Blurb:
Nina Browning is living the good life after marrying into Nashville’s elite. More recently, her husband made a fortune selling his tech business, and their adored son has been accepted to Princeton. Yet sometimes the middle-class small-town girl in Nina wonders if she’s strayed from the person she once was.
Tom Volpe is a single dad working multiple jobs while struggling to raise his headstrong daughter, Lyla. His road has been lonely, long, and hard, but he finally starts to relax after Lyla earns a scholarship to Windsor Academy, Nashville’s most prestigious private school.
Amid so much wealth and privilege, Lyla doesn’t always fit in—and her overprotective father doesn’t help—but in most ways, she’s a typical teenage girl, happy and thriving.
Then, one photograph, snapped in a drunken moment at a party, changes everything. As the image spreads like wildfire, the Windsor community is instantly polarized, buzzing with controversy and assigning blame.
At the heart of the lies and scandal, Tom, Nina, and Lyla are forced together—all questioning their closest relationships, asking themselves who they really are, and searching for the courage to live a life of true meaning.
Review:
What can I say other than that I am so excited that Emily Giffin has a new book coming out and that I was able to get my hands on an advanced copy? Ok, okay I know that is not a good enough review so here it goes.
The story is told from the voices of Nina, Lyla and Tom. Nina appears to be your typical trophy wife who married money but we quickly find out that there is more to her than what is on the surface. Tom is a single dad who is out here trying his best to make it work for himself and his daughter, Lyla. Lyla is your typical teenager who winds up in a scandal that will rock her world.
Nina is the wife of a very wealthy man and this scandal hits her close to home and puts her in a very compromising position since her son Finch is involved. She wants to believe that he is her innocent child still but she starts to notice things that make her realize that he is not the person she thought he was. She also finds out much more about her husband than she bargained for and will have to make decisions that are most definitely going to affect all of them.
Tom is a single dad who is doing his best to make sure that his daughter has the best education possible but he also wants to protect her from the world. You can only imagine his devastation when he has to defend his daughter in the light of this scandal. Without Nina’s mother really in the picture, things get more difficult for him before they get easy. He has to deal with being just a regular working class man up against a family of money and power.
Lyla has to learn a very valuable lesson about life. One simple mistake can make a detrimental impact on your life. Even though it was not her mistake and she is the victim, she gets the worse treatment just because of where she lives and because of what people assume about her. Even through all of this she still tries to protect who she can. You definitely see how naïve teens can be.
Nina, Tom, and Lyla must fight thru this and figure out how to come out in one piece. They are forced to find allies where they wouldn’t have necessarily looked before.
I feel that this story is relevant to today’s society with all the dependence on social media and technology. It also focuses on race, class, and how society perceives it all. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but what isn’t elaborated is how those words will follow you and how it will be perceived differently by each person who comes in contact with it.
This novel makes you ask the questions of how far are you willing to go to protect your child? Your place in society? How much of an impact does entitlement have on decisions that you make?
Although this book is an adult fiction, I recommend that teens read it as well if approved by their parents. Teens need to understand that there are consequences to their actions, not matter how much they think what they have done isn’t a “big deal.” Things do not just blow over.
My only complaint about this book is that the ending seemed a bit rushed but hey, books can’t go on forever and must end somewhere right?
I received this copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Rating:
4 stars
Availability:
Available June 26th, 2018 in hardcover, ebook and audiobook.
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