Mrs. Fletcher

by Tom Perrotta

Then she inserted the obligatory emoticon and launched her message into space, so her 221 friends would understand how she was feeling, and could let her know that they liked it. It took a couple

Blah so far. This sounds like someone who doesn’t really use tech

Eve knew she was being a coward, abdicating her parental responsibility, but letting him off the hook was pretty much a reflex at this point.

The poor kid had been the victim of an elaborate bait and switch perpetrated by his own parents, who, for eleven years, had built a life for him that felt solid and permanent and good, and then—just kidding!—had ripped it out of his hands and replaced it with an inferior substitute,

The fact that her life had turned into this: this lifeless hush, this faint but elusive whiff of decay. This absolutely-nothing-to-complain-about.

U

my MILF!

Is this supposed to be a mystery? Seems clear it’s the roommate

it was just creepy to see him there, totally out of context, as if he were an actual human being, rather than a figment of her sexual imagination.

She’d gotten so used to being ignored,

But Trish—Beckett—was a completely new person, living the kind of life Amanda had always imagined for herself. My fiancé’s a cinematographer! How the fuck did that happen? It just seemed so unfair—the girl who’d been deliriously happy in high school was the one who’d reinvented herself, moving to a glamorous city and falling in love with an artist who loved her back, while Amanda, who’d dreamed of nothing but escape, had ended up right back where she started, with only a few stupid tattoos to show for all her trouble.

They smoked the rest of the joint in a strangely comfortable silence, as if they’d known each other a long time and had exhausted every possible topic of conversation.

elevated the status of her night from small experiment to minor accomplishment.

They kept erupting in laughter that sounded fake and a little too loud, like they wanted everyone to look at them and wonder what the hot girls thought was so funny.

Sometimes he finds great little details

But when it came to boys, for some reason, she only ever liked jocks.

But it didn’t matter: her heart did its usual, incorrigible somersault and gave the middle finger to her brain.

Possibly a moment this book gets great

Center. But then Eve had performed some tricky PC jujitsu, calling Margo out for ageism and hypocrisy,

was something she was still getting used to, this need people had to scrutinize her from head to toe, as if all of life were a beauty pageant, and every woman a contestant.

“No offense, dude, but the person I am when we’re together? I just don’t want to be that guy anymore.”

of the situation—let him see how it felt to be silenced and powerless for once in his life, to be defined by other people—but it wasn’t as gratifying as she’d hoped it might be. In fact, the more she thought about Brendan the guiltier she felt, as if she’d done something bad to him, which was totally frustrating, because he didn’t deserve her sympathy or anyone else’s. It was just like her—just like a girl—to feel sorry for a guy she had every right to despise, and then to turn the blame back on herself.

It was so stupid and unfair that someone could treat you so badly, and still make you want to hug them.

walk of shame, but without any shameful fun to make it worth the embarrassment.

All she wanted was a return to form—an upbeat talk about an insipid subject, a reasonably pleasant evening that no one would ever have to think about again.

Is it too late to change my mind?

Whoa. Seeetness from Perotta