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fauxbot's review against another edition
2.0
I picked up this book because I really enjoyed "I'll Be You". This one wasn't anything like that, which I had suspected based on the genre alone.
Overall the writing was fine, clear, well supported. But the story was a chick lit version of a summer comic book blockbuster. It's like Brown wanted to shove every hot button issue into a single book, and it just left me feeling strung out and underwhelmed by it all. If she could have skipped a lot of these things and really honed the story down, I think I'd have enjoyed it a lot more. Instead, I just kept wondering why it wasn't over yet.
Overall the writing was fine, clear, well supported. But the story was a chick lit version of a summer comic book blockbuster. It's like Brown wanted to shove every hot button issue into a single book, and it just left me feeling strung out and underwhelmed by it all. If she could have skipped a lot of these things and really honed the story down, I think I'd have enjoyed it a lot more. Instead, I just kept wondering why it wasn't over yet.
jacque18's review against another edition
2.0
I was really liking this book, ready to give it 3 or even 4 stars, until the end. Call me demanding, but unlike life, I like my books and my movies tied up in a neat bow at the end. I don't like to be left hanging, having to fill in the blanks on my own. I wanted to see Janice stick it to her arrogant soon-to-be-ex husband, see Margaret take control of her life and deal with her money problems, and see Lizzie back on a track. I did not want it to end with all three of them eating mint ice cream on the couch. How annoying. I realize that perhaps that wasn't the point of the book - the point was the three women connecting once again - but really, is it too much to ask for a little emotional payoff at the end?
abbythompson's review against another edition
2.0
Soapy and full of angst, there's not much to say about this book except that it is a perfect beach read. So set your expectations appropriately. Easy enough to pick up and put down, doesn't require too much brain power, and you'll care just enough about the mostly unlikable characters to keep reading. (Except Lizzie. I liked her.)
bookobsessedmommy's review against another edition
3.0
It took me a while to get into this book. While I enjoyed the book in general, certain aspects are so unrealistic it hurts. The way this family can bounce back from addiction and miscarriage seems 'whitewashed', which is a constant reminder that this is fiction. I would have loved to see a throwdown of some sort.
momadvice's review against another edition
3.0
All We Ever Wanted Was Everything is a Silicon Valley satire that takes a glimpse into one family’s life and showcases how the threads began to unravel when they discover that money really is not the key to happiness.
Janice is a relatively happy trophy wife who has helped her husband in every way that she knows how to be the roaring success that he is. She reads her Gourmet magazine and replicates the dishes, she is carefully groomed and has maintained her figure over the years, and her family lives in the immaculately tidy home of their dreams.
When her husband’s stocks soar, after making an important pharmaceutical drug, she runs out to grab the ingredients for the most perfect celebration dinner. When she arrives at home, she finds a note from her husband letting her know that he is leaving her for her best friend and that he will be filing for a divorce.
What happens to a woman when her whole career and existence are based upon caring for her husband? Janice quickly spirals out of control and the reader is taken through Janice’s downward spiral and the downward spiral of her two children who are both trying to find themselves after making bad decisions.
One daughter who grew up the valedictorian in her graduating class, now is deeply in debt after her the feminist magazine she started failed to bring in any profits. The other daughter has a desire to be liked by her peers and begins sleeping with her classmates to garner attention and her feelings of self-worth. She later decides that Jesus might be the key to her salvation, but her poor choices have taken her so far off path that you are unclear where her life will really end up. Janice, meanwhile, has decided to take crystal meth because she feels happier and more in control when she is drugged. With their mother drugged out and the two children both choosing their own destructive paths, the reader can only hope that the resolution will be filled with deep discovery and a realization that they have each other and money is not everything. It just did not end the way that the reader might hope.
I found the book to be a fun and impressive premise of self-discovery when each of the characters are trying to find who they are without their fortune, but the book was depressingly dark and never went anywhere other than the dark and dreariness that it began with. If you are into dark satires though that is filled with a little bit of dreary, this just might be the ticket for you!
Janice is a relatively happy trophy wife who has helped her husband in every way that she knows how to be the roaring success that he is. She reads her Gourmet magazine and replicates the dishes, she is carefully groomed and has maintained her figure over the years, and her family lives in the immaculately tidy home of their dreams.
When her husband’s stocks soar, after making an important pharmaceutical drug, she runs out to grab the ingredients for the most perfect celebration dinner. When she arrives at home, she finds a note from her husband letting her know that he is leaving her for her best friend and that he will be filing for a divorce.
What happens to a woman when her whole career and existence are based upon caring for her husband? Janice quickly spirals out of control and the reader is taken through Janice’s downward spiral and the downward spiral of her two children who are both trying to find themselves after making bad decisions.
One daughter who grew up the valedictorian in her graduating class, now is deeply in debt after her the feminist magazine she started failed to bring in any profits. The other daughter has a desire to be liked by her peers and begins sleeping with her classmates to garner attention and her feelings of self-worth. She later decides that Jesus might be the key to her salvation, but her poor choices have taken her so far off path that you are unclear where her life will really end up. Janice, meanwhile, has decided to take crystal meth because she feels happier and more in control when she is drugged. With their mother drugged out and the two children both choosing their own destructive paths, the reader can only hope that the resolution will be filled with deep discovery and a realization that they have each other and money is not everything. It just did not end the way that the reader might hope.
I found the book to be a fun and impressive premise of self-discovery when each of the characters are trying to find who they are without their fortune, but the book was depressingly dark and never went anywhere other than the dark and dreariness that it began with. If you are into dark satires though that is filled with a little bit of dreary, this just might be the ticket for you!
jlholowaty's review against another edition
2.0
Mediocre read. Rather interesting characters and plot, though somewhat unrealistic at times.
colleenoakes's review against another edition
5.0
I just wrapped up All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Janelle Brown - far and away one of my favorite women contemporary writers - and I have to say, she never fails to astound. This author has a way of surprising you, even when you think you know the way the story is going. Janice was an intriguing character, someone who on the outside seems superficial and shallow, while having a multitude of depth below the surface. She was at once selfish, pretentious and weak, and at the same time, confused, repressed and simmering. Margaret was also a fantastic character, with her shaky left-wing fanaticism and crushing debt. Brown perfectly captured the terror and the sinking feeling of falling deeper and deeper into that financial hole, a lonely hole where you pretend that everything is okay from the outside. While I didn't love the somewhat pedantic section about Planned Parenthood, every other part of this book was sheer perfection - and it's something I've come to expect from Janelle Brown at this point.
an_enthusiastic_reader's review against another edition
3.0
Entertaining book that melds the socio-comic with a critique on our money-driven, sex-obsessed culture. The characters end up likable. However, three's the best I can do for a novel I enjoyed but would never re-read. Fits right in with the slew of books deconstructing the upper-middle and/or academic class including writers like Meghan Daum and Claire Messud. This novel won't stick with me long, but held my interest for the six or so hours it took to read. Might be interesting for a book club that's not uptight talking about sex, drugs, and the veneer that holds together an upper-middle class suburbia.