We All Love The Beautiful Girls - Joanne Proulx

I didn’t like this novel. It’s very well written, has a good story line, and technically there really isn’t anything wrong with it. So my opinion is 100% based on my personal relationship with the story and the characters... Everything in this novel is just so SELFISH. All of the characters (bar Frankie maybe) are self-indulgent, selfish, and every choice they make is based entirely on what they are feeling at that moment in time. I was quite enjoying the book until about halfway through and then I felt this bitter distaste growing inside, and finished it wanting to throw the book across the room. Nobody THINKS about anything - even their hindsight regret is entirely based on what they are feeling right then, not in any kind of real remorse.

It felt like a continuation of Gossip Girl in the time of #metoo. I couldn’t relate to any of it - for instance the Slates get ripped off by their business partner, losing millions, and they continue to live their very rich lives as normal. If I lost my job I would literally not have money to eat.

Anyway. We are in a rich area in Canada, and Michael Slate finds out that his business partner and best friend, Peter, has ripped him off, and he loses millions of dollars and his company in the process (this could have been avoided if he had actually read the papers he was signing). That same night Michael and Mia’s son Finn has a freak drunken accident and loses one of his hands in the process. The Slate Family falls apart with each individual retreating to their own comfort zones rather than dealing with it altogether. Finn is wrapped up in a weird teenage rich kid love triangle, Mia with pondering about cheating on her husband, and Michael with hitting baseballs with some random stoner kid he meets on the field. The rest of the story is about how they deal (or don’t deal) with everything.

I don’t have anything against the rich, nor do I usually mind reading about rich families, heck Jilly Cooper is my guilty pleasure, but this book just failed to hit the mark with me. Even the twists felt just wrong. They could have been the exact time for the characters to re-evaluate themselves, but no, they just continue plundering along. Instead of a “shit this is all my fault” it’s more of a “should I have maybe done this better because yes it’s my fault but you know this happened blabla”. Definitely not for me BUT I do think it’s a book that people will get more than I did. So don’t let this review put you off until you have tried it yourself. The writing itself is just lovely.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy!