twiggreads

You Should Have Known - Jean Hanff Korelitz I usually don't comment on books I abandon, but I'm making an exception.

I wanted to love this book. I love the idea of a therapist writing a blunt relationship advice book. Setting up that premise took 28 pages. The next 70 were about planning and attending a fundraising party. Nothing of note happened for 100 pages.

My biggest issue was the adult-gossip-girl voice the narrator has. It's hard for me to read a book when I hate the main character (but not impossible. See: Close My Eyes). Grace spent a good amount of time complaining that she only has one Birkin bag (bags that retail for $5k+) and other women have more! And hers is ONLY leather. Again, this is bag that costs 2 months gross salary for me.

And then there was the incident where after dropping of her son for a party, the hostess said that the doorman could hail a cab for Grace. Grace then felt "a queasy feeling, like a twister-tossed girl from Kansas emerging into unreal Technicolor". The hostess didn't know Grace has lived in upper-crust New York her entire life. She had a doorman too! Did this mom think Grace was less than fabulously wealthy??

I had to stop when Grace and Co's reaction to a woman's murder wasn't sympathy for the woman's children and family, it was scrambling to distance this woman from their perfect private school. They decided that since the deceased's son attended on a scholarship, he wasn't a full student. Their reputation was kept intact. Because that's what mattered most.