First You Try Everything

May 12, 2013 Lori Anaple rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013, affair-books

I went to see this movie once called The Breakup. It starred Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston and looked to be really quirky and funny. It was not. It was appropriately named since I was held hostage in a movie theatre watching a painful breakup. This book, too looked quirky and funny yet heartwarming. But, sadly, it suffered from The Breakup syndrome. At least the movie had so e extremely funny portions. There was nothing funny in this book. It was really heart wrenching. Perhaps because I hav...more I went to see this movie once called The Breakup. It starred Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston and looked to be really quirky and funny. It was not. It was appropriately named since I was held hostage in a movie theatre watching a painful breakup. This book, too looked quirky and funny yet heartwarming. But, sadly, it suffered from The Breakup syndrome. At least the movie had so e extremely funny portions. There was nothing funny in this book. It was really heart wrenching. Perhaps because I have been married for 15 years? Maybe. Maybe it struck a cord.

Honestly though, Evvie is such a flighty nutcase I felt absolutely noting but contempt for her. Ben didn't fair much higher in my esteem since he started a relationship with Lauren prior to his leaving his marriage. We learn their courtship through each others perspectives. The really sad thing that my mind got stuck on was how people in a marriage change, and if you don't take the time to communicate with your mate, a rift is sure to develop. Yes, Ben went and got a "suit" job and Evvie threw herself into animal rights campaigns. But I don't think she was very good at it. We got a bit of a clue from a Ben chalter and the woman cannot even write a letter. I also found Bens whining about how hard it was for him to be grating. He made his bed, shut up about it.

And then the nutball made this drastic move which does. To exist in real life. Perhaps this was meant to be quirky, but it was pathetic. This woman was pathetic. Yes, I am a stay at home mom. I don't have much of a life outside running my kids and my house, but I do have friends and I do have activities that I am involved in. My husband works a very exhaustive schedule, but we make time to talk and we make time to be together. These people just seemed to exist together and Ben kept bottling his emotions and ignoring her everytime she asked him what was wrong. Instead he found an outlet in Lauren. Shame on him. And he did go to therapy, but it seemed like the therapist was talking him out of staying in s marriage. Shame on that therapist.

The one thing that gives this book three stars is the writing. I may not have liked the characters or their decisions, but this lady can turn a phrase. Her language gives it the high marks, not the story. For me at least that is.(less)

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Feb 08, 2013 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013, contemporary-fiction

First You Try Everything indeed. After reading fabulous reviews when this first came out, I finally moved it up out of my “Amazon saved for later” cart into “purchase.” Basic premise: a mid-40s couple is unhappy in their marriage. Not exactly the most earth-shattering of plotlines. This reminded me in tone of several books I’ve read recently including The Middlesteins and Seating Arrangements. I think it’s the depressed middle aged themes and the strong writing. You don’t much care about the peo...more

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Jul 27, 2012 marg rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a pleasant surprise. Once more I am victim to the skinny shelf of newish books in my ghetto library - I grabbed this with no preconceived notion and figured it might be horrible; it was actually - while by no means outstanding and by many means rather strange - a decent read with some real nice gems in there.
As one GR reader put it, I too am curious/gossipy about relationships - I don't know, somehow the interactions and dynamics of other people have always fascinated me, and all the mo...more

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May 25, 2012 McGuffy Morris rated it 4 of 5 stars

By Jane McCafferty

Growing, aging, and evolving, is inevitable. It is life. It is meant to be. Ideally, a couple remains connected and does this together. That is the vow of marriage. Commitment is the root of the vow. It takes equal commitment from both people, and it must be sincere, from the heart.

Evvie and Ben have been together since college. Common childhoods and interests brought them together, sealing their bond.

As years pass and life happens, differences form. Ben becomes involved in the...more

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Apr 28, 2012 Rola rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book so, so much. Essentially its a story of how love ends and how messy it can become when one takes a little longer to accept the death of a marriage. Desperately sad when there are no bad guys or no 'he done me wrong' tales to tell in order to blame one person, just two people who needed each other once and then one changed and the other one doesn't. Very revelatory moments about the illusion of falling in love, that it really is a kind of 'altered state' that doesn't allow for t...more

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Jan 17, 2012 Leeswammes rated it 4 of 5 stars

Evvie and Ben are a middle aged couple that have drifted apart. They don’t have children and live quite separate lives. Separate enough for Ben to start an affair with Lauren, a single mother.

Not much later, he moves out and Evvie is left on her own. She doesn’t know Ben has found someone else and expects them to get back together again. She phones and visits him much more often than he is happy with.

She is desperate get back together and eventually, she finds a drastic way to get Ben back again...more

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Jan 11, 2012 Nancy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Prize-winning author Jane McCafferty delivers a wry, engrossing, and provocative tale of the radical chances an anguished woman will take to try to save her crumbling marriage. As love’s loss and the death of dreams push Evie to the edge of obsession and to a spectacularly outlandish scheme, one which will have unexpected consequences for all involved. Following her acclaimed debut novel One Heart, which Elizabeth Strout, author of Amy and Isabelle, calls "a lovely book, full of surprises, with...more Prize-winning author Jane McCafferty delivers a wry, engrossing, and provocative tale of the radical chances an anguished woman will take to try to save her crumbling marriage. As love’s loss and the death of dreams push Evie to the edge of obsession and to a spectacularly outlandish scheme, one which will have unexpected consequences for all involved. Following her acclaimed debut novel One Heart, which Elizabeth Strout, author of Amy and Isabelle, calls "a lovely book, full of surprises, with characters that stay in your heart long after the book has been put down," McCafferty’s First You Try Everything is a piercing, surprising, and sympathetic look at the emotional fallout of divorce and the unforeseeable changing tides of love.

My take: I don't even know how to describe this book. The story is told from two different viewpoints. Actually, three because Apu gets a small part, as well. Ben and Evvie have been married for 16 years. Their history is quietly revealed but, essentially, Evvie is a quirky character very much in touch with her Freudian Id. She is endearing and at times frustrating. Yet she is very easy to relate to. She is insecure and feels her husband slipping away. She buries herself in animal rights activism while fighting the societal norms.

Ben was drawn to Evvie for her free spirit and easy way of relating to anybody. She listens to Ben and allows him his feelings. Together they were street vendors in order to stay free from the constraints of middle class. Eventually he found a middle class job and started wearing a suit. His eyes wander and he meets another woman who is completely different from his wife. He enjoys the conversation, the organized way of her life and emotions and allows himself to wander down that path.

The real meat of the story is the exploration by both parties of their emotional journey. Ben feels guilty and torn. He struggles with systematically painting his years with Evvie using the emotions of today then remembering how happy he felt in a certain situation with her. He also feels protective of Evvie from his new lover because he understands Evvie so well. At the same time, he doesn't want Evvie to know about the other woman in order to protect the current relationship, believing it has nothing to do with his cheating on his wife. He was unhappy before. His rationalizations are fascinating, infuriating, and sad. He makes valid points and the reader feels empathy for him to some degree.

Evvie, not knowing what unraveled the marriage, continues being her quirky self. Inside her head we see her wrestling with her feelings, her past, and possible reasons for the marriage problems. Again, the reader empathizes as the author articulates the confusion and the sudden interpretations from past events, coloring the previous 16 years. It is heart breaking and turns into a train wreck where I simply could not look away. Evvie's quirkiness, endearing at first, begins to slowly spiral into areas of insanity. It progresses logically (insanity and logically can be used in the same sentence) and it is evident why she desperately will do anything to get Ben to return to her.

There is an ultimate conflict and it is just the train wreck reaching maximum velocity and the situation gets out of control. Maybe a little on the ridiculous side and I was left wondering what happened to the other players but ultimately the real conflict was whether Evvie's pure soul could live with her manipulations. I wasn't crazy about the ultimate conflict or resolution. I found the story, itself, to be compelling. The author artistically articulates the feelings and thought processes of both parties of a middle-aged marriage. (less)

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Feb 07, 2012 Jill rated it 4 of 5 stars

First You Try Everything reminds me of opening a Wal-Mart package and finding a Tiffany bracelet inside. It’s unexpected and it shines.

I expected something else: a quirky book about a woman who is driven over the edge by a cheating husband and an impending divorce. Instead, this book is about two good people who are no longer good together and it authentically mines the emotions that ensue from that decision

Evvie is an emotionally fragile woman, the victim of a wounded childhood, who marries a m...more First You Try Everything reminds me of opening a Wal-Mart package and finding a Tiffany bracelet inside. It’s unexpected and it shines.

I expected something else: a quirky book about a woman who is driven over the edge by a cheating husband and an impending divorce. Instead, this book is about two good people who are no longer good together and it authentically mines the emotions that ensue from that decision

Evvie is an emotionally fragile woman, the victim of a wounded childhood, who marries a man named Ben, who is similarly mining his childhood issues. Together, they form a life that is based on passionate idealism. But eventually, Ben grows up; he takes a “real job” and begins to stake out a different kind of destiny. He is convinced he has to “go it alone.”

Since Ben was Evvie’s “everything”, she is unable to cope with his decision. As one of Evvie’s friends says, “It affects everyone. I mean, how are you supposed to have a community?” In a particularly poignant passage, Evvie reflects, “Ben had been her skin. Ben had understood that the house of childhood cast a spell, gave her a form of multiple personality disorder, rendered her all the ages she had ever been inside of its wall. Without him, how was she to navigate the collision of selves?”

The insights that Jane McCafferty renders are stunning in their authenticity. Evvie and Ben are flawed but sympathetic people, who must cope with the fall-out of leaving someone who has salvaged them from childhood dysfunction and who holds the key to their past and present lives. Ben wonders, “This girl in her twenties, the person she’d been – did she survive inside of the woman who’d broken into his place and said his heart was black ice?” As readers, we understand that these two are not meant to be together at this juncture in life but we wish they could find a way, all the same. That’s a difficult feat for an author to pull off.

I am very close to giving this book five stars because I loved most of it. However, Jane McCafferty doesn’t seem to trust in her own instincts. Evvie eventually gambles on an off-the-wall scheme to get Ben back once and for all and the first note of inauthenticity appears. One of the minor characters, Ranjeev – the only one who is awarded his own chapter other than the two of them – also doesn’t seem fleshed out enough. Don’t let these minor flaws stop you. This is a wonderful book and deserves a strong readership.

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Apr 19, 2012 Amanda Byrne rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is like that parasite that you know is bad for you but you're reluctant to get rid of (you know, the tape worm that will eventually destroy you but in the mean time is making you lose all the weight you've been trying to get rid of?).

I know, really weird analogy.

But it's so true. This book gets all up in your grillz with its unflinching look at love and relationships and how ending a marriage is one of the most difficult things you could ever do. It has this insane ability to mess wit...more

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Apr 10, 2012 Sara rated it 2 of 5 stars

While I found the story and writing interesting enough, and I wanted to know how things worked out, I did not really like this book. I'm not sure if the author meant for Evvie to be a sympathetic character, but I found her to be silly, self-involved and insensitive. Even her love for animals and tireless efforts to campaign for their rights came off as selfish indulgence. I understood why Ben had had enough of her and I felt no sympathy for her, and her attempts to "get him back" were cringe ind...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Anne rated it 4 of 5 stars

First You Try Everything is about the unraveling of a marriage and what a wife is willing to do to bring her husband back to her. Evvie loves Ben and feels that she cannot function without him, when he tells her he wants a divorce her whole world falls apart. While reading the book we watch Evvie become more and more unstable until she does something drastic and dangerous to keep Ben from leaving her. The book is told from both Evvie's and Ben's point of view and we get a close up, personal look...more First You Try Everything is about the unraveling of a marriage and what a wife is willing to do to bring her husband back to her. Evvie loves Ben and feels that she cannot function without him, when he tells her he wants a divorce her whole world falls apart. While reading the book we watch Evvie become more and more unstable until she does something drastic and dangerous to keep Ben from leaving her. The book is told from both Evvie's and Ben's point of view and we get a close up, personal look at the confusion and pain that they both feel as they go through the process of living apart.

What struck the most about this book was the amount of time and detail that McCafferty uses to describe the two main characters. I really felt like I knew Evvie and Ben, I didn't particularly like either of them, but they felt like real people going through a difficult time and I felt for both of them. Watching Evvie slowly lose her sense of reality and Ben feeling hopeless and confused about it was hard to read at times. It was a rare book for me in that I did not want to see them get back together, they did not seem right for each other any more. While reading the book I just kept hoping for Evvie to find some happiness for herself without Ben.

I was really impressed with how McCafferty took so much time in showing Ben's difficulties with the divorce. Even though he is the one that left that did not mean that he was able to shut Evvie out of his heart forever. Some of the most touching parts of the book are when Ben is struggling with his loss of Evvie while trying to make a new life Lauren, the woman he has fallen in love with.

Everything moves towards an ending where Evvie hits desperation and does something she will later regret. I was surprised with how things turned out in this scene and I personally found it unbelievable and felt it took away from the rest of the book. Aside from that part I thought the book was an excellent look at a marriage falling apart and the thoughts and emotions shown by Evvie and Ben really made for a compelling read.

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Jan 28, 2012 Jessica rated it 2 of 5 stars

I won this book from the Goodreads First Reads giveaway, it played no part in this review.

I tried, I really tried to enjoy this book. I overlooked some over-done, dry political stabs, I ignored the terrible characterization at the beginnng of the book, I even kept going when the writing took underwritten turns that made little sense and made my head spin. But, even with all the effort, this book was just not great. It was less than middle-of-the-road. I'm sure it would be a novel to offer comfo...more

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Dec 16, 2011 cheryl rated it 4 of 5 stars

Switching between characters, this novel tells the story of a marriage ending and shows one partner unravelling as the other begins to move forward. In early chapters, I related a bit to some of the descriptions of Evvie from Ben's viewpoint but she quickly began to deteriorate and a troubling underside to her became clear. She has trouble accepting Ben's departure and her sanity begins to crumble over time. Ben is concerned but is trying to walk the line between being supportive and giving her...more

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Jun 09, 2012 Esther rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: women

This book had immediate draw for me, as it is set in Pittsburgh, so I knew many of the details would be familiar. It's usually fun to watch a character walk down the same streets as you had once, maybe even with the same food in hand, although in this case, the more personal connection with narrator Evvie I began to feel, the more I wanted to back away.

McCafferty writes two strong narrators in distanced couple Evvie and Ben. I wanted to shake and comfort each of them at different times. They ar...more

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Feb 01, 2012 Brooke rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-books, tlc

When I was offered the opportunity to read First You Try Everything by Jane McCafferty, I immediately said yes based on one single fact – I loved the cover. Knowing that the book was about the dissolution of a marriage, the cover art on the book jacket is just genius. You can see it to the left, there – six rows of musical staves slowly unraveling. The coloration of the title’s font also changes – starting as a rosy pinkish red and ending as a deep maroon with a decidedly blood-like quality. If...more When I was offered the opportunity to read First You Try Everything by Jane McCafferty, I immediately said yes based on one single fact – I loved the cover. Knowing that the book was about the dissolution of a marriage, the cover art on the book jacket is just genius. You can see it to the left, there – six rows of musical staves slowly unraveling. The coloration of the title’s font also changes – starting as a rosy pinkish red and ending as a deep maroon with a decidedly blood-like quality. If the dust jacket told such a great story, surely the novel beyond wouldn’t disappoint. And yes, I will totally read a book based on its cover art – guilty as charged.

“She hardly slept at all for the next three days. Each day she felt a little more unhinged. In certain moments, she was like a tightrope walker, the one who never should’ve been in that business, the one who falls down and looks back up at the rope and thinks, No way. Never again. I’m staying right here for the rest of my life. And then climbs back up.”

Ben and Evvie met and fell in love during college – a time when they were bound and linked by their similarities. Now in their early forties, something has gone wrong. Ben confronts Evvie, tells her he’s leaving her, and moves out hoping to share custody of their dog as they were never able to have children. Stunned, Evvie stoically enters the denial stage of grief, begins plotting outlandish schemes to get Ben to come home, and completely loses her grip on reality. Meanwhile, Ben is doing his best to juggle his own grief and guilt over Evvie’s obvious slide into mental illness while beginning a new relationship with a woman who’s the absolute antithesis of his first wife. And oh, the shenanigans that follow!

First and foremost, First You Try Everything was a complete win for me, but my reading was framed and influenced by something currently taking place in my personal life. My parents are going through a not-so-pretty divorce after 37 years of marriage and my mom is devastated in a major way. So what this means is that Evvie’s character, no matter how crazy she seems or the outrageous things she does that many readers won’t find realistic, is spot on. I love how McCafferty shows how Evvie’s passions become obsessions because she’s doing everything in her power to make sense out of her situation and gain some sort of control over these larger world problems since she’s lost any control she ever tenuously had over her own life. When everything you’ve ever known is ripped out from underneath you, when the co-dependent relationship you’ve defined yourself with has suddenly vanished, your sanity won’t be far behind.

That being said, Evvie isn’t entirely innocent and Ben isn’t really the villain. The story switches every chapter between their viewpoints which serves the novel well. Just when you think Ben is irredeemable, you realize how deeply he’s loved Evvie to the point of ignoring his own happiness – and just when you’re ready to cart Evvie off to the loony bin, she gives you a nugget of truth and clarity that stops you dead while you spend several minutes re-reading her observation. McCafferty’s ability to dig inside the psychological foundations of marriage, human connection, and how easy it is to lose ourselves in other people is simply amazing.

“For these visits home, Ben had been her skin. Ben had understood that the house of childhood cast a spell, gave her a form of multiple personality disorder, rendered her all the ages she had ever been inside of its walls. Without him, how was she to navigate the collision of selves? He’d seemed to love those selves, had lifted photographs out of an album and taken them for his own possessions…Now it seemed to her he’d rejected not just the self she was now, but all those other people too. The ones whose ghosts still haunted the old house.”

Despite the rather dour atmosphere I’ve described above, First You Try Everything is rich with a dry, witty, dark humor that keeps the story from drowning in its own bleakness. And while the novel doesn’t end with everything all peachy keen and promises of happily ever after, Evvie and Ben have both begun their journey from rock bottom with nothing but possibilities and hope for the future – with or without each other (you’ll just have to read to discover which!).

So, if you enjoyed Stewart O’Nan’s, The Odds, or the movie, Blue Valentine, I think you’ll find something to enjoy here. Also, this novel seems tailor made for book groups and will look lovely on your shelves!(less)

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Dec 31, 2011 Denise rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone

Recommended to Denise by: Goodreads

Shelves: first-read, drama, read-in-2011

I received this novel from a Goodreads giveaway, that in no way affects the content of my review.

This novel is about a couple, Ben and Evvie, who had been together for 16 years when Ben decided that he no longer wants to be with Evvie. He sees Evvie as a changed person, one that he can no longer live with. Evvie still wants to be with Ben and becomes desperate to get him back. Evvie's plans to get Ben back spiral them both into a dangerous situation.

From the start of this novel I thought that th...more

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Sep 17, 2012 Will Byrnes rated it 4 of 5 stars

In the film, A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson’s character, Colonel Nathan Jessup, barks at the courtroom, “You can’t handle the truth.” If you can’t handle some truth about marriage, then First You Try Everything is not the book for you.

Evvie Muldoone is a happy-go-lucky sort, a free spirit, a person with a huge heart, but maybe not the best focus. She experiences great pain and great love, is eager to defend our feathered friends from the horrors of foi gras, and meat animals from their factory h...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Bonnie Brody rated it 4 of 5 stars

First You Try Everything: A Novel is a well-written novel that took me by surprise at how good it was. It is an insightful look into the heart-breaking devastation of lost love from the viewpoint of the two protagonists, Evvie and Ben.

Evvie and Ben have been together for almost 17 years when Ben decides to leave her. It virtually destroys Evvie's already fragile psyche. Evvie is a woman of extremes, highs and lows, introversion and extroversion, independence and dependency. However, she is total...more First You Try Everything: A Novel is a well-written novel that took me by surprise at how good it was. It is an insightful look into the heart-breaking devastation of lost love from the viewpoint of the two protagonists, Evvie and Ben.

Evvie and Ben have been together for almost 17 years when Ben decides to leave her. It virtually destroys Evvie's already fragile psyche. Evvie is a woman of extremes, highs and lows, introversion and extroversion, independence and dependency. However, she is totally enmeshed with Ben and can not see her life going on without him. Ben, on the other hand, has grown apart from Evvie. Where once they were happy to run a food cart, Ben now has a good job that requires a suit and tie. He may even be promoted at work. Evvie is an animal rights activist, a self-defined documentarian, an advocate for the homeless, and a supporter of various other 'causes'. However, "she was still not a follow-through person, but rather one of those often befuddled souls who seem paralyzed by the exorbitant weight of their own good intentions". "Sometimes the past could rise up so vividly in Evvie, the present would disappear. She was affected enough by the sweep of memory that she'd been prone to things like car accidents (three in one year), and wearing two different shoes...or talking to herself in public (regularly, which was OK, since everyone just imagined she was talking on one of those headset phones.) But still, she knew she wasn't."

Once deeply in love, sharing everything, Ben now finds himself annoyed by the very things about Evvie that he once treasured. And, he has also met someone else who has sparked his interest. Lauren represents everything that is polar opposite to Evvie - she is steady and stable, having boundaries so that Ben has room to try to find out who he is himself. With Evvie, everything had to be shared - every thought, every event that occurred during the day, every lifetime experience.

Once Ben leaves, Evvie becomes unglued and obsessed with getting him back. Her behavior is very unstable and she is in dire need of psychiatric help. People allude to this with her but no one directs her to take that step. She begins to unravel and her behaviors become more and more bizarre and extreme.

I found this book very readable and loved parts of it. What prevents me from giving it a '5' is that I was unable to suspend belief about the initiation of Evvie's plan to get Ben back. It just seemed too improbable. I loved the writing and the story hooked me from the beginning. I felt that I got to know Ben and Evvie very well and that Ms. McCafferty has a superb ability to draw depth and specificity in her characterizations of people. It is definitely a book I would recommend to others and I have just ordered two of the author's other books.
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Feb 23, 2012 Shoshanah rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book wasn't quite what I was expecting. Although to be honest, looking back, I'm not quite sure what I expected. It opens with Evvie and Ben and you start to see their marriage fall about. It makes you consider the question, just how far would you go for love, and at what point you'd stop. It's definitely a story that makes you think, and in some ways it's similar to an Emily Giffin book.

The book does have two distinct parts to it. So much happens in the second part that looking back, it's...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Angela Risner rated it 1 of 5 stars

I have read some very fine fiction on marriages falling apart, written so that you can identify with the players and feel as though you know them. This is not one of those books.

Evvie and Ben are a couple who started out on the same page. However, Ben has turned the page, while Evvie wants to stay in the same world that they knew when they were young.

A marriage falling apart is a horrible thing. And people never know what they will do until they're in that situation. However, Evvie's actions in...more

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Jan 10, 2012 Marilyn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: not-sorted

I started reading this book and found I could not put it down until I finished the book. It was impossible to for me to quit reading until I found out what happened to the main characters. Any book which keeps my interest late into the night is extraordinary.

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Feb 09, 2012 Gwendolyn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Jane McCafferty’s novel, First You Try Everything, charts the course of a dissolving marriage from the alternating perspectives of husband (Ben) and wife (Evvie). When young, Ben and Evvie were inseparable, sharing a love of music and freedom from career constraints. Over time, Ben has shed the alternative lifestyle of his youth and settled down in a stable, if mundane career. Fed up with Evvie’s antics, Ben decides to leave his eccentric and emotionally unstable wife, setting off a series of he...more

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Jun 21, 2012 Beth Gordon rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a unique book about the dissolution of a marriage. Unlike other books or even real life that has an obvious villain to blame, this book doesn't have that. One of the people in the marriage has changed, and the other hasn't. Despite Ben falling out of love for Evvie, you can tell he still cares for her and will always have a soft spot in his heart for her.

The Evvie character has a lot of problems, stemming from childhood and a few personality quirks thrown in. While not written overly sy...more

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Jul 02, 2012 Heather rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: light-reading

While I found the story and writing interesting enough, and I wanted to know more, I did not really like this book. I'm not sure if the author meant for Evvie to be a sympathetic character, but I found her to be silly, annoying and insensitive. Even her passions seems so self-indulgence. I understood why Ben had had enough of her and I felt no sympathy for her, and her attempts to "get him back" were cringe inducing. The religious notes were somewhat perplexing in addition to the mystical elemen...more

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Oct 06, 2012 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars

I stayed up late reading this last night, hungry to find out what happens in the end--and then I couldn't sleep, thinking about how perfect it is.

This isn't another book about a divorce. It's told with wit and a rare ability to present two sides of a story so effectively that you find yourself rooting for both people.

McCafferty tells the story of a husband and wife, but she laces in childhood, courtship, marriage and career so deftly that you suddenly understand who each is to the bone, and wh...more

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Jun 12, 2012 Colleen rated it 2 of 5 stars

For some reason this title caught my attention at the library. I had a hard time putting it down. Characters were developed really well, and the raw emotions were described in such detail that I could really feel what the characters felt. My heart ached. I cried. I laughed some. The main reason I am rating it low is that I found it extremely depressing and I wasn't satisfied with the ending. Definitely not feel-good pleasure reading material. I didn't think that was what I was looking for when I...more

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Feb 18, 2012 Kristin (Kritters Ramblings) rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: kritter-reviewed-2012

There are books that are about sad or deep topics that make you think, but don't bring the mood down and then there are books that just quite bring the mood to the pits. This one is of the latter group. What a debbie downer that left me hoping that no one would compare me with Evvie and her crazy antics to get her estranged husband back.

Evvie went to the ends of the earth to try to repair her marriage that was holding on by a string until the string broke. She went above and beyond, hence the t...more

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Feb 04, 2012 Shannon rated it 4 of 5 stars

I love books set in PIttsburgh and McCafferty does a wonderful job of showing off the neighborhoods of our city. Told from alternating perspectives, this tale of love lost and the struggle to let go, is the type of sad that feels so far away yet so close at the same time. Evie and Ben. The married couple facing the end of their relationship. And though she is hard to relate to, completely on edge...you'll find compassion in Ben's reactions. An absolute must read if you love to see stories unfold...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Sarah Cypher rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

The novel's two POV protagonists, Evvie and Ben, find themselves on the other side of true love: in their early forties, each puzzled by the person their spouse has become. When Ben leaves Evvie for a more emotionally stable woman, Evvie loses her last kite string to earth and begins to look for ways to bring Ben back to her. What results is a potentially violent ploy that is equal parts darkness and innocence.

First You Try Everything is not misty-edged, upmarket women's fiction. It's raw, unpre...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Alice rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: chickbook, humor, relationships, unusual

I can be a little nosy when it comes to relationships (simply because the structure of them can be so fascinating). Thus, I couldn't really bring myself to put this book down. In some ways, maybe my affinity to this book is in that I see a little of myself in every character. It is a crazy modern-day anti-love story that I would say is a little bit fantastical if I didn't happen to know people for whom this may not be out of the realm of possibility!

The story is of Evvie and Ben, whose relations...more

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First You Try Everything: A Novel

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