come home. Margaret figures, why not -- after all, she's $100,000 in debt to all of her credit card companies, and everything she's poured her heart and soul into for the last four years (including her romantic relationship with a rising movie star who has dumped her for a legitimate movie star) has fallen apart.
There's sex and affairs and betrayal, Vicodin popping and champagne pounding, pot smoking, crystal meth snorting, pathological lying, serial promiscuity, gossip, rumors and other socialite ammo, deconstruction of all bull$#!+ and a woman who only discovers who she really is deep down as her life is unraveling before her very eyes. An excellent read.
"June in Santa Rita is perfect, just perfect. The sun sits high in the sky -- which is itself just the right shade of unpolluted powder blue -- and the temperature averages a mild eighty-three. It isn't too hot to play tennis. Silk doesn't stick. The pool at the club is cool enough so that swimming is refreshing, and the summer fog that usually creeps in off the ocean is held at bay, its gray tentacles undulating right off the shore."
I chose this book as a distraction, thinking it would be a light and fluffy (like an omelette?), if somewhat indulgent, poolside reading pleasure I could leisurely tackle over the course of a few days. As it turned out, I read the whole thing in one sitting, trading in a good night's sleep for some unexpectedly thought-provoking, disturbingly reflective entertainment, and a brief nighttime nap instead. (The telltale dark circles under my eyes this morning were the price I had to pay for such a trade, but that's why God invented concealer.)
This book is full of searing, profound insights into what a slow descent into madness looks like, when idyllic facades become torn asunder and seemingly perfect lives are indelicately and permanently ripped apart at the seams. It's about the pitfalls of suburbia, the pangs of regret, the naivete and idealism of youth being replaced by the cynicism of adulthood, the nature of greed and avarice, the lies people tell themselves to compensate for the fluctuations in other people's loyalties and the disappointments and vicissitudes of time. It's also about the bloodthirsty entrepreneurialism of the Silicon Valley dot com boom era and the extravagant lifestyles, displaced morality and revamped definitions of ambition and success that ensued in its wake.
Author Janelle Brown discloses how she grew up in suburban Silicon Valley and was once herself a struggling twenty-something feminist editor working as a technology journalist during the dot com boom era. She says she was "both fascinated and appalled by the influx of this ludicrous wealth," and remarks how "Silicon Valley became the American Dream on steroids, distorted beyond recognition into something vaguely monstrous." The end product of her experiences, memoirs, and observations all rolled into one is this addictive and gripping novel.
On the same day that his company, Applied Pharmaceuticals, launches an IPO -- the stock sitting pretty at $113 a share only two hours after the opening bell announces they've gone public -- in the blink of an eye, Paul Miller's 2.8 million stock options net him a fortune that's almost a half a billion dollars.
All of this is overwhelmingly joyful news to his wife, Janice, who is utterly elated -- but strangely, cannot manage to reach her husband for the duration of the day. Her tennis partner stands her up. Things go wrong, one after another, all day long. Then she discovers that her husband has just left her -- ironically, for the tennis partner/"best friend," Beverly, who uncharacteristically stood her up that morning. She discovers this when a process server hands her divorce papers and then when Janice relentlessly rings her husband's office phone until he finally answers, Janice hears Beverly's voice in the background, saying "You need to tell her, Paul. She needs to know."
Worse still, she discovers her soon to be ex-husband plans to completely screw her out of the new fortune. Coifax, Paul's company's brand new product for hair re growth that showed an unprecedented 96% success rate in clinical trials -- Applied Pharmaceuticals in general -- the roughly $400 million in stocks from the IPO launch -- he's planning to keep all of it. And with an especially underhanded maneuver which Paul executed one year earlier, it appears as though he just might have a legal leg to stand on.
To top it off, her two daughters, Margaret and Lizzie, have dramas of their own unfolding, from which Janice feels incapable of protecting them. Margaret walked away from her own imploding life in Los Angeles after receiving Lizzie's pleading phone call begging her to come home. Margaret figures, why not -- after all, she's $100,000 in debt to all of her credit card companies, and everything she's poured her heart and soul into for the last four years (including her romantic relationship with a rising movie star who has dumped her for a legitimate movie star) has fallen apart.
There's sex and affairs and betrayal, Vicodin popping and champagne pounding, pot smoking, crystal meth snorting, pathological lying, serial promiscuity, gossip, rumors and other socialite ammo, deconstruction of all bull$#!+ and a woman who only discovers who she really is deep down as her life is unraveling before her very eyes. An excellent read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 20, 2017
This book reminds us that we never know what is happening in someone else's head. The number of assumptions, miscommunications, and the resulting disasters (large and small) teach us the importance of being open, acknowledging our successes and our failures outright. The book was a bit long, but the ending, when it finally arrived, had a satisfying lack of finality. I listened to this book on Audible during several long drives and found myself going on walks to create space to finish it up upon returning home.
August 8, 2009
I wanted to like this book more than I did, but I had a hard time completely rooting for the main characters. The self absorption of Janice and Margaret in their own respective worlds made it hard for me to be totally sympathetic to their plights.
However; the book touches very authentically on the materialistic demands (and acceptance) our society has engrained in our culture. So perhaps it isn't so far fetched that Janice would be completely blindsighted by her husband's infidelity and betrayal. Or that Margaret loses sight of financial responsibilities. If they can just get through this next THING (the IPO, the financial support of a start-up magazine), then all will be right.
These two learn the hard, hard way that it's never wise for anyone - perhaps especially a woman - to put all the proverbial eggs in one basket.
The only character I truly felt sympathy for, was for Janice's youngest daughter, Lizzie. An awkward, naive 15 year old, she is not one of the cool "A" team girls, and when she starts getting attention from the boys at school, she is confused by the attention from them, and the hostility from the other girls. a "late bloomer", she always sees herself as the former chubby girl she was. Her constant desire for and comfort from forbidden Snickers bars to ease her torment made me root for her. Confused by sex (why don't the boys ever call her again?), her parents separation, her sister's odd return home, Lizzie looks for answers from a variety of sources.
I suppose that the ending is satisfactory. It looks as if things will turn out pleasant enough for Janice, and that Margaret will eventually come to grips with her demons and move on to the next stage in her life. Lizzie, a little sadder and robbed a good deal of her innocence will hopefully find a sense of calm and happiness.
However; the book touches very authentically on the materialistic demands (and acceptance) our society has engrained in our culture. So perhaps it isn't so far fetched that Janice would be completely blindsighted by her husband's infidelity and betrayal. Or that Margaret loses sight of financial responsibilities. If they can just get through this next THING (the IPO, the financial support of a start-up magazine), then all will be right.
These two learn the hard, hard way that it's never wise for anyone - perhaps especially a woman - to put all the proverbial eggs in one basket.
The only character I truly felt sympathy for, was for Janice's youngest daughter, Lizzie. An awkward, naive 15 year old, she is not one of the cool "A" team girls, and when she starts getting attention from the boys at school, she is confused by the attention from them, and the hostility from the other girls. a "late bloomer", she always sees herself as the former chubby girl she was. Her constant desire for and comfort from forbidden Snickers bars to ease her torment made me root for her. Confused by sex (why don't the boys ever call her again?), her parents separation, her sister's odd return home, Lizzie looks for answers from a variety of sources.
I suppose that the ending is satisfactory. It looks as if things will turn out pleasant enough for Janice, and that Margaret will eventually come to grips with her demons and move on to the next stage in her life. Lizzie, a little sadder and robbed a good deal of her innocence will hopefully find a sense of calm and happiness.
May 31, 2018
Precisely what I needed to kick my reading slump to the curb and head into summer. I was in Austin for work, and made it to Book People, which is even more amazing than the rumors. I had a plan: find a sales person and ask them for a recommendation to get me out of my slump. But first, I filled my arms with kids books and presents to make walking around reading the backs of books with a stranger that much easier. I found my guy, crossed my fingers that he had the magical skill that most great indie bookstore workers have, and launched into my request. I knew he was going to do it right when he asked what I read lately, pre-slump, that made me happy. Easy, Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. I also confessed that both Swing Time and Manhattan Beach left me uninspired and I quit both halfway through. I wanted good writing, but fast-paced, light enough that I can pick up and put down between chasing the kids. He led me around the store, grabbing books right and left. This was one he pressed into my hands, saying "It's flying off the shelf." I didn't even read the back. I picked it based on the ice cream. And I'm so glad I did. I probably would have written it off a bit if I had read the description on the back, which accurately describes the plot, but not the cunning writing and great character development. It's also set in Silicon Valley, which, let's face it, I get enough of in real life, so would not have been too excited about that part either. But I'm glad I just took it to the register and paid because this was a great book. The character development and insight is believable, although so so hard to watch. The setting is spot-on--country club Silicon Valley in the new money rising years of pre-2008 crash, and the writing is awesome. So funny, brash, and self-deprecating. I really enjoyed this.
January 2, 2014
This book gets three stars from me - the middle of the road - because that's exactly what I felt it was, taken as a whole: middle of the road. It was exciting and intriguing at the beginning; toward the middle it became somewhat predictible; by the end I found it to be downright trite. Overall, it was a good story but I thought a lot more could have been done with character development to make it even more interesting.
A central theme of the book is one of the main characters' meth addiction, which starts up and develops as the story moves along. I have no personal experience with this drug but I know enough about it to believe that it can't be kicked as easily as this character did. Because that was one of the central themes of the story this caused real problems for me. I also had trouble buying the young daughter's transformation from "sudden class whore" to "sanctimonious Bible-beater," with a conveniently timed miscarriage thrown in, over the course of just a few months.
I listened to the unabridged audio version of this book, and I will say that I really enjoyed the woman who did the reading. She did a nice job with all of the different voices and made listening to it a pleasure.
A central theme of the book is one of the main characters' meth addiction, which starts up and develops as the story moves along. I have no personal experience with this drug but I know enough about it to believe that it can't be kicked as easily as this character did. Because that was one of the central themes of the story this caused real problems for me. I also had trouble buying the young daughter's transformation from "sudden class whore" to "sanctimonious Bible-beater," with a conveniently timed miscarriage thrown in, over the course of just a few months.
I listened to the unabridged audio version of this book, and I will say that I really enjoyed the woman who did the reading. She did a nice job with all of the different voices and made listening to it a pleasure.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 19, 2010
All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Janelle Brown presents the interwoven story of one family's meltdown in the face of the American Dream. From the outside Janice Miller seems to have it all - her husband's company just went public making them millionaires, her eldest, Margaret, is an editor of a successful feminist magazine, and her youngest, Lizzie, is experiencing a bump in popularity due to recent weight loss. Alternating voices between the three female protagonists, Brown quickly shatters any illusion of outward perfection by demolishing her character's carefully composed worlds. Janice learns that her husband is cheating on her with her best friend, Maggie is chased down by debt collectors, and Lizzie learns through bathroom graffiti that her popularity is based on her promiscuity. Written with compassion and dark humor, Brown considers the consequences of running after empty aspirations. Her story explores what happens when a family is forced to stop living completely separate lives and instead must acknowledge that connection to each other is the only means to survival and fulfilment.
July 30, 2010
A colleague recommended this to me as a light summer read, so I was astounded to see that it was so well-written. I should have read the last page first, because when I read the author's biography I found that she had been a journalist; makes sense.
This author used a very simple format of one chapter per character in a rotating manner, and this time it worked. It worked because the characters were so well-developed, interesting and well-developed that you really wanted to see what each was going to do next. Somewhat surprisingly I found myself best identifying with the 14-year old Lizzie the most, followed by 29-year-old Margaret, though even their mother was a sympathetic character.
I read this voraciously while on vacation - to the point where my fiance was getting upset with me for not paying attention to him. Even when I finished and moved onto a new book I found myself thinking about the characters: what would happen to Lizzie next? Would everything really work out? Needless to say, I found it somewhat addictive and a great read. I actually hope there is a sequel, something I usually would avoid.
This author used a very simple format of one chapter per character in a rotating manner, and this time it worked. It worked because the characters were so well-developed, interesting and well-developed that you really wanted to see what each was going to do next. Somewhat surprisingly I found myself best identifying with the 14-year old Lizzie the most, followed by 29-year-old Margaret, though even their mother was a sympathetic character.
I read this voraciously while on vacation - to the point where my fiance was getting upset with me for not paying attention to him. Even when I finished and moved onto a new book I found myself thinking about the characters: what would happen to Lizzie next? Would everything really work out? Needless to say, I found it somewhat addictive and a great read. I actually hope there is a sequel, something I usually would avoid.
July 2, 2009
This book looks into the lives of three women (mother and daughters from three generations) who come together again when divorce shakes up their family. Each chapter switches to one of the three women's perspectives of the events. The novel starts off fast, diving right into the main storyline. However, after reading about two hundred pages, I realized that nothing had really happened. Here I was, more than halfway done with the book, and there wasn't any movemnet of the story past the first couple of chapters. What's more, I wasn't particularly in love with any of the characters - the were really unlikable, self-indulgent and unkind to one another. And then when you finally get to possibly thinking the mother will be someone of substance, the ending leaves all the issues hanging. I struggled through to hear how things would work out and then at the end.... nothing. The story kept me entertained, but it wasn't a literary masterpiece. It's a light read - a light, depressing read. Thank goodness I am not any of these sad, sad women!
March 18, 2008
Janelle's book was a really easy read -- meaning this is the kind of fiction that grabs you early on and you can't wait to come back to it when you have to put it down. Each of the women in the book, from the mother to her 28 year old and 14 year old daughters, is complex, working through difficult issues that are nonetheless easily relatable. I know Janelle's a great writer but I was really impressed with her first novel -- and I look forward to the next one.
March 3, 2009
I read the reviews of this book and they were pretty good for the most part. Which is why I kept reading. The book is described as humorus, but I never came across anything to laugh at - infidelity, drug abuse, alcoholism, and Very young teenage promiscuity, nothing that funny about a family torn apart. Maybe if I hadn't been expecting humor, I would've liked it more, but it promised to make me laugh and it did not.
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