Comments on: Review: The Best of Everything, Rona Jaffe

By: Ela

Ela — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:38:31 +0000

I didn’t find The Group all that depressing, though it was so impossibly remote to me at the time – those Vassar graduates were nothing like me or my friends – but none of them, apart from Lakey, probably, got what she really wanted out of life, and I suppose it shows how different life was for (generally well-off) women of that time, and pretty restrictive. The men were mostly pretty awful, though.

By: bookssnob

bookssnob — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 22:56:42 +0000

I MISS YOU TOO!

By: Jo

Jo — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 19:57:48 +0000

Great review, I have read it and wanted to scream at points where some of these women felt marriage was the be all and end all. (Just had to reread my review!)

I have not read The Group, not sure if I could read another book of similar themes so soon?

By: Jeanne

Jeanne — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 00:25:39 +0000

In reply to Mumsy.

Yes, exactly; this made me laugh out loud with delight. That’s the right phrase: sweet justice.
I’d have been tempted to tell that “important” person exactly what my wifely duties were, but I’d probably have wimped out and just quoted the line about lying there and thinking of England.

By: Mumsy

Mumsy — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 19:54:15 +0000

In reply to Jeanne.

OMG, I was an at-home mom who once had an “important faculty member” ask me (re: my lack of cooking talent) “So what exactly ARE your wifely duties?” A few years later, my 7-year-old was at her house singing one of the songs from “Twelfth Night”, and this woman asked her, “Where did you hear THAT?” And my blessed child looked at her in astonishment (“Don’t grownups know ANYTIHING?”) and replied, “Uh, Twelfth Night.” Yeah, take that, full professor of English Lit! It was sweet justice.

By: Vishy

Vishy — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:01:35 +0000

Nice review, Jenny! I saw ‘The Best of Everything’ at the bookstore sometime back and I was intrigued by the title and browsed it and read the description of the book on the back cover. I also Rona Jaffe’s introduction to the book. It looks like ‘The Best of Everything’ was a bestseller of its era and many women (especially New Yorkers) identified with it. But from your description it looks like the book hasn’t aged well, because of the way the world has changed in the intervening decades. Glad to know that you liked the book, though you didn’t love it.

By: Memory

Memory — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 16:31:01 +0000

Things where women judge their self worth by whether or not someone wants to marry them make me so, so sad. Especially when they’re like this one, where the women have lots of other stuff going for them.

By: zibilee

zibilee — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:29:59 +0000

I had read Ana’s review of The Group a long time ago, and went right out and ordered the book. Like many of the books I own, it still sits forlornly on the shelf and sighs at me as I pass it over again and again, but I will be reading it! Just don’t know when. I had no idea that it was so depressing though, and will have to remember that. This book sounds like it was interesting and involving, but I might also be mad that all the women in the story think that marriage is the be all and end all of life. I get it, I do. Being married is wonderful, and I love it, it’s just that I had a great time as a single girl too, and that time in my life was incedible. It makes me a little sad that this book is so dogged about it’s character’s pursuit of marriage. A lot like life, but sad nonetheless.

By: Jeanne

Jeanne — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:18:18 +0000

When my daughter was in preschool, I was the only mom who stayed at home even part-time (my younger child really could not be left with a sitter even for an hour for his whole first year), and it was one of my proudest moments when all the little girls were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, and the others–spawn of important faculty members–all said “mommy” or “princess” and my daughter declared “paleontologist!”

By: Amy

Amy — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:33:05 +0000

I haven’t read either but both sound slightly depressing. No sparkly snuggle hearts for these two then. 🙂