I went in without really knowing what this novel was about and I recommend avoiding any blurbs – I was delightfully surprised and quickly gobbled this one up.

How to describe and recommend a novel with a fiendishly clever plot, without giving anything away?

For those who need to know something, proceed, otherwise, go in blind!

This is a very entertaining, darkly comic tale of lies and revenge.

Kate and Phoebe are our two main characters, modern London women, each dealing with repercussions of the past. Kate has a wonderful life with her loving husband. Phoebe is a TV show writer, who has just hit the big time. When Kate watches Phoebe’s newly popular show, she recognizes that it is based on her own life and there is just one explanation for this, one that will destroy Kate’s peace of mind. John Lanchester has pulled off a difficult feat: writing two dislikeable characters you will simultaneously root for.

Read this if you like “voicy” satirical tales of revenge and deliciously messed up English people. This is the first book I’ve read by John Lanchester and I adored his writing – can’t wait to look into his backlist!

I think of John Lanchester as a sort of Anthony Trollope of our time, with his novels not just about social relationships, but satirical commentary on business, politics, technology/industry, and social mores. Lanchester continues his acerbic views here, with tart observations about TV fads, London’s economic inequality (particularly as it plays out in housing), and social media. But the principal theme here is revenge; multi-faceted and relentless revenge, using tools of the modern age to destroy lives.

I won’t spoil the plot. I’ll just say this is a story that fits our zeitgeist; sometimes you may laugh helplessly because of how appallingly the characters behave.

Look What You Made Me Do is a sharp, controlled novel about authorship and generational resentment, delivered with John Lanchester’s usual precision. The plot turns on a successful marriage that is thrown under the microscope when a Netflix series appears to mirror it's secrets.

Lanchester structures the book around two couples whose lives appear settled until questions of ownership and entitlement break the surface. Kate and Jack represent a version of cultural authority that assumes experience equalslegitimacy, while Phoebe, as a writer, operates in an economy where exposure is currency and boundaries are negotiable. The tension between them is not framed as a misunderstanding but as a collision, with neither side being innocent.

What works particularly well is how the novel treats storytelling as a form of extraction. The issue is not simply who told whose story, but who believes they are entitled to tell it at all. Lanchester avoids caricature by giving each perspective enough interior logic to feel plausible, even when the characters behave badly. The novel moves quickly, but it is not lightweight.

This is a smart, entertaining novel that understands contemporary culture as a site of constant negotiation. It is less interested in reconciliation than in exposing how easily intimacy can be weaponized once it becomes content.

#LookWhatYouMadeMeDo #JohnLanchester #WWNorton