All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Janelle Brown

Just in time for the long Thanksgiving weekend, this was a great "beach read." It wasn't strictly chick-lit in that it was more complex than Shopaholic or Devil Wears Prada, but it wasn't literature either.

The story starts on what should be a victorious moment for Janice whose husband's company IPOs for billions of dollars. Instead, she is served divorce papers the same morning. Her younger daughter, Lizzie, is struggling with adolescence and her older daughter, Margaret, is finding her fledgling magazine career suddenly overwhelming. The three women spend the summer together coping with their respective problems.

This book could have been a significant examination of women's lives when they fall apart. It could have been a hilarious story of plotted vindication. Instead it was somewhere in between - more colorful romp than serious analysis, but complex nonetheless. Certain scenes seemed intentionally pulpy in a satiric way, but they came across to me as surreal and vivid, not as social commentary.

One major disappointment I had reading this book was that the men were poorly created characters - nearly all of them were one-dimensional and completely villainous. While there was a "girl power" theme to the book, having positive men in the story wouldn't have threatened that theme and would have made it more realistic. The women were better developed, in some ways daring and in other ways dreadfully predictable. Certainly character development was not the best part of the book.

Still, I was interested to read through to the end. At the book's conclusion, Janice seems to find her stride, but still has tactical problems in her life to address. Margaret has a few major issues to work out, but has a lot of opportunity in front of her too. Fittingly, young Lizzie seems to be at the precipice of starting completely fresh - which is what the reader wants for her.