KEY POINTS:
ALL WE EVER WANTED WAS EVERYTHING
By Janelle Brown
Hutchinson, $36.99
In the lap of Californian luxury the lives of three women - a mother and two daughters - are falling apart.
Mum Janice is dumped by her husband on the day his company is successfully floated on the stock market, making them overnight billionaires. Refusing to face reality, she develops an addiction to crystal meth, with the pool boy as her dealer. Elder daughter Margaret's feminist magazine, Snatch, has gone belly up and she's hiding from her creditors. Younger sister Lizzie is 14 and already considered the school slut.
Tragic as it all sounds, it's hard to feel sympathy for these characters.
The predominant feeling is frustration that a trio of smart women could make such stupid choices.
And their ignorance of each other's predicament is staggering. Even when Janice is taken home after overdosing and causing a scene at the local golf club, her daughters' lack of curiosity is laughable.
And, despite such sad-sack heroines, the novel keeps you gripped, and the ending is a relief in more ways than one.
