Review: All We Ever Wanted Was Everything (Audio)

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, by Janelle Brown. (Spiegel & Grau, 2008. ISBN: 0385524013)

On the surface, Janice’s life is great. She has the beautiful home, the successful husband, two smart and lovely daughters. Although she paints a beautiful picture of her family when she talks to her friends, she’s never really satisfied.

Her husband, who stands to make billions from the launch of an IPO for his pharmaceutical company, is never home. Her older daughter, Margaret – incredibly smart, an Ivy League grad – ran off to LA with an actor, no less, and started up a weird feminist magazine. Her younger daughter, Lizzie, her miracle baby, born after several miscarriages, is a sweet, but rather plump, 14-year-old. Janice knows that Lizzie would be much happier and more popular, if only she’d drop a few pounds.

On the day of the IPO, everything falls apart. Over the course of a summer, Janice and her daughters find themselves dealing with issues they’d never dreamed of discovering in their own lives: drug addiction, debt collectors, infidelity, teen pregnancy, and divorce papers.

The author’s satirical look at the good life in California is sometimes funny, often bitter, and always apt. She does a good job of distinguishing her characters with unique and believable voices.

I listened to this book on OverDrive’s downloadable audio from the Lackawanna County Library System’s digital collection. Recommended for book clubs.