Zoe and Ethan's comfortable suburban life revolves around their daughter Alex, whose adjustment difficulties are a perennial source of tension both at home and in the progressive private school whose other parents are increasingly vocal it about the effect Alex's behavior is having on others in the school community in this well-rendered domestic drama the larger problems of the world are subsumed by the efforts Zoe and Ethan to right the tipsy canoe of their marriage, which is threatened not only by Alex's behavior but also by pressures from Ethan's former partner - and some source of income - to intercede for him in a sexual harassment case that may destroy the form they built together but by their seductive 20- something' live-in nanny The other source of friction in their marriage comes from Zoe's increasingly militant feminism and its effect on her battles with Alex's school community While both of these plot points fill in the outlines of the novel, they're not compelling enough to illuminate the personal journeys of the protagonists and the parallel unraveling of their marriage

I picked up this book because the description sounded hyper topical and relatable. Yet when reading it I couldn’t relate to it at all. At times I felt like the book was trying to explore deeper, more cerebral themes like symbolism in modern culture but I found the characters and their situations so cliche and deeply unlikable that I had to really push myself to finish this book. And I found the ending unsatisfying. It felt hasty.

This is one of those books that is so heart-wrenching and gut-wrenching that it's difficult to put down. The Frome family is reeling from husband Ethan's company beginning to tank unless he blackmails one of the actresses, wife Zo who has become a poster-board-carrying liberal who runs a group of All Them Witches, and daughter Alex who has ADHD and can't find her niche in 6th grade private school. Add to the mix Maddy, a twenty-something boarder who intrigues Ethan since his wife has gone off the deep end, and you can see why this novel is upsetting and often difficult to read. Nevertheless, it's a timely and relevant satire that deals with so many of the #MeToo movement's difficulties, that we are forced to see both sides of these politically-charged issues. I admit that most of the characters are flawed and unlikeable (except for Alex who has charm even though she's an 11-year-old misfit), so you have to be able to suspend your disbelief and see beyond the stereotypes. The ending was unexpected and had me gasping a little, but overall, it's a heart-felt look at both sides of disagreements and the political tension that threatens to divide our country if we aren't careful.

A timely, interesting and but deeply heartfelt in it's satirical retelling of our current political and social systems.

Cute book. Took me a few chapters to really get into the story all the way. Once I did it flowed along at a good pace.

"A family is upended when their small-town life becomes the latest battlefield in the culture wars in this of-the-moment novel . . .Life for Ethan and Zo used to be simple. Ethan co-founded a lucrative media start-up, and Zo was well on her way to becoming a successful filmmaker. Then they moved to a rural community for a little more tranquility--or so they thought. When newfound political activism transforms Zo into a barely recognizable ball of outrage and #MeToo allegations rock his old firm, Ethan finds himself a misfit in his own life. . . . The Smash-Up is a wholly contemporary exploration of how the things we fail to see can fracture a life, a family, a community, and a nation."

The Smash-Up takes one family and demonstrates how the new hyperreality of our lives, with constant news stories and commentary on those stories, affects our lives and daily reality. "It's like we're all propagandists now." While written in the third person, this book takes Ethan's perspective of what's happening. The time period for this book centers around the Kavanaugh hearings. Zo and her group are outraged, and Zo somewhat inadvertently becomes a symbol of the resistance movement. Ethan feels estranged from Zo and his life, and meanwhile learns that his old firm (and source of income) is also enmeshed in the #MeToo movement, but as the subject of a lawsuit, thanks to his old partner.

I really enjoyed this story and the weaving of current events into the story of a family having problems relating to each other. There is also Alex, their hyperactive daughter. The book did not end the way I expected, and it while it ended on a note of hope, it definitely was not a happy ending, so to speak.

I found the characters to be fully realized and quite interesting. At different points, I found myself rooting for different characters. Thanks to Netgalley for the free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The Smash-Up.

I wasn't sure what to expect but the blurb was intriguing and I was excited when my request was pleased.

Sadly, The Smash-Up did not meet my expectations for a number of reasons:

1. The main characters, Ethan and Zo, are so so unlikable. Zo needs to sit down with a psychiatrist and discuss the real reasons behind why she is so angry; Ethan needs to man up and stop acting like a cliche middle-aged husband lusting over the live-in babysitter.

2. The author jams all the political strife and agonies of our world into The Smash-Up, which is disheartening, depressing and made reading this all the more difficult.

The Smash-Up is one of those books where a lot is happening but there's no cohesive thread; just stuff happening to privileged people which made it hard to relate and sympathize with anyone.

3. Maddy is the typical millennial, and her character just a plot device to entice Ethan and spout an angry diatribe about the existential problems her demographic faces.

Great writing but this wasn't for me. I will read the author's second book.

I expected to like this book, but I was unable to connect to the characters. For some reason I found it dismal. There was no joy and no person I could identify with.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC.

I received a complimentary copy of The Smash-Up from NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

Based on some real political topics, this one had me angry enough that I almost put it down before finishing the first chapter. I guess it was only because it seemed pretty well written that I actually finished the book. Overly-sensitive, high and mighty political extremists act out in immature ways and believe that all things are direct attacks on them, but in the end, they realize the error of their ways as karma reminds them what is really important in life--the people in that life. (Because I felt the author's point of view agreed with that of the deluded extremist character, I can't in good conscience rate it higher than 3 stars even though it was a decently written book.)

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

#TheSmash-Up by Ali Benjamin hits the bullseye dead in the center. It has been a long time since a timely novel has been SO TIMELY ! ( RBG died as I was reading it ). The year is 2018 ( remember back then ? ) and The Frome family is in crisis. Dad Ethan is on the verge of losing the remainder of his buyout because his former partner is going to be sued for being named in MeToo. Mom Zo is a stalled documentary filmmaker, who, along with her female friends ( dubbed by their Massachusetts Neighbors as “All Them Witches “ ) is furious over The Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings. Daughter Alex is plagued with ADHD and doesn’t fit in with her 6th grade classmates at her super progressive/exclusive school. Not only that but she is being plotted against by her classmates’ parents to be replaced by another student who would fit in. Add to the Frome Family Maddy, a 26 year old guest who believes in making her own rules to survive and you have the recipe for #TheSmash-Up, an extremely well written and very important book for today and all the todays to come.

You needn't have read Wharton's Ethan Frome (not-coincidentally the protagonist's name) to be drawn into Ali Benjamin's novel. From the beginning it immerses you in the present we are all living and experiencing since the November 2016 election of "he who should not be named". Benjamin describes it as "hypereality". What is truth, what is goodness, what is real?( And this was written before the pandemic which has extended the unreality/hypereality that is our existence in Trump times.)

Ethan and Zo, parents to hyperactive/ADHD Alex are trying to live and function in the time of MeToo, Supreme Court nominees like Bret Cavanaugh being confirmed, disbelieving the victim, anti-feminist tweeters, on-line hate mongers, and activists and protestors for many and varied causes.

Zo suffers from uncontrolled on-line shopping, Ethan suffers from his inability to understand his wife and her group of "All Them Witches" as they are known. Ethan's former partner, Randy, guilty of sexual harassment and assault, denies a tactic to blackmail a victim and save their business as he keeps trying to be "one of the good ones".

Infused with guilt over what we have done to our society, our democracy and our youth, you will suffer through your reflection in the mirror Ali Benjamin holds up. The ending delivers the smash-up of the title and yet, yet perhaps a glimmer of hope? This should be on your must-read shelf.

For fans of ASK AGAIN YES and FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE, Ali Benjamin's THE SMASH-UP is a razor-sharp but deeply heartfelt satire of our contemporary social and political systems, framed as a retelling of Wharton's classic novel, Ethan Frome. Like its original counterpart, THE SMASH-UP is a framed narrative; we begin with an introduction that asks the question that plagues the original Ethan Frome from the very start: What happened? While the answer to that question in Wharton's work is purposefully vague ("a smash-up"), Benjamin's work is driven by answers. What happened? The 2016 election. Harvey Weinstein. MeToo. Police overreach and brutality, Resistance. Bret Kavanaugh. The Women's March. On and on, all these things that happened and are happening as the country tries to remake itself in the wake of all our ugliness rising to the surface. "What happened?" THE SMASH-UP asks. "Well, sit down and I'll tell you."

We follow an unnamed narrator as they drive into Starkfield, Massachusetts, and spot Ethan Frome, who is without a limp but still "hobbled" by a flat tire. The narrator gives Ethan a ride home, and thereafter becomes a one-person Greek chorus of a kind, showing up frequently to uphold the mirror that reflects that which is under the surface of the main action. Once the close third-person narration begins, we're drawn into Ethan's life with documentary filmmaker and activist wife Zenobia (Zo); their hyperactive, Wicked-obsessed daughter, Alex; and their live-in, Millennial, would-be nanny (of a sort), Maddy. Everything is in a state of unrest, from the forever-unfinished home renovation to the country to Alex's attendance at the new-age, ultra-conscious Rainbow Seed School, to Ethan and Zo's marriage. An encounter with the local police throws Zo and her women's activist group, All Them Witches, into the spotlight, and not everyone in Starkfield is happy about it. Meanwhile, Ethan's former marketing agency partner asks him to help make a pending MeToo lawsuit disappear. In the literal and figurative background is Maddy, whose ennui is a challenge and counterpoint to the Fromes' intense attention to every detail of their fractured, fracturing lives.

THE SMASH-UP is a novel of colliding -- who these characters are, what they believe, what they do, how they feel, what they show the world and what they hide -- all of it being forced to the surface by impact after merciless impact. Everything that happens in THE SMASH-UP is just as important as what doesn't; our mysterious narrator from the introduction (whose identity I won't spoil here), says it best: "New ideas, new worlds, new truths, always begin in the negative space. Unlike the groaning heft of What Is, possibility has no mass of its own--no force, no shape or structure, not yet. To most eyes, What Could Be looks like nothing at all. It takes faith to discern this invisible thing, to protect it and tend to it, until the day it comes screaming into the open, startling everyone with the plain fact of itself, a truth that's suddenly clear as day."

Thank you for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book. It was one I was greatly looking forward to as it cover subject matter so relevant to the age we are living in, yet from a fictional standpoint which can often times be easier to digest. Unfortunately, in this case, this book was just...too much? I can’t say I liked or resonated with any of the characters? Their demeanors and qualities were so “privileged” it was hard to take the subject matter seriously and with the exception of the child in this book, all seemed to come off as entitled and virtuous, although it is clear that’s not what the author intended. Both husband and wife characters were sanctimonious to the point of ignorance, and despite a back story meant to entice sympathy for Zo, she only comes off as unhinged and belligerent at times with her husband appearing as duplicitous and “simple”. Perhaps this subject matter would have been better addressed from the vantage point of characters less privileged and more redeeming? Hard for anyone to get the message of the book from characters that are unappealing and cast stones from their glass house? Thanks again for the advance copy.

THE SMASH-UP is a smash! Benjamin takes us inside the marriage of Zo and Ethan. Over the course of a few short days,we learn about their doubts, their fears, their aspiration and their tremendous love for their daughter., Abby, who challenges them both on a daily basis. Benjamin does a great job of making the characters real. In Zo and Ethan, every married person will recognize a little of themselves. THE SMASH-UP directly addresses some of the most serious issues the U.S. currently faces and delivers a fresh, contemporary, interesting read. Marvelous.

This is one of the best books I've read all year, by debut author Ali Benjamin. At its heart are questions of honesty, commitment, how we examine our values in this chaotic world that's been spinning ever more out of control, and be our authentic selves- whatever that means.

Ethan and Zo have escaped the NY rat race, where he and his college buddy launched a very successful dot-com startup, and moved to the woods of northwest Massachusetts, while the buddy made the company extremely successful in LA. They have a 6 year old daughter with severe ADHD and try to find schools in which she can feel comfortable and get her needs met. Also living with them is Maddy, Alex's nanny, a twentyish woman who seems to live a carefree existence, oblivious to trials of the adults around her.

Immediately once senses the anger and frustration between Ethan and his wife Zo. Zo has a meeting of fellow women activists in her home each week, and the Brett Cavanaugh confirmation is the focus of their rage. Rage seems pervasive in Zo all the time, although most of the reasons why remain a mystery.

Ethan is somewhat involved in his former buddy/startup partner's new allegations of sexual harassment against him, and wants nothing to do with it. This is another storyline in the book.

Maddy is whimsical, creative, and in=between jobs. She is very good with Alex the daughter but besides that not much is known about her outside pursuits.

Without giving much away, over a few days' time the entire family comes to see that they all have been less than honest with each other. They have each created a reality of who each wants the other to be, and the frustration of those people not living up to the fantasty.

In the end there is a literal Smash-Up, but the main Smash-Up is peoples' ideas about themselves and others disintegrating once seen through clear eyes of truth.