The Best of Everything

Feb 10, 2013 Kinga rated it 4 of 5 stars

You start reading this book and you think: oh, how great it must’ve been to live in the 50s in New York. The glamour, the cocktail hour, the restaurants, the handsome men who drank scotch on the rocks. The glory days when the bosses sexually harassed their female employees because that’s what you did, the times when marriage was the only serious achievement any woman could or should aspire to, the times when every man felt he could patronise any woman… Ok, so maybe it wasn’t so great after all,...more You start reading this book and you think: oh, how great it must’ve been to live in the 50s in New York. The glamour, the cocktail hour, the restaurants, the handsome men who drank scotch on the rocks. The glory days when the bosses sexually harassed their female employees because that’s what you did, the times when marriage was the only serious achievement any woman could or should aspire to, the times when every man felt he could patronise any woman… Ok, so maybe it wasn’t so great after all, unless of course you were a white man, ideally a well off one. Then the world was your oyster.

I couldn’t quite decide whether this was chick lit or not. It has been described as the ‘original Sex and the City’, ‘vintage chick lit’, etc. but is it really? It was written back when those labels didn’t exist yet; therefore the authors didn’t have to stick to any conventions as those conventions weren’t established. Every now and then the book would swerve into a typical romance territory and then suddenly surprise you with some excellent psychological insight. It should also be mentioned that it is shockingly (given it was published in 1958) sexually explicit.

As it is, I think it is best described as a sociological document of those times. It shows an array of problems and situations a woman could face back then and the solutions that were on offer at the time. ‘The Best of Everything’ tells a story of four young women who are trying to make a living in New York. There is a big difference in quality between those four plotlines. The stories of Gregg, April and Barbara are interesting enough but often they feel oversimplified and they are full of clichés and stereotypes. The story of Caroline, however, is in an entirely different league and it would probably be fair to assume that’s the most autobiographical of the characters. If all the supporting plotlines were cut out and we were only left with a maybe 200 page long Caroline story, the book would of course lose as a sociological document but would gain so much literarily. It could easily be mentioned in the same breath as Bell Jar.

I shouldn’t be too hard on the other girls, even when they came across as unbelievably naïve and emotionally simple. I had to remind myself that they were in their very early twenties and when I look back and read my diaries from when I was twenty one, I have to admit I was just as silly, dramatic and uncomplicated.

This book is a proof of the power of ‘Mad Men’. It was long out of print until one day Don Draper could be seen in one of the episodes reading it in his PJ’s. That alone was enough for Penguin to reissue it in their Modern Classics section. Being the nerd that I am, I actually read this book first. I looked at the blurb saying ‘as seen on Mad Men’ and wasn’t sure if I really want to try it. I was just recovering from watching eight seasons of House and was enjoying being TV-free. Eventually I succumbed. And ladies, let me tell you, Don Draper does put the sexy in sexism.(less)

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Aug 26, 2007 Pdxstacey rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Depressed and glamorous people

You know that feeling when you get a book and after the first few pages you realize it's going to be great? That's this book. I could not put it down and finished it in less than 24 hours.

I am shocked this was written in the 50's. I am also annoyed I did not read this book when I lived in NY. I woke up early on a sunday (around 6am) and finished it.

This is chick lit before there was chick lit. Better than Valley of the Dolls, better than Candace Bushnell (although I don't like her stuff that m...more

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Nov 06, 2011 Iris rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels

Try to resist a book that opens with a breathy evocation of Monday morning, 9 o'clock, when thousands of girls emerge from Grand Central Station and subway exits, some in kidskin gloves and pomaded locks, some in torn dirty white gloves and a kerchief hiding their pincurls, all walking towards the skyscrapers where they fill steno pools.

The tension in this scene, ostensibly, lies between professional ambition and marital aspiration: "The Best of Everything" was published in 1958, and Jaffe's unm...more

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Jun 16, 2011 Rachel rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

When The Best of Everything was published in 1958, the cover price was 50 cents, and if it still sold for that today it would be way overpriced. I can't remember the last time I hated a book this much. I bear so much hostility for this book that I am practically giddy.

This is the story of four women who work for Fabian Publishing in New York in the early '50s. Ostensibly, Caroline is the smart ambitious one who wants to be an editor, April is the naive country girl who comes to the big city and...more When The Best of Everything was published in 1958, the cover price was 50 cents, and if it still sold for that today it would be way overpriced. I can't remember the last time I hated a book this much. I bear so much hostility for this book that I am practically giddy.

This is the story of four women who work for Fabian Publishing in New York in the early '50s. Ostensibly, Caroline is the smart ambitious one who wants to be an editor, April is the naive country girl who comes to the big city and transforms herself into a sophisticated beauty, and Gregg is the aspiring actress who rooms with Caroline. In actuality, they are all pretty much the same person with one goal in mind and that is force a man who clearly has no use for them to marry them immediately so that they can stop working. Caroline pines for Eddie, to whom she was engaged until he sent her a letter from France telling her he married someone else. April is in love with Dexter, whose parents apparently named him in the mistaken belief that he was a cat, and continues to be in love with him even though he insisted that she get an abortion (but took the sting out of it by saying, "we can get married in the spring") and then broke up with her by asking her opinion on which girl he should take with him on vacation. Gregg is in love with Broadway producer David Wilder Savage, and she shows her love by sitting outside his apartment with her ear pressed up against the exterior wall listening to him have sex with other women and then going through his garbage when the maid puts it out in the hall.

It's all pretty boring and repetitive. The women are cretins and the men are creeps. Virtually every conversation that takes place is the women trying to convince the men to marry them, or the women talking to each other about what tactics they can use to convince the men to marry them. Occasionally, one of the girls goes out with someone who likes her back (albeit temporarily) and then they have such sparkling conversations as,

"Oh, I love you!"

"I love you too!"

"I love you so much!"

"I love you so much too!"

It was scintillating.

And despite going into this knowing that a pop novel of the late '50s might in some ways be offensive to contemporary sensibilities, this book was really beyond the pale. It's overtly homophobic, with numerous references to "fairies," "fa--ots," and "men who might as well be women," and vaguely anti-Semitic (Caroline and Gregg refer to a character whose surname is Landis as "Bermuda Schwartz"). I was feeling disappointed that it didn't seem to be racist as well, but then late in the book Caroline wonders if, when she goes to a famous actor's hotel room, the door will be answered by a "sinister Oriental houseboy," and she also can't remember whether she took her dirty clothes down to the "Chinaman" who runs the laundry. Oh, Rona Jaffe, I'm so sorry I doubted you!

To summarize: don't read this book.(less)

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Dec 02, 2007 Anne rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: New Yorkers, women in the publishing industry, Carrie Bradshaw

In the preface to the new edition of this 1958 bestseller, author Rona Jaffe tells us that The Best of Everything is now "a sociological document," and it is certainly that: a pre-feminist era look at career girls (typists, editors, and actresses) in New York. I found myself fascinated by just how much -- and how little -- has changed for women as they search for "success" (friendship, work, love, marriage) in the city. Her portrayal of the book publishing industry also struck a chord. Several o...more In the preface to the new edition of this 1958 bestseller, author Rona Jaffe tells us that The Best of Everything is now "a sociological document," and it is certainly that: a pre-feminist era look at career girls (typists, editors, and actresses) in New York. I found myself fascinated by just how much -- and how little -- has changed for women as they search for "success" (friendship, work, love, marriage) in the city. Her portrayal of the book publishing industry also struck a chord. Several of the girls are editors or typists for Fabian, a fictional mass-market paperback house, where they must face down ambitious Devil Wears Prada types, leering married executives, and drunk name-dropping editors...as well as the enduring horrors of an office Christmas party.

Overall, the book is a delight to read. Jaffe's prose exudes wit and enthusiasm: she was only 26 when she was commissioned to write this book, and it's funny/disturbing how her "voice of experience" sounds like today's single woman in her late 30s-early 40s (a la Carrie Bradshaw). 26 is the old 40. You can tell that Jaffe loves her characters and thinks of them as friends she once knew; while she toys with stereotypes (sometimes, unfortunately, in that after-school special/cautionary tale way), she usually rises above them.

Because of when this was published, I was impressed by the issues Jaffe wrote about, and how few of them felt tacked on. Unmarried women actually have sex and are not damned to hell! Some women never get married at all and have successful careers! "Good" people get abortions and divorces every day! Getting married does not ensure life-long happiness!

People have (and have always had) all kinds of relationships, and we often love each other in ways that we don't have words for. These characters explore quite a range of feelings: worship, mentorship, platonic friendship, stalkership, partnership, passion, ambivalence. Sadly, I found the book's ending -- or where nearly every character ends up -- rather annoying, overly dramatic, and/or silly. But I'm grateful to have spent a few wonderful subway rides getting to know Caroline, April, Gregg, Barbara, and Mary Agnes. I'm even more grateful that it's not 1958.(less)

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Feb 24, 2009 Lisa rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book was written in 1958, so it is extremely dated. But I like Rona Jaffe, so I thought I'd give it a try. The story is of a group of young women who come to New York because they want exciting lives. They meet at a publishing house, and it talks about what turn their lives take. What I found interesting was the portrayal of blatant sexual harassment on the job. I remember the 1980s and it was bad, but not like this. In the 1950s, men thought any woman in the office was fair game, and she h...more

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Apr 19, 2013 Ivy Read rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

On plonge avec délice dès les premières pages dans une société quoiqu’un peu désuète, non sans charme. Nous sommes en 1952, en plein New York, avec plusieurs jeunes femmes dont nous découvrons les rêves, les espoirs et les déboires, au fil des chapitres. Le roman leur prête sa voix alternativement afin de nous dévoiler leurs histoires. Elles travaillent toutes au sein d’une grande maison d’édition, en tant que dactylos – du moins au début. La question qui s’élève tout au long de ce roman est bi...more

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Mar 27, 2013 Janet Lynch rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: the-fifties

I chose to read this novel because my Book-a-Day calendar suggested it and I’m researching the fifties for the novel I’m writing. This book reads like a work by Jacqueline Susann, although the writing is better. I was interested in the character Caroline Bender and her career at a New York publishing house, being nostalgic for a time when authors mattered to society. I was then disappointed to find in the next chapter, the story of another young career girl. There turns out to be four or five in...more I chose to read this novel because my Book-a-Day calendar suggested it and I’m researching the fifties for the novel I’m writing. This book reads like a work by Jacqueline Susann, although the writing is better. I was interested in the character Caroline Bender and her career at a New York publishing house, being nostalgic for a time when authors mattered to society. I was then disappointed to find in the next chapter, the story of another young career girl. There turns out to be four or five in all. These young career women characters seem interchangeable, except that they have different circumstances, and I was often confused about which one I was reading about.
The stuff of this novel is the same as those of Jane Austen: how can a poor girl find a decent husband? The girls in this novel don’t have much luck. One can’t get married because she falls in love with a married man; another can’t get married because she’s in love with a society boy she isn’t good enough for; another can’t get married because she’s in love with a producer who is not the marrying kind; and another can’t get married because she doesn’t love the boy who loves her. Lives in the fifties seemed to be “ruined” so easily and early on. One girl has no hope for happiness because a short marriage left her with an infant daughter and men wouldn’t be interested in her because men want their own children. One man of the ripe old age of 38 can’t leave his boring job because it’s “too late” to start over at something he enjoys with a different company. One girl is talked in an (illegal!) abortion because her boyfriend says people would count the months between their wedding and the birth of the baby and therefore they would suffer the scandal of premarital sex.
I used to wonder why women of the era were so subservient and this novel drives home the point that money is power and women simply don’t have enough. The women in this novel are paid so poorly that they can’t afford food, clothes, and rent, and must accept dinners from men who then expect sexual favors just to keep from starving. They have to let old lechers drool over them at office parties out of fear of losing their jobs. Sexual harassment had not yet entered our American vocabulary at this time. Even when a woman is promoted she must beg for a raise from a boss that says “the honor” of more responsibility and more work should be satisfying enough.
I found what I was looking for in this novel: how women of this era survived, even though it is not artistically rendered. I had to do a lot of skimming to get through it. I’m suspect of a novel that includes the dialogue of “I love you” over fifty times. When it appears a dozen times in one scene it seems a tad insincere. Probably this novel rose to bestseller status because of the numerous sex scenes tastefully done, in a time when sex in novels wasn’t much allowed.
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Jun 03, 2012 Sophie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Quando Rona Jeffe scrisse questo romanzo era poco più grande delle protagoniste del suo libro e pressapoco vissuto le loro esperienze, almeno in campo lavorativo. Chi poteva, quindi, descrivere meglio di lei la situazione delle ragazze Newyorchesi degli anni Cinquanta?
L'autrice ebbe l'idea del titolo grazie ad una frase letta negli annunci lavorativi del New York Times: You deserve the best of everythink, ti meriti il meglio di ogni cosa.

La prima edizione del libro venne pubblicata in America n...more Quando Rona Jeffe scrisse questo romanzo era poco più grande delle protagoniste del suo libro e pressapoco vissuto le loro esperienze, almeno in campo lavorativo. Chi poteva, quindi, descrivere meglio di lei la situazione delle ragazze Newyorchesi degli anni Cinquanta?
L'autrice ebbe l'idea del titolo grazie ad una frase letta negli annunci lavorativi del New York Times: You deserve the best of everythink, ti meriti il meglio di ogni cosa.

La prima edizione del libro venne pubblicata in America nel 1958 ed ebbe subito un grandissimo successo in quanto l'autrice tratta argomenti che all'epoca venivano considerati tabù: dalla verginità al sesso prematrimoniale, dall'aborto alle avance sul posto di lavoro. Per certi versi questo romanzo è attualissimo anche se scritto cinquanta anni fa.

L'autrice mescola alcuni elementi tipici del romanzo rosa per crearne di nuovi: ragazze single alla ricerca di un impiego in nuova città, minuscoli e costosi appartamenti da dividere con un'inquilina, le chiacchiere con le amiche nel cuore delle notte, il sesso, la verginità, l'aborto, le prime esperienze di mobbing, la ricerca del principe azzurro e il miraggio del matrimonio. Anticipatrice di alcuni dei temi che poi verranno ripresi da serie come Sex in the City o Desperate Housewife la stessa autrice ha definito il suo romanzo come un "Sex in the city senza vibratori".

Le protagoniste del romanzo sono cinque ragazze "tipo" della New York degli anni Cinquanta: l'attrice in erba Gregg Adams il cui spirito libero nasconde in realtà la ricerca ossessiva e paranoica di un marito, April Morrison pronta a trasformarsi nella donna ideale di ogni uomo, Barbara Lemont giovane madre single ormai rassegnatasi a vivere una vita senza un compagno al proprio fianco, Mary Agnes che ha fatto della preparazione del suo matrimonio la propria ragione di vita e Caroline, al vera e propria eroina del romanzo, la quale dopo essere stata abbandonata dall'uomo della sua vita si trasferisce nella Grande Mela per soffocare i suoi sentimenti nel lavoro e nell'ambizione di far carriera; le vite di queste giovani donne si intrecceranno nei corridori di una casa editrice, cercheranno di aiutarsi e sostenersi a vicenda per superare questa ricerca costante dell'uomo giusto che le accompagni: purtroppo per loro la gran parte degli uomini che incontreranno si riveleranno viscidi e insignificanti, caratteristiche che peraltro anche le single di oggi possono riscontrare in alcuni uomini che hanno frequentato!

Il meglio della vita: Rona Jeffe in questo romanzo ci fa capire che la carriera e il lavoro non sono sufficienti per ottenere il meglio. Dobbiamo costantemente confrontarci con la ricerca di una dolce metà che ci aspetti a casa quando rientriamo da una giornata di lavoro con cui condividere i nostri successi e le nostre delusioni.

Lo stile è scorrevole inoltre i molteplici punti di vista delle protagoniste a talvolta anche di alcuni personaggi minori ci offrono una visione completa, variata e molto interessante.
Consiglio il libro e tutte le donne o anche uomini (perchè no!) single o no che vogliono riscoprire l'America degli anni Cinquanta ma allo stesso tempo ritrovarsi e immedesimarsi in situazioni sempre attuali.
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May 27, 2012 Ritja rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: familie, frauen-woman, geschichte-history, liebe-romantik, usa

Ein tolles Buch, welches den Leser in die Vergangenheit mitnimmt und abtauchen lässt in die 50er Jahre in den USA. Rona Jaffe hat dieses Buch 1958 geschrieben und man spürt die 50er auf jeder Seite, denn sie sich echt.

Der Leser begleitet fünf junge Frauen (April, Caroline, Barbara, Mary Agnes und Gregg) durch ihren Alltag im Büro, verliebt sich mit ihnen in Männer, leidet mit ihnen, wenn die Liebe unerfüllt bleibt oder gebrochen wird und hofft und bangt, um Karrierechancen und Hochzeiten, um Dat...more Ein tolles Buch, welches den Leser in die Vergangenheit mitnimmt und abtauchen lässt in die 50er Jahre in den USA. Rona Jaffe hat dieses Buch 1958 geschrieben und man spürt die 50er auf jeder Seite, denn sie sich echt.

Der Leser begleitet fünf junge Frauen (April, Caroline, Barbara, Mary Agnes und Gregg) durch ihren Alltag im Büro, verliebt sich mit ihnen in Männer, leidet mit ihnen, wenn die Liebe unerfüllt bleibt oder gebrochen wird und hofft und bangt, um Karrierechancen und Hochzeiten, um Dates und Träume.

Die fünf Frauen sind sehr unterschiedlich in ihren Träumen und Lebensmodellen, während eine ihre Hochzeit und ihr Familienglück plant, versucht die andere ihre gescheiterte Verlobung zu vergessen und eine Karriere zu starten. Die Dritte im Bunde möchte gern eine erfolgreiche Schauspielerin werden und muss bis dahin ihr Geld im Verlag verdienen. Die Vierte kämpft mit ihrer kleinen Tochter und einer Scheidung im Hintergrund um Anerkennung und um eine neue Liebe, während eine weitere, ihren Traum als Schauspielerin bereits lebt, aber die Liebe ihres Lebens findet und wieder verliert. Man lebt mit ihnen in New York und begleitet sie durch alle Jahreszeiten und durch fast alle Bars und Restaurants. Sie treffen sich mit Männern, die sie mögen oder lieben, die treffen sich mit ihnen, weil es ihre Mütter gern hätten oder weil sie ihre Chefs sind. Sie fangen Affären an und bereuen vieles und am Ende halten sie, so gut es geht, zusammen und versuchen in der großen Stadt ihren Platz zu finden.

Rona Jaffe schafft wunderbare Charaktere, die einen Eindruck hinterlassen und über diese man nachdenkt. Man kann sich sehr gut in die Zeit versetzen und muss erstaunt feststellen, dass noch heute viele Ansichten und Verhaltensweisen bestehen. Sie beschreibt die Frauen, deren Männer, ihre Jobs und die Umgebung so detailliert und teilweise liebevoll, dass man sich ein gutes Bild schaffen kann. Wer die Bücherwelt liebt, wird auch die beschriebene Verlagswelt mögen und in sie hineinversetzen können.

Für mich ein rundum gelungenes Buch über die 50er Jahre und die Frauen. Vielen Dank Rona Jaffe.(less)

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Jun 22, 2011 Jane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wednesday 2nd January 1952; 8.45am; New York City:

“You see them every morning at a quarter to nine, rushing out of the maw of the subway tunnel, filing out of Grand Central Station, crossing Lexington and Park and Madison and Fifth avenues, the hundreds and hundreds of girls. Some of them look eager and some look resentful, and some look as if they haven’t left their beds yet. Some of them have been up since six-thirty in the morning, the ones who commute from Brooklyn and Yonkers and new Jersey...more

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Jun 08, 2011 Julia Reed rated it 5 of 5 stars

"You see them every morning at a quarter to nine, rushing out of the maw of the subway tunnel, filing out of Grand Central Station, crossing Lexington and Park and Madison and Fifth avenues, the hundreds and hundreds of girls. Some of them look eager and some look resentful, and some of them look as if they haven’t left their beds yet. Some of them have been up since six-thirty in the morning, the ones who commute from Brooklyn and Yonkers and New Jersey and Staten Island and Connecticut. They c...more "You see them every morning at a quarter to nine, rushing out of the maw of the subway tunnel, filing out of Grand Central Station, crossing Lexington and Park and Madison and Fifth avenues, the hundreds and hundreds of girls. Some of them look eager and some look resentful, and some of them look as if they haven’t left their beds yet. Some of them have been up since six-thirty in the morning, the ones who commute from Brooklyn and Yonkers and New Jersey and Staten Island and Connecticut. They carry the morning newspapers and overstuffed handbags. Some of them are wearing pink or chartreuse fuzzy overcoats and five-year-old ankle-strap shoes and have their hair up in pin curls underneath kerchiefs. Some of them are wearing chic black suits (maybe last year’s but who can tell?) and kid gloves and are carrying their lunches in violet-sprigged Bonwit Teller paper bags. None of them has enough money."
-- The Best of Everything, by Rona Jaffe

This was another one of those mid-century career novels I read on my Alaska cruise. Even more so than the "Gray Flannel Suit", I felt like "The Best of Everything" was speaking directly to me, even if it was written for the young career women of the 1950s. Turns out not that while women today of course have much more opportunity, better pay, and more legal protections than our foremothers, the challenges that young women face at the start of their careers, the tradeoffs and choices we have to make, are not, really, so different than what they were. Though fortunately we now have such a thing as the sexual harrassment lawsuit to provide some measure of protection against what these women went through.

The women in "The Best of Everything" are career girls for sure, but with their minds on love as well as work. Many consider it a Sex in the City forerunner for the Ozzie and Harriet set. I appreciate any novel that shows a different side of women in the 50s outside of sock hops and Marilyn Monroe. I think it's a hugely complex decade that is too often plastered over with cultural cliches, and definitely so on the female side. So while guilty of several cliches itself, "The Best of Everything" is well worth a read, both for its portrayal of its times, and for what it has to teach us about our own. (less)

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May 12, 2011 Judy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 20th-century-fiction, books-from-1958

Here is another novel from the 1950s telling us that lots more sex went on than we were led to believe and that what women really want is love and a husband. It is a mildly entertaining story. Set in the office of a publishing company and following the lives of four young women, it has been called the Sex and the City of the 50s.

Rona Jaffe wrote the novel, her first, when she was 24, a recent graduate of Radcliffe, working as an associate editor at Fawcett Publications. The writing is just fi...more
Here is another novel from the 1950s telling us that lots more sex went on than we were led to believe and that what women really want is love and a husband. It is a mildly entertaining story. Set in the office of a publishing company and following the lives of four young women, it has been called the Sex and the City of the 50s.

Rona Jaffe wrote the novel, her first, when she was 24, a recent graduate of Radcliffe, working as an associate editor at Fawcett Publications. The writing is just fine. Her portrayal of young women working at a publishing company comes across as realistic and includes a lecherous, alcoholic chief editor; a female associate editor who resembles that terror in The Devil Wears Prada; and the typing pool of women where all the drama plays out.

Sadly, not that much has changed for women in the past sixty years except that more is out in the open. Judging from the current fiction I read (I don't watch TV), American women still want love, marriage, a house to decorate and supervise, and children if they can get pregnant. Some women also want a career, a professional life, personal fulfillment outside the family.

The facts are that most people need to work for a living and that men usually must have a job but often don't find personal fulfillment in their work, another subject often addressed in 1950s fiction. Still, we all love our dreams, our hopes, and we read the books that allow us to step outside the humdrum of "real life." Some of the books are especially for women, some are for men and some satisfy both. The Best of Everything is clearly a woman's book and if I had read it in my twenties I would have been fascinated.

The above paragraph, while not profound, was my conclusion after finishing the book. Out of the four women, two achieve a semblance of the dream but all are damaged to a degree by their efforts to get there. The problem with this sort of fiction is that it all boils down to a common denominator, which I suppose has much to do with its popularity. Are we just inherently shallow?

There were no true heroes or heroines in Rona Jaffe's book. She went on to write romantic fiction for years, having several bestsellers. I hope she had fun. Oh yes, and there was also a movie. Has anyone seen it?(less)

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Mar 23, 2011 Amanda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Have you ever read a book and as you got to the end you wanted to read more slowly because you just didn't want the book to end? That's how I was feeling when I was ambling toward the end of The Best of Everything. I LOVE stories from the mid-century because the 1950s, and the ensuing suburban discontent, is just fascinating to me. (Yeah, I love Mad Men.) I would have given the book five stars, but sadly, while the book started out well, I was really disappointed by the ending. It felt rushed an...more

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Feb 21, 2011 Roberta rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, favorites

Il meglio della vita per le protagoniste di questo romanzo è il matrimonio con l'uomo che amano. Questo ha fatto rabbrividere qualche lettrice ma secondo me non siamo molto lontani dai giorni nostri, pur essendo questo romanzo ambientato sì a New York, ma negli anni Cinquanta. Per quanto oggi il matrimonio rappresenti un accessorio più che una necessità, credo che sia ancora valido l'universale anelito alla vita con qualcuno che amiamo e che ci ami, e che ci rispetti ovviamente. Se oggi il rispe...more

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Sep 16, 2009 Ellen added it

I learned about Rona Jaffe's book when I saw her featured on the premier episode of Hugh Heffner's "Playboy After Dark" television show from 1959. I would have expected Jaffe, as a featured guest in a media outlet that was ostensibly all about hedonistic independence, to author some pulp that was more sex-in-the-city than urban betty (to her credit, this book was the inspiration for Sex in the City). But strangely, all five narrative plotlines revolved around young women's obsessions with marria...more

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Jun 07, 2009 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of Marjorie Morningstar and The Group

I'm not sure what it is about 1950s New York chick lit that I enjoy so, but it's a world full of crinolines and gloves, highballs (which are what liquor, exactly), endless parades of cocktails and brandies, and men and women who banter like hell afire. It's always a world where people are known by their last name and hometown (oh yes, the Cleveland Smiths) and everyone seems to have gone to the same dozen colleges.

This book follows a group of twenty-something "career girls" through the filth, g...more

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Sep 12, 2007 Yvonne Ryan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ok, it's a soap but it's quality soap. Characters that resonate, a glimpse into world of the generation of women who laid the groundwork for my generation to get jobs and expect to be treated equally (yes, I know it hasn't quite happened like that but we have to keep trying). The ending isn't quite as good the rest of the book, it sprints to a conclusion and is less convincing than other parts of the book but it's still an excellent read, which is what this site is about isn't it?

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Jun 05, 2011 Melee rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was Summer at Tiffany meets The Country Girls Trilogy.
It was Summer at Tiffany for its evocation of the 50's and the working girls of that era... only drastically less innocent. And it was The Country Girls Trilogy because it inspired the same hopeless feeling that it is impossible to have a good relationship with a male. I found The Best of Everything to be just as painful in that respect, if not much worse. At least the female relationships were better, though.

It perturbed me how the wom...more

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Jul 26, 2012 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the most honest and enthralling books I've read in a long time. I can't get over the fact that this was published in 1958. Either that's a mistake and it was published this year, or some things really don't change. There are lines in this book that I read over and over again because they resonated so strongly with emotions that I've felt in the past or I'm currently feeling.

Filled with laugh out loud moments, shocking moments, moments that make you hate these girls (because they make the...more

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Mar 30, 2012 Missy Cahill rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I hugely enjoyed this book. I think it had something to do with the glorious sunshine that we were blessed with this week. I can't believe this was published in the 1950s, it feels like a very risque book for that period. It's risque because it's true. And it certainly translates to today's modern woman. Yes some aspects of the books have changed, but it's still relevant in todays culture. This story really centers around Caroline & April, two girls, fresh to the sparkling bright city of New...more

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Jan 24, 2009 Lani rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've been slacking on my GoodReads reviews, but I had to write about this book, which really grabbed me from the beginning - I was surprised that I identified so strongly with it, given that it was written and set in the 50's. It follows the lives of 5 young women who work in Manhattan in the typing pool of a publishing company with various motivations and dreams - back when being a "career girl" was not something most women aspired to. The relationships between the girls are very realistic, and...more

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Jun 05, 2011 Maya Panika rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I’ve wanted to read this book ever since Don Draper was seen with a copy, and the influences on Mad Men are plain; many of the characters in this book - about a group of girls coming to New York in 1952, in search of new lives but ultimately, in search of marriageable men - are instantly recognisable to a Mad Men aficionado.

It’s an old book, the author - a young girl when it was written - is now dead, consequently, it's somewhat dated, but it’s age shows in the content, the attitudes and mores,...more I’ve wanted to read this book ever since Don Draper was seen with a copy, and the influences on Mad Men are plain; many of the characters in this book - about a group of girls coming to New York in 1952, in search of new lives but ultimately, in search of marriageable men - are instantly recognisable to a Mad Men aficionado.

It’s an old book, the author - a young girl when it was written - is now dead, consequently, it's somewhat dated, but it’s age shows in the content, the attitudes and mores, rather than the style, which is still fresh and very readable. The frank description of sex and its consequences (there is more than one abortion) must have been, at the very least, unusual for it’s time. It’s historical chick lit of the very best kind, mid-20th century Jane Austen; it tells us what life was like for those women living those lives, the choices they had, right from the horse’s mouth (Rona Jaffe was herself one of the women she describes, in her mid twenties and working as assistant-editor for a New York publishing company when this book was written).

The Best of Everything was clearly intended to be sensational but Jaffe is such an excellent writer, the novel is too good, too elementally true to be trashy; real women living real lives are described the frankest detail and I can see that it would have been shocking in its day.

It’s not as if a great deal has fundamentally changed – the expectation and assumptions around marriage (which often seem more like something from the mid 18th century than the mid 20th), and sexual squeamishness aside, most chapters of The Best of Everything would make an episode of Sex in the City – though I think few modern women would agonise about being ‘left on the shelf’ at the tender ages of Jaffe’s characters, who average just 21 yeas old when the book opens.

This is definitely a woman’s book; men do not come across at all well in Rona Jaffe’s world. Not all are as coldly heartless as Dexter Key, but every single one is entirely self-centred; even the best of them feel the world – especially the female world - revolves around them, their wants and desires. But sadly, I feel little has changed in that regard, what it is acceptable to do and say, out loud, in the workplace has definitely changed, but the most cursory glance at any male-dominated message board tells you nothing about mainstream male attitudes has changed much in half a century.

The Best of Everything is brilliant, descriptive, eminently readable, bluntly truthful – times have changed, but it’s still a book full of characters and situations any working woman today will instantly recognise - and be grateful they don’t live in the 1950’s.
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May 06, 2009 Beth rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I ordinarily shy away from books that take place in this era that try really hard to expose the "real" 1950s. Not sure why. I guess I feel like the story's been done, people know they weren't the shiny happy times they pretended to be, etc.

But what I immediately liked about this one was that it was written contemporary to the time, by a girl around the age of the characters she was writing about, who worked in the setting they worked in, in the city they worked in...so it felt a bit more authen...more I ordinarily shy away from books that take place in this era that try really hard to expose the "real" 1950s. Not sure why. I guess I feel like the story's been done, people know they weren't the shiny happy times they pretended to be, etc.

But what I immediately liked about this one was that it was written contemporary to the time, by a girl around the age of the characters she was writing about, who worked in the setting they worked in, in the city they worked in...so it felt a bit more authentic, which I enjoyed.

As is any depiction of the 50s that veers toward reality, it's ultimately pretty sad. It's sad in obvious ways, like the oftentimes blatent sexual harassment the women put up with at work, the women who put all their hopes and dreams into the promise of happiness in marriage only to realize it would never happen with the person they expected or they chose poorly but it was too late, etc. But I also found it sad in subtler ways, like the way in which the women weren't particularly disturbed by the blatent sexual harassment. It was just a natural part of their lives, one more thing that you had to deal with in the workplace. It was even sometimes funny to them, like at the restaurant with Mr. Shalimar towards the beginning of the book.

And at the same time, it was also a fun book a lot of the time. I loved reading about the friendships formed between Caroline, Gregg, April, and Barbara and Mary Agnes to a lesser degree. They were really well-developed characters. April with her almost ridiculous optimism, Caroline with her sense yet minor weaknesses, Gregg with her great sense of humor who was so devastatingly ruined by her situation, Barbara with her bad luck that took an incredible turn, and Mary Agnes serving as the most commonly thought of stereotype of the time, in which she was still very sweet and likeable. You really got a good feel for the more minor characters too, like Miss Farrow abusing the system and Brenda with her ridiculous wedding preparations, and how all the girls had to fawn over each other girl that got married from the office.

And the things about the 50s that were appealing are also great aspects of the book. I felt like I had a really great visual concept of the book, the dresses and suits, the hats, the hairstyles, the makeup applications in the ladies rooms, the dim, smoky restaurants, the stiflingly hot and tiny apartments in the summer time, sitting on ledges and balconies to try to cool down. The constant cocktails too! Cocktails at lunch, cocktail hour after work, cocktails to follow dinner...always cocktails. There's just an incredibly great sense of style of the time that's apparent in the book, and I really loved that aspect of it.

I felt like the men were really well-written to, to almost an infuriating degree many times! But many were just as you would imagine so many men of the time to be. Women were pretty decorations at the time, and many men treated them accordingly. Thankfully they weren't all that way though, which is why Mike Rice was such a great character. And Sydney. He had my favorite line of the book, when he first held Barbara's hand and had that line about it being the braille for people who can see but don't have the words. But the jerks were even written really well too, in the way they weren't necessarily obviously jerks at first, you could understand the attraction of a Dexter Key to a certain extent. Or any of his friends. Or Eddie. Or David, though I don't think what happened there was necessarily his fault. Or Paul Landis, the dud.

So all in all, a really thoroughly enjoyable book I thought. (less)

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Nov 22, 2011 Daffy rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Best of Everything is a ground-breaking and genre-creating novel that follows five young women starting out in the world after college and traces their excitement, their hopes, their fears and their knock-backs. When I started reading the book I felt a huge wave of warmth for the innocence and naievety of both the times and the characters but as I read more I became increasingly irritated by this same innocence and naievety, and I was only able to get half way through. The quality of writing...more

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Aug 28, 2008 Marie rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: didn-t_finish

I got four chapters into this book, then gave up. It's facile and predictable.

In her 2005 foreword, Rona Jaffe said: "I was so proud of the fact that my publisher made no revisions except for grammar and spelling.... The book was published less than a year after I left my parents, got my own apartment, and began it." I think that sums up just about everything that's wrong with this book.

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May 23, 2011 Jaclyn rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was absolutely fascinating. For a plot that takes place in the 1950s, I was surprised to see as much scandal and sex. This edition had a 2005ish forward by Jaffe, and she shares that she wrote the book for a producer looking for a book to convert to a film. He was unable to find a book about a 1950s career woman, and Jaffe volunteered to write it, interviewing 50some working women in her research.

Which tells me: Some of the craziness in "The Best of Everything" is likely true or compil...more

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Jan 04, 2011 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This book has accurately been described as Sex in the City meets Mad Men. It portrays the trials of 5 mid century New York working girl facing competition, sexual harassment and romantic lives that are really not too different from the present. The thing that keeps the reader firmly in the 1950's, besides the hats and the gloves, is the way Jaffe captures the desperation of the unprotected women. Women today still worry about losing a job or a relationship but the prospect does not seem as peril...more

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Aug 07, 2010 Keirstan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary, american

Rona Jaffe’s 1958 bestselling novel of career girls in New York City is a definite page turner. THE BEST OF EVERYTHING is juicy and filled with “I can’t believe she did that” moments, but also developed with enough acumen to create an intriguing and empathetic cast of characters. The now classic story covers a pivotal point in a woman’s life, the period of time when the dust of childhood begins to settle and one is ushered into adulthood. While this book is not something I would typically gravit...more Rona Jaffe’s 1958 bestselling novel of career girls in New York City is a definite page turner. THE BEST OF EVERYTHING is juicy and filled with “I can’t believe she did that” moments, but also developed with enough acumen to create an intriguing and empathetic cast of characters. The now classic story covers a pivotal point in a woman’s life, the period of time when the dust of childhood begins to settle and one is ushered into adulthood. While this book is not something I would typically gravitate toward, I was drawn to the parallels with my own life: three or so years out of college graduation and beginning to find my place in the world.

THE BEST OF EVERYTHING follows the early adult lives of five women who find themselves working at the the fictional Fabian Publications, a large publisher whose body of work covers trashy magazines to paperback drugstore novels. First we meet is Caroline Bender, with whom I identified the most. Caroline is ambitious, overcoming youthful trepidation to act on her ambition to become a full-fledged editor. Yet at the same time, her personal life is haunted by her desire to find true love and settle into domesticity. At the climax of the novel Caroline is finally forced to reckon with the strong feelings she harbors for her college romance. Her decision not to ship off to Dallas to become his mistress sets off a series of chaotic moments in her life, but is also symbolic of her preservation of dignity. Her final moments in the novel are open-ended, and one hopes that she will usher in a new, more positive stage in her life.

There is also April Morrison, a Colorado hick who reinvents herself as a New York glamour girl. Friends with them both April and Caroline is Gregg Adams, a pseudo-bohemian actress whose tragic infatuation with a producer ultimately ruins her. Playing the role of the foil is the conventional Mary Agnes, a standard housewife-t0-be whose domestic ambition comes to fruition as the novel unfolds. Finally there is the admirable Barbara Lemont, a single mother whose ability to understand that the world abounds beyond her personal needs provides her with happiest of all the girls’ endings.

While I enjoyed discovering what became of these women, the novel has definite flaws. First, I did not particularly like some of the characters. Rona Jaffe may have been accurate in her portrayals of the pathetic April Morrison and Gregg Adams, but I found their desperate need for a particular man disturbing. Second, the simplistic writing style (and numerous typos) caused me to think more than once that THE BEST OF EVERYTHING is a poor man’s version of THE GROUP. When Mary McCarthy is clever and poignant Rona Jaffe is often conventional and bland. However, despite its deficiencies, I believed in the story that Jaffe told. I also have full confidence that it should, as the author proclaims in the novel’s preface, be considered a “sociological document” of the time.(less)

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May 29, 2012 C_ rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historisch, deutsch, lieblich, lies

Ich muss sagen, zu Beginn hatte ich das Buch recht schnell satt. Es wurden immer neue Mädchen eingeführt und deren Naivität fand ich unerträglich. Da ist das Beste von allem erstmal ein paar Tage liegen geblieben. Aber nun revidiere ich alles: Nach und nach sind mir die Mädels mit ihren Problemen (die vielleicht nicht hundertprozentig auf die heutige Zeit übertragen werden können, aber doch noch nah und vorstellbar genug scheinen) ans Herz gewachsen und ich habe mitgefiebert und -gelitten. Das F...more

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