Peyton and Skye are sisters who are very different - or are they? Peyton, an anchor of a morning show, wants her daughter Max to go to Princeton more than Max does. She's compensating. Skye is living in the small town of Paradise, running a charity, and keeping a secret. Then Peyton's husband Isaac is arrested on live tv because a check used to pay for special help getting Max into college was issued from his account. Yikes. The person to root for here is Max. The impact of the college scandal hits everyone. Max has no college to attend, Skye loses the donor for her charity, and Peyton and Isaac move to Paradise as reluctant suburbanites. Weisberger has a knack for hitting topical issues and for skewering vanity. She does both here. Some of this will be familiar ground but you like me, might still find yourself shaking your head at the characters. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good beach read.

This was not a favorite. For me, the ending was very unsatisfying. I also struggled with how judgmental the two main characters were about people with money when they were the exact people they disdained. Even the teens complained about the wealth and privilege of their customers when those customers were no different than their own families. Maybe that was the point? Some type of social commentary? But it just seemed hypocritical. And in this world I'm just not looking for a book full of snark when I can see that all day on Twitter.

The book takes place in the city of Paradise. See the title? Get it? This book is another version of the college admissions scandal. A famous morning newscaster gets caught up in a bribery scandal trying to get her daughter into Princeton. But her daughter didn’t need the help. And here begins the family drama.

The characters were not particularly likeable and several of the storylines were incomplete. I was expecting style, sass, and fun like Weisberger’s previous novels but this was just a mediocre drama. I’m sure this book will be a hit for the right reader with the right expectations.

Maybe I am just over the college admission scandal at this point but this bored me . . . I have liked this author's past work (not loved), mostly centered on fashion, but this one just didn't click for me. I kept wanting to skip ahead and finish . . . the characters just didn't sing to me and the story felt old and derivative.

Where the Grass Is Green and the Girls Are Pretty comes out next week on May 18, 2021, and you can purchase HERE. I personally would stick to this author's back list but you may have more luck!

"How long has it been since you've heard 'Don't Know What You Got'? Twenty Years?"

"Is that Cinderella?" Sky laughed. "Way more than twenty. I have a distinct memory of listening to that song while I made out with Harry Feldman in the temple coat closet at Samantha Weinstein's bat mitzvah."

"That sounds about right. Life was so much easier in the time of power ballads."

Sky laughed. "Back when there was no emotion Whitesnake couldn't quantify."

"Exactly." Peyton took a sip of her champagne. "Now everything's gone to shit. My life is a hot mess."

In Lauren Weisberger's newest book we have a tale of two families.  Peyton, a famous news anchor who has everything.  A successful career, a loving husband,  and a teenage daughter on the road to college. Well Peyton thinks her daughter is on the road to college until a well intentioned mistake derails everything in their perfect family. Skye, Peyton's sister is a stay at home mom with a loving husband and daughter until her life is also derailed by her sisters families mistake. Now both of their lives are in limbo all because of a parent's mistake.

I am a huge Lauren Weisberger fan and have loved her books ever since I read & then watched the movie of The Devil Wears Prada. I was so excited to dive into this newest book and one of my favorite authors did not disappoint me!!!!!!!  At first I wasn't sure about Peyton but the more I got into the story the more I understand a parent's love and the lengths we will go for our children. I highly recommend this book.

This novel was problematic at best. Essentially a novel about rich people and their problems, which is usually my jam. However, a main story line follows the protagonist’s sister - a well off white woman living in a suburb called Paradise. She’s adopted a Black daughter, regularly refers to her days teaching in Harlem, and wants to build a residence in their school district for “underprivileged” girls to enable them access to all the better educational opportunities of Paradise. The White Savior trope was so overdrawn I kept expecting to the book to get meta and call itself out, but nope. That was the actual storyline. It just made me cringe.

I couldn’t put this book down. The story felt very current. I would’ve liked a different ending. It wrapped up too nicely. But it was a fun read.

WHERE THE GRASS IS GREEN AND THE GIRLS ARE PRETTY is about two sisters, Peyton and Skye, whose seemingly perfect lives begin to unravel because of one lie, one choice that affects everything. this is a novel examining the motivations and fallout of a college admissions scandal. I enjoyed the social commentary and the scenes involving Peyton’s career as a news anchor (reminiscent of The Morning Show), but I struggled with feeling frustrated with all of the characters in the book and felt little empathy for any of them. recommend this one for fans of @laurenweisberger or if you’re looking for a light summer read. 3.5/5⭐️—it was good.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing for the advance copy.

Everyone knows author Lauren Weisberger for the Devil Wears Prada so I was excited for her latest book. This story is based on the public admissions scandal that happened a few years and involved news anchor Peyton, who seemingly ruined her daughter's life by paying to get her into Princeton. I enjoyed the back and forth between all the characters, but I also found myself getting tired of the main character. It is still a fun book and I recommend you add it to your TBR shelf for this summer.

This was a pretty good family drama. It was loosely based on the college admissions scandals that we’ve all heard so much about lately. It was told from different perspectives and all the characters were well developed. The book was entertaining and held my interest but I didn’t love it. All in all, I would still recommend it!

Thank you Random House and NetGalley for the chance to read and review Where the Grass is Green and the Girls are Pretty. I have read several of Lauren Weisberger's previous novels and enjoyed this one as I appreciate her willingness to examine themes on privilege in White women while also integrating valuable points about pressures all women face, and also that women put on each other.

Peyton (famous morning news anchor, husband accused in a Varsity Blues type admissions scandal) is navigating job worries, appearance pressures, and professional challenges as she takes time off from work during this scandal to spend time with her daughter and her sister Skye. Skye is meanwhile navigating her own transitions and stressors related to wanting to push back/leave her privileged life, losing out on a meaningful social justice themes opportunity (and being in significant debt), and thinking about adopting again or trying to have another child. These two sisters have a strong bond but must also find ways to listen to and understand how each are navigating similar but different pressures about their lives, their families, and their future identities.

Though most will focus on the main themes of ripped from the headlines college admissions scandals, privilege and moneyed lives in Connecticut and NYC, and the sisters' relationships and messy lives, I think there are some other wonderful and more subtle themes that resonated with me. I found this novel to have important themes on female friendships and professional friendships in particular and also themes on how our own childhoods and feelings of failure can impact others in the future. I liked the inclusion of Peyton's sense of professional alienation, possible faux or problematic female friendships, and some significant and problematic thoughts and experiences with beauty, weight, and entering midlife as a highly visible media star. And I found Skye's discontent with her life to feel honest, not forced, and to have depth and meaning worth talking about. The worries of these women felt relatable even as the privileged lives of course are less relatable to most readers (that is of course understood by the author herself, she does not presume that readers connect to that kind of life).

I also enjoyed that some of the chapters were from Peyton's daughter Max (Mackenzie) and her thoughts on the privilege she grew up with, her resistance to that life, and yet her awareness of what this privilege, when possibly gone, did offer her. I also thought her relationships with her best friend, her father (accused in the admissions scandal) and her mother (Peyton, the famous news anchor) to be thoughtfully and realistically portrayed; I like an author who can make a college age teen grounded, thoughtful, and articulate.

Thus, for a fast paced summer read, there are hidden moments of depth worthy of a book club discussion or a chat among friends and sisters who share this book. Though this book lacked for me some of the social satire and humor that I love is Ms. Weisberger's previous books, there is a lot to enjoy in this new novel if you step back and look at the big and small themes.

I've enjoyed all of Lauren Weisberger's books and this was no exception. It was a quick read but a fun one. It follows Peyton, Skye and Max (two sisters and a daughter) as they navigate the pitfalls of motherhood, young adulthood, career and life expectations. There were some great interactions between all the characters and I laughed in quite a few places.

I read this book in less than a week and absolutely loved it. The depth of the characters was so good that even ones that should have been unlikeable you still found yourself rooting for them. I loved the modern feel of this book and I found myself relating to the younger and older characters. The ending was so unexpected but I loved it. I would devour a sequel to this book should one come out!

I love Lauren Weisberger and this book only reminds me of why. I love that this book is very much with the times and you can tell which current events of the last couple of years inspired the drama we encounter in this book. This book was so good! I definitely recommend to anyone who had read her books before.

Peyton is a well-known morning show TV anchor and gets to announce breaking news one morning about another college admission scandal. As she's in the gym a short time later, she sees news cameras reporting on the specific arrests. The story unravels from there. It's a lightly developed story about Peyton, her sister Skye, and her daughter who gets thrown in the middle of all of the drama.

Peyton, married to Isaac, is a successful TV news anchor. She’s a perfectionist and has placed a lot of pressure on her teenage daughter Mackenzie “Max” who is getting ready to go to Princeton. They live in Manhattan. Peyton’s sister Skye and her architect husband live with their adopted daughter in a New York suburb called Paradise. She’s more down-to-earth and while living in an affluent community, seeks to help others. After covering a breaking news story about a new college admissions scandal, Peyton returns home to find her husband being taken away in handcuffs by the FBI. Peyton has to deal with this crisis which also impacts Skye.

Where the Grass is Green and the Girls Are Pretty takes a satirical look at those living lives of privilege. Daughter Max is the character to root for as she is young and has the chance to forge her own direction as her life is turned on its head. I wish I could have felt more for the other main characters. Author Lauren Weisberger has an easy writing style and insightful wit which makes the book entertaining overall. These days, when I read contemporary books, I can’t help but wonder if the dynamics would have been different in a post-quarantine world. I’d be interested in Weisberger’s view of the world moving forward and seeing if the Lululemon-wearing women she writes about will have changed in any way.

This book was interesting. This is my second Lauren Weisberger novel--with the first being The Singles Game, which I highly recommend (no, not The Devil Wears Prada)--so I was prepared for Weisberger's writing style and focus on the extremely privileged and elite. This book is no different. Told in alternating chapters from the third person semi-omniscient, the book switch between the inside the heads of three women--Peyton, a famous news anchor; Max, her 18 yo daughter, who is about to start college; and Skye, Peyton's sister, a helicopter mom trying to open a resident school for underprivileged girls. All three are equally fascinating, though some are certainly more likable than others.

There's a definitive twist (or twists, rather) to this book that I'm tempted to disclose, since it's uncovered relatively early in the plot and rather central to the story. I think it could draw some more readers in, but there's something to be said for the element of surprise. If you're on the fence about this book, DM me, and I can provide more info! I enjoyed it, because it felt very current and strangely realistic if not hyperbolic.

I'm torn on my rating, somewhere between a four and a five. I think I'm a little younger than the target audience for this one--I'd say young moms to older women are probably a little bit more of the demographic than a single twentysomething (despite Max's perspective being included), so it didn't resonate with me perhaps as much as it will with some. Mostly just because I preferred The Singles Game, I'm rating this one a four, though I would still definitely recommend this read. Especially if you're looking to see good people make bad choices and be forced to reckon with said choices...

Thank you to Random House for my eARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

4 stars - 8/10

Thank you NetGalley & Random House Publishing Group for this ARC! I absolutely loved this book - it was a heartwarming chick lit that was both relatable and scandalous. From a strained mother daughter relationship to the unbreakable bond between sisters, I loved watching the story unfold and seeing how each character grew to overcome their individual obstacles. As always, Lauren Weisberger’s writing makes me laugh and her books are hard to put down, especially in how this story followed a college admissions scandal. Highly recommend getting your hands on this book when it is released!

I read “When Life Gives You Lululemons” by Lauren Weisberger a few years ago and I loved it! I love a juicy story about rich people getting in trouble, and both books by Weisberger do just that!

This is another story about a college admissions scandal. We read this through the point of view of 3 different characters: Peyton, Skye, and Max. The author did a great job of going back and forth between all 3 characters. They all felt fully developed, and I understood each of their thoughts and reasonings so well.

This story also dealt with the role of privilege in society. This topic has been talked about a lot within the past year, and this book covers it very well. The pressure of appearances, copious amounts of many to get what you want, and putting pressure on others for the sake of yourself.

Overall, I really loved this book! If you love rich people family dramas, this is the book for you!

Ripped from the headlines this book is about a scandal involving parents paying to get their kids into college. The story centers around a high profile morning news anchor when her husband is arrested by the FBI. Suddenly her life and her family’s life is turned upside down.

I loved Payten’s character and how she evolved during the book. The story is also about Payten’s daughter, Max, and her sister. They are both going through their own struggles.

I enjoyed the book and you will too if you are a fan of Lauren Weisberger!