Mrs Everything - Jennifer Weiner

I am hovering between 3 and 5 stars with this book, so I shall leave it at 4 with a note that I found the narrative uneven: excellent in parts and forced in others. All in all it is pretty unputdownable and reads well, but I did find the plot a little clichéd and overdone in certain areas.

Mrs Everything is the story of two sisters, Jo and Bethie, starting in 1950 when they were just kids, and following them through their lives up until 2022. Jennifer Weiner takes us through their loves, their choices, their expectations, their interactions, and ultimately through their lives, and we visit many themes along the way. Molestation, rape, abortion, discovering one’s sexuality and coming out, marriage, drugs, divorce, single motherhood, depression, cancer, mixed race marriages in the US, the 60’s civil rights movement, segregation, women’s rights and so on. In my opinion there were actually too many themes in this novel, and it sometimes felt like they were stuck in there on purpose just to be there.

I found Jo’s stories more compelling than Bethie’s, probably because she was more likeable, and also more believable. Bethie’s story came with a lot more forced plot twists and felt less natural. I was also never a fan of Sarah, their mother, she was always portrayed in a way that felt one sided and shallow. I do however like how Jennifer Weiner aimed to create a novel showing how women’s rights and roles have changed/evolved over the years, and how much work still needs to be done, and I also appreciated her attempts at being inclusive and providing some historical background to certain events. I feel that all in all this is a good story that aimed to cover too much. And there were areas that fell short, or weren’t covered as in depth as I would have personally liked (the rape and abortion themes for example). Sometimes when you try to discuss too many topics in one narrative it can appear as if they are only treated superficially. I did shed a few tears while reading Mrs Everything, and I found myself unable to put it down at times, so I would say that it does work as it stands, but could have had more depth to it in many areas.

As a personal side note, this type of novel has been written before, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Jennifer Weiner hadn’t taken some inspiration from Marge Piercy’s epic body of work, especially the novels Braided Lives and Three Women, as well as some of Judy Blume’s work.