I absolutely loved this book! A family saga, this novel explores so many different themes about sisterhood, womanhood and feminism, raising important and interesting questions while keeping the reader engaged with the memorable characters and gorgeous writing. My favorite Weiner book ever- it was magnificent!

I am really enjoying what a breath of fresh air this book really is. I haven't seen a contemporary novel like this in a while, and I find myself drawn to the main character.

Jo and Bethie are sisters, who care for each other, despite being very different from each other. The story spans over decades with both having their ups and downs in life. The story covers so many hot topics, but not in an in your face kind of way. It is what one would expect from Jennifer Weiner and more. You will not want to miss this book.

Mrs. Everything follows the story of Jo's life from the 50s up until about the present day. Following along with Jo's life and the women who are in it you find yourself relating to their struggles, identity crises, challenges and drive as they work to find their own way in the world.

Jennifer Weiner created complex characters who need to come to terms with the women they want to be and the compromises they must make on that path. I really enjoyed this book, it has a timely message and relatable characters that were a pleasure to get to know.

Jennifer Weiner’s look at women’s lives becomes more sophisticated and sharp with each book she writes. I’d rank this one as her best and my second favorite after “In Her Shoes.”

Jo Kaufman and her family made the move from Detroit to the suburbs in 1951. Jo, her sister Bethie and her parents Ken and Sarah were one of the few Jewish families in their town but did their best to assimilate. Jo was the “tomboy” and Bethie was sweet feminine little girl who seemed to be her mother’s favorite. Their lives all changed dramatically when Ken died at 48 and left the family struggling. Sarah had to find work and the girls were often left alone after school.

Bethie had been offered a job by her Uncle but he used it as an opportunity to sexually harass her. Fortunately Jo was able threaten the uncle and extract money from him to keep quiet about the harassment. The experience had an effect on both girls.

Jo had never been interested in boys even though her friend fixed her up with dates all through high school. Eventually the girls became lovers but her friend was set on marrying a wealthy boyfriend. Then Jo went off to the U of Michigan where she fell in love with another girl with whom she had planned to travel the world after graduation. Once again her lover left her to marry a man.

Bethie visited Jo at Michigan and got caught up in the radical campus life of the 60s. She hooked up with a drug dealer and spent two years living with him. However he left her after she had taken some bad drugs at a concert and ended up being raped. Jo was traveling abroad alone when her mother asked her to return home to help her sister. Bethie was pregnant and had a sexually transmitted disease. She did not want to keep the child and so Jo spent the rest of her travel funds on an illegal abortion for Bethie.

By now Jo was tired of trying to find a woman to love her. So when she met a man at a friend’s wedding and started dating, she drifted into a marriage to someone she liked but did not love. Her husband was a charmer who moved from job to job but allowed her to stay home and raise their daughters.

Bethie had adopted a nomadic lifestyle and ended up in a commune of women in Georgia.

The story traced the different lives the sisters were living through the 70s and 80s. After many disappointments the sisters were finally able to find happiness.

This story spans the years from 1951 to 2016. The final chapter is set in 2022 when Bethie takes Jo’s grandchildren back to to the home the family moved to in 1951. The book examines the changes that women underwent as opportunities opened for them and their daughters. It also touched on the social changes that occurred in the US in that period.

It is told in chapters narrated alternately by Jo and Bethie. Each of them had their own struggles and conflicts with their mother, a traditional Jewish woman. The author mentioned that her own mother was a lesbian, eventually divorced her husband and met a woman with whom she was able to share her love.

This is not a classic “chick lit” book but will appeal to women. It will force to reader to compare the lives of American woman in the 50s to the lives of women today.

I loved this book! It’s a epic tale that follows two sisters throughout their lives from adolescence to old age. We’re there for heartbreak, triumph, love, loss, and so much more. It’s a story about finding yourself, being yourself, and what it means to be a woman in this world (and how that has changed—and hasn’t changed—over the years). It’s funny, sweet, sad, and moving. And I couldn’t put it down! I truly grew to love these women and to cheer for them. When I finally closed the book, it felt like I was saying goodbye to two dear friends. And I miss them already.

Jennifer Weiner has been one of my favorite writers since college. After 2016’s “Who Do You Love” (which I loved), Weiner took a break from adult fiction to write a memoir and two middle grade novels.

I was thrilled to learn that she is releasing a new adult novel finally.

Mrs. Everything incorporates the themes Weiner often focuses on: sisters, weight struggles, domestic drama, but on a much more ambitious scale.

Beginning in the 1950s in Detroit, sisters Jo and Bethie’s ups and downs through life are chronicled through civil rights, the feminist movement of the 1970s, the fitness craze of the 1980s and 90s, all the way up to Hillary Clinton’s presidential run in 2016.

Along the way, the sisters face all sorts of drama from rape to coping with sexuality when the world was not as accepting of the LGBTQ community. They fall in love, not always with the best people, develop careers - or give them up for motherhood. They make bad decisions and grow and evolve as people.

While the trope of the older responsible sister and wild younger sister from her earlier books like “In Her Shoes” are present, Jo and Beth do not feel like a retread of Rose and Maggie. They are very much their own persons. Sometimes I was frustrated with decisions they made, but loved seeing how they grew and developed over the years.

The end moved me to tears and I am so happy that Weiner has finally returned to writing such an ambitious, smart, funny and moving book for adults.

"We lose ourselves, but we find our way back." Mrs. Everything is a decades long story of two sisters losing and finding themselves, while trying to share their wisdom with the next generation of family as they do the same. Jennifer Weiner does an excellent job of flowing through time and major societal issues, without lecturing the reader. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the way it made me think about supportive female relationships. We're all losing and finding ourselves; how lucky we are when we find people who are gentle enough to remind us when we may stray from our intentions and strong enough to help get us back on the right path.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

#MrsEverything #NetGalley

mrs.everything follows three generations of women through their journey—at a time when the very definition of what it means to be a woman changes with each generation. this book has a lot of heart.

Perfect. The plot was well-paced and the characters well-developed. Despite my slow reading speed and the length of the book, I finished it in a few days. And days after finishing, I co to us to think about the story and the characters.

Jennifer Weiner is back with. Sweeping saga in her unique and masterful way. Jo and Bethune were great characters to follow, though I would have liked to have seen more written about their lives in the 1980’s and in the years between Jo’s initial diagnosis and the end of the book. What’s important is that Jennifer Weiner is back, and that is always a good thing.

This tale for the outcasts—the Jews, the “Negros”, the interracial couples, the homosexual couples and, yes, women—gives a real sense of the life in the 60s and throughout the 80s with the protests, the raising of awareness and differences and injustices, the rigid roles that women were expected to conform to, and the evolving world toward the end of the 2010s. Great characters, carefully drawn and breathing their struggles across the pages, round out this well-written story filled with historical and cultural references, and the best “trip” description, ever—if that doesn’t convey “kids, don’t do drugs!” I don’t know what will! If the book doesn’t open eyes on women’s condition, I don’t know what will, either.

I was fortunate to read an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Warm thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the opportunity.

OMG this is one of the best books I have read this yr and I read ALOT!!!!!!! I found myself pausing in my reading because I didn't want it to end. I totally see a book hangover for the rest of the day from this book. You fall right into the characters lives and feel like you know them. I felt myself triumphing for them, my heart hurting with them, feeling their happiness. I don't think I've gotten this in tune with characters in a long time. Probably 6 years since Jennifer Weiner's last book lol. This novel introduces us to Bethie and Jo, 2 sisters, at a young age and follows them all through their lives. Through their trials and tribulations of life. We follow right along with them as they grow up and become women and everything that comes with. If you have never read a Jennifer Weiner novel you are solely missing out. Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for my honest review and the opportunity to read and review this amazing novel

A story which spans decades, Mrs. Everything closely explores women's roles in society, homosexuality, ethnicity, race, sexual assault, and family relationships. It is a well-written, character-driven, fast and easy read.

Mrs Everything by Jennifer Weiner. My first book by Ms Weiner which unfortunately fell flat for me. The story seemed to drag with too much detail about Jo's teenage sexual angst. Bethie's story seemed to be glossed over. While I didn't enjoy the book, I am positive Ms Weiner's fans will like it.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

I really liked this book for about the first half - a young, widow raising two daughters who were as different as night and day but ended up metaphorically trading places. Ms. Weiner sensitively posed issues such as rebellion, lesbians in hiding, racially mixed marriage, but the book ultimately felt flat and trite to me. I’ve enjoyed many of Ms. Weiner’s earlier books which were both wry and extremely funny, but in this attempt at serious literary fiction I think she misses the mark.

Had Mrs. Everything been about half as long as it is, the story could have been told tightly and engagingly, but overall , the characters were no more than the very stereotypes the characters so disdained.

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

I am a huge Jennifer Weiner fan! I really enjoyed this book although it feels a little different from her past novels. It centers on the lives of Jo and Bethie, two Jewish sisters growing up in the 1950's and it follows them through present day. Weiner explores many topics in this book, racism, sexual assault, sexual identity, the changing role of women, mother/daughter relationships, and explores whether women can ever truly have it all. This might be too much for some authors to take on in one book but Weiner succeed and the book kept me engrossed from beginning to end!

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the advance copy of this book
Being a long time fan of Jennifer Weiner's books, I was anxious to read this one.
This book followed Jo and her sister Bethie from childhood through older age.
I did enjoy the early part of the book, but found myself skimming through the latter chapters.
Sadly, this book lacked the humor that is expected from Weiner's novels.
I found her characters lacking, and the plot all over the place without a distinct sequence.

I first discovered Jennifer Weiner when my college roommate lent me Good in Bed, so I’ve been reading Weiner for a long time now. Ok, so I didn’t love the musical-theater interlude in All Fall Down, but in general, these are great character-driven, culturally Jewish fiction, about developed characters doing their best in the face of setbacks.

Her next novel, Mrs. Everything, is a family saga, beginning with two sisters in 1950s Detroit. (But did it really begin with them, or with, Sarah, their mother? Or her mother in the old country?) In Good in Bed, and then in Certain Girls, she explored some generational themes, showing how Cannie was reflected in her daughter. In Mrs. Everything, we see family relationships grow and evolve over the years.

Big sister Jo is a tomboy, uncomfortable in the mandatory skirts and dresses. The novel opens with a reference to Jo’s wife, so I knew going in that she’d eventually find happiness in a relationship with a woman, but the path isn’t smooth. Bethie seems like the pretty, pliable daughter, but as she gets older, she discovers the men, music and drugs of the sixties. The story takes us through the twists and turns of the sisters’ lives from there. Each time a new phase started, I didn’t exactly see it coming, but I though, oh, yeah, she’d do that. Bethie living in an all-woman commune? Jo teaching fitness classes? Ok, I can see that.

I had serious hopes for Jo’s first marriage, even if Bethie didn’t. Dave seemed like a friendly neighborhood boy who liked and respected Jo, and didn’t want too much intimacy so she could keep her secret. (Also, Nonie Scotto?!?!?)

The secondary characters are so well-developed, too. There are the commune women, who don’t want to participate in capitalism by making too much money from their hugely successful homemade jams. The ex-husband who won’t pay for college, but will pay for a nose job. The immigrant against affirmative action because she worked and struggled, everyone else should too.

Near the end of the novel, Jo has her beloved wife, a mature relationship with her sister, and three daughters. When they watch Hilary Clinton in her white pantsuit, there’s such a feeling of hopefulness for women and the future. It really highlights how much has changed over the course of the novel, both for Jo and Bethie personally, and for the expectations on women. Of course, the 2016 election showed how much our country really hates successful women, so I guess that’s not quite an uplifting ending. Still, there’s a feeling that Jo’s daughters and their children, and their children will continue the story.