Book Reviews

Pop Culture

I have always been attracted to currents of thinking, not necessarily to adopt them myself, but to know why is something likeable to people. This way I feel that I can get a hitch of what people is thinking and why a trend is a trend. And this is why I bought this book. Because it is a national bestseller. Because it is a television series whose protagonists are Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. Because it is everywhere I look. I wanted to know what was it about.

Mia and her daughter Pearl arrive in Shaker Heights, an utopic little town, looking for good schools, as Pearl is academically gifted, but she does not have financial resources to go to a private school. They find a little apartment rented by Elena Richardson, who was born and has been living in Shaker Heights all her life. Mrs. Richardson has four kids, Trip, Lexie, Izzy and Moody. They live in a beautiful and enormous house and have a very different lifestyle from Mia and Pearl.

But Moody and Pearl start a friendship. And then Pearl starts frequenting the Richardson’s house and get along with Trip and Lexie. And then Izzy feels a lack of belonging to her own family and looks out for Mia. And all of those relationships start mixing together, and get tangled up into one another. And the messy situation starts happening. Kids on both sides loose the sense of belonging to each of their families. However, the real problem starts when Mia’s friend, Bebe Chow, lost a custody battle against the Richardson’s friends. Their morals get tested, they split into their own opinions and pulling the cord from one side to the other it breaks.

Everything becomes like a huge gossip story that is impossible to leave until the last page. For the ones who have children like I do, it could be confronting, as it can teach us that if we stay fixed in only our way of educating our kids, they can give us many surprises, sometimes not very pleasant. Although I must say that the subjects into which they disagreed could be opened to a lot of debate.

 I wouldn’t call it a literary novel strictly speaking, but nevertheless it is an entertaining book for a little weekend away.

Luz