Summer Reading: All We Ever Wanted Was Everything

Janelle Brown will be reading from All We Ever Wanted Was Everything at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park (17171 Bothell Way NE), tonight at 7 p.m. This event is free.

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything originally debuted last year in hardcover, and just recently came out in paperback (we see it's available for your Kindle at a slightly cheaper price).

The novel centers around a well-off Silicon Valley family dealing with a whole lot of drama--individually and as a whole. The main character, Janice Miller, wakes up one sunny June morning to hear on the news that her husband's pharmaceutical company has gone public, making them IPO millionaires. She races out to pick up her newly tailored dress, a fancy bottle of champagne, and some ingredients for a celebration dinner from her local gourmet grocer.

Later that afternoon, Janice learns via messenger that her husband will not be joining her in celebration--in fact, she is handed divorce papers--and finally learns that not only is her husband leaving her for her tennis partner/best friend, but that "with those papers she signed last year" she is not entitled to any of the new money.

Her two daughters--twenty-something Margaret who is $200,000 in debt after her failed magazine Snatch (sounds familiar), and fourteen-year-old Lizzie, who is coping with learning she is officially the school slut (as per the boy's locker room wall)--stand by their mother's side, becoming a stronger family than possibly they had been in years. All this while Janice is secretly doing "It" (aka crystal meth), which the pool boy is graciously supplying her with twice a week.