Reviews

Good Company tells the story of longtime couple Flora and Julian. One day, Flora cleans out an old filing cabinet and finds the wedding ring that Julian claimed he lost years ago at a pond near the theater retreat they frequented in upstate New York. This puts a pall on the marriage she treasured and the friendship she has with famed actress Margot Letta who somehow knows about the ring and why it ended up in the filing cabinet.

Now Flora tries to reconcile her marriage, which seemed strong through their lean days of being struggling actors and running a theater company, Good Company, in New York City while raising their daughter Ruby. She thought everything was going swimmingly--her daughter is headed off to college, both she and Julian relocated to Los Angeles and found steady work in television, and she assumed that her marriage would change in a positive direction only because of their new "empty nest" situation.

I highly anticipated this book just because The Nest, the author's debut novel, was so good. Unfortunately, this book fell flat and bored me at times. I almost gave this a two-star rating but felt that was too harsh. There's very little to this story, and the supposed scandal seemed lame. Considering this story focuses on two actors, you'd expect more drama and even more exposition about the television industry and theater community.

Many of the characters seem uncomplicated and far from multidimensional. The most engaging character, Margot Letta, gets very little in the way of plot, and neither does her husband, a former pediatric surgeon. I would rather have heard more about them. Their stories seemed way more layered.

One of the final scenes seemed thrown together and over the top, and I didn't really feel satisfied by the ending. I think if there were more characters with more intriguing stories, especially when they most likely encounter a whole slew of different personalities in the world of drama, it would be much better. Some side characters appeared out of nowhere with an emphasis on how important they were to the main characters when no mention of them occurred before.

I feel disappointed about this book, but I would try a future book by the author on the strength of The Nest alone.

hrhale's review against another edition

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4.0

Compared to "The Nest," this story didn't really live up to all my expectations of a 5 start read. However, Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney still wrote a witty, humor-filled book with her touch of tenderheartedness. This story explores the ideas of friendship and marriage and the power of keeping secrets.