The Best of Everything

There's just nothing happening! So much padding and fluff, so much description - where are the things that happen?!

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.

... 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.