The Best of Everything
1958 • 448 pages
Ratings6
Average rating3.1
15
Ratings6
Average rating3.1
Before Valley of the Dolls and Sex and the City--the iconic novel of ambitious career girls in New York City
When it was first published in 1958, Rona Jaffe's debut novel electrified readers who saw themselves reflected in its story of five young employees of a New York publishing company. There's Ivy League Caroline, who dreams of graduating from the typing pool to an editor's office, naive country girl April, who within months of hitting town reinvents herself as the woman every man wants on his arm; Gregg, the free-spirited actress with a secret yearning for domesticity. Now a classic, and as page-turning as when it first came out, The Best of Everything portrays their lives and passions with intelligence, affection and prose as sharp as a paper cut.
(back cover)
Reviews with the most likes.
There's just nothing happening! So much padding and fluff, so much description - where are the things that happen?!
... Huh. I really enjoyed this until about 3/4 of the way through, maybe. It was fascinating as a documentation of the early 50s and societal change with (white) women entering the workforce after WWII. I thought it was strongest when it focused on Caroline and April, and probably weakest when it focused on Gregg, who didn't make sense as a character to me at all. My biggest problem, though, was the last 20-30 pages, when it kind of seemed like the author realized the book was over 400 pages and just rushed to cram in a resolution for each character. Basically, no spoilers, but the resolution for Caroline's storyline was so random and out of nowhere (and, I think, out of character for her) that it kind of retroactively soured me on the book. This is probably more like a 2.5, and worth reading if you're interested in the era of early Mad Men, but sigh.
This was a really interesting read. It truly is like revisiting Mad Men characters in book form - from the women's perspective. The ending was rushed and abrupt. I'm not sure what happened there. I think I'd like to try another of Jaffe's books.
Overall I really liked this! In the introduction Jaffe says it's a sociological book, which makes sense, though it makes for a bit of an overly long book. The book follows multiple women (Caroline is the MC if there is one, but there's also Gregg, April, and Barbara) from about January 1952- December 54. They're all from different types of lives, and continue to have very different lives in NYC. The women are all really well done. I didn't love all the adultery, but maybe that's just NYC at this time. It reminded me of Mad Men (the office atmosphere, everyone sleeping around) and The Group. I didn't love that the last chapter was from a man's perspective as it's a book about the women, but I also understand what Jaffe was doing. I'm glad I read this.
