Review for 'All We Ever Wanted' by Emily Giffin

Publication Date: 26 Jun 18

Nina Browning appears to have a charmed life. Rich husband, son recently accepted to Princeton, and whirlwind social life that makes her feel better about herself and the wealth she is unaccustomed to. Tom Volpe is a single parent to a teenage daughter on scholarship to the same private school that Finch, Nina's son, attends and while she feels like an outsider at first, finds herself at home, and in love with Finch. Unfortunately, Finch's girlfriend is none to happy about that and the fact that Finch is paying her any attention. So she takes the opportunity at a party to photograph the poor girl passed out on a bed, one breast showing and with a very racist caption......from Finch's phone. The resulting turmoil finds Finch taking the blame and Nina questioning the methods her husband chooses to use with Tom to make it all go away. In today's world of technology, this story line could be pulled from a headline somewhere in the country almost daily, the truth be told. The willingness for Nina to demonstrate her true desire to help Tom's daughter, after her own college experience long tucked away in the folds of her memory, leads her to further examine the relationship with her wealthy, arrogant, smug and cheating husband, and to determine that the money, nor her son's taking on similar traits, is worth it any longer. Meanwhile she and Tom develop a friendship that could someday turn into more.

My thanks to Netgalley and to Random House Publishing House - Ballantine for sharing this title with me.