When Rona Jaffe’s superb page-turner was first published in 1958, it changed contemporary fiction forever. Some readers were shocked, but millions more were electrified when they saw themselves reflected in its story of five young employees of a New York publishing company. Almost sixty years later, The Best of Everything remains touchingly—and sometimes hilariously—true to the personal and professional struggles women face in the city. There’s Ivy League Caroline, who dreams of graduating from the typing pool to an editor’s office; naïve country girl April, who within months of hitting town reinvents herself as the woman every man wants on his arm; and Gregg, the free-spirited actress with a secret yearning for domesticity. Jaffe follows their adventures with intelligence, sympathy, and prose as sharp as a paper cut.
The Best of Everything
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Editorial Reviews
Review
A classic of its kind. The dialogue is real, the people are real. [It has] the shock of authenticity. -- Saturday Review
About the Author
Rona Jaffe is the New York Times bestselling author of the internationally acclaimed novels The Road Taken, The Cousins, Family Secrets, and Five Women, as well as the classic bestsellers Class Reunion and The Best of Everything. She is the founder of the Rona Jaffe Foundation, which presents a national literary award to promising female writers.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
61 of 64 people found the following review helpful
By E. Fagan
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I believe this is Jaffe's very first novel and, to my mind, also the best. Great literature? No...but character-driven, engrossing, emotionally involving and very, very juicy. Quite dated (takes place in the early 50s) but still a steamy and believably accurate account of what transpired for women venturing out on their own at the time...the brilliant, driven, heartbroken college grad; the sweet hayseed who loses her innocence; the "bad girl" who pursues an acting career only to lose everything over a cruel mentor; a single mom who exudes quiet strength & dignity and an absolutely provincial chick from the Bronx who smugly pursues her housewife destiny and is none the worse for it. They all surface at a large, glitzy publishing house for a time and live with the rampant, blatant sexism that was typical for the times but seems horrifying today. An ultra-enjoyable read with memorable, fully fleshed-out characters.
39 of 41 people found the following review helpful
By Mary Fentum
Format:Paperback
Ooooooh......this is one of those juicy summer reads that is so hard to put down. Diapers dragged the floor, salmonella dripped off thawing chicken breasts onto the counter and the phone rang out its throat as I eagerly read page after page of this middle-brow novel.
Joan Crawford is reponsible for me hunting this book down in Amazon.com's used book shop. I've seen the film of the same title many times, but it wasn't until my last viewing during a local Crawfordthon that I developed the itch the read the novel that inspired the movie. To my surprise, I loved the novel. The film was much campier (what movie with Ms. Crawford isn't?) than the novel, therefore less irritating to read than the movie is to watch. For one thing, Hollywood's presentation of the women in the film is much less rounded and tediously more condescending than in the novel. The "girls" in the movie dither and drivel and snivel far more than Jaffe wrote them doing.
What was eerie about the novel was the contemporary feel of the characters' difficulties in their lives. Remove some of the dated descriptions of New York, business tools, and sundry material goods, many of Jaffe's depictions of women entering adulthood in a male-oriented world of more than forty years ago could easily be written today. Sadly, many of the demoralizing situations that Jaffe's five women stumbled into are, with slight alterations, still perpetuated and experienced in these more enlightened times. I think this relevancy along with Jaffe's engrossing writing style are what make "The Best of Everything" such an enjoyable read. It is definitely worth the trouble it takes to get your hands on a copy.
Joan Crawford is reponsible for me hunting this book down in Amazon.com's used book shop. I've seen the film of the same title many times, but it wasn't until my last viewing during a local Crawfordthon that I developed the itch the read the novel that inspired the movie. To my surprise, I loved the novel. The film was much campier (what movie with Ms. Crawford isn't?) than the novel, therefore less irritating to read than the movie is to watch. For one thing, Hollywood's presentation of the women in the film is much less rounded and tediously more condescending than in the novel. The "girls" in the movie dither and drivel and snivel far more than Jaffe wrote them doing.
What was eerie about the novel was the contemporary feel of the characters' difficulties in their lives. Remove some of the dated descriptions of New York, business tools, and sundry material goods, many of Jaffe's depictions of women entering adulthood in a male-oriented world of more than forty years ago could easily be written today. Sadly, many of the demoralizing situations that Jaffe's five women stumbled into are, with slight alterations, still perpetuated and experienced in these more enlightened times. I think this relevancy along with Jaffe's engrossing writing style are what make "The Best of Everything" such an enjoyable read. It is definitely worth the trouble it takes to get your hands on a copy.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What a great book!!! I loved the girls, the time period, and even though I hate New York City...I loved it in this book! I also bought the movie, so as soon as I finished the book, I watched the 1958 movie version...also wonderful!
This book follows four girls through new jobs, new loves, lost loves, unwanted pregnancies, and death in 1953 New York. The pace of this book was excellent, and the characters were people you really come to care about. Seeing how there's so much to this book, I'm not even going to try to summarize it, but it was great!
I can't wait to get my hands on more of Ms. Jaffe's books! I've added all of them to my wish list and hope they'll be just as entertaining as this book was!
This book follows four girls through new jobs, new loves, lost loves, unwanted pregnancies, and death in 1953 New York. The pace of this book was excellent, and the characters were people you really come to care about. Seeing how there's so much to this book, I'm not even going to try to summarize it, but it was great!
I can't wait to get my hands on more of Ms. Jaffe's books! I've added all of them to my wish list and hope they'll be just as entertaining as this book was!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
sooooo crazy retro...
So much fun to read how "girls" really lived and thought back in the 40's and 50's in NYC. So beyond Mad Men... :)
Published 1 month ago by Liza Levine
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mad Men meets Sex in the City
Excellent read. Ideal holiday read for any mad men devotee. Held my interest from beginning to end and led me to truly care about all the characters.
Published 4 months ago by fiona_1979
5.0 out of 5 stars
A pleasant surprise
I stumbled across this book by accident on Amazon's home page, and it looked interesting, so I checked it out from the library. I must say I was very pleasantly surprised. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Jen
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting
An interesting book that gives a vivid picture of women's conditions in the 50es. Perhaps on the verge of soap but still exiting and page turning - I read it in three days. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Ulla Erup
4.0 out of 5 stars
Can AMC make a series out of THIS?
Great novel! The only reason I'm not giving it 5 stars is because I wanted to know how Barbra Lamont was faring. I thought her plot concluded rather clumsily and too early.
Published 5 months ago by DC Diva
4.0 out of 5 stars
A dated book still holds up
My headline pretty much says it all. You have to read it in the context of the times, of course, but she did a great job with the characters, even the minor ones. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Catherine Balkin
5.0 out of 5 stars
Can't believe it was written in the 50s!
This was definitely a page turner! I constantly had to remind myself that this was actually WRITTEN in the 1950's. Read more
Published 10 months ago by H. Slawinski
1.0 out of 5 stars
Jaffe's worst novel
Sometimes first novels are mediocre which for me is the case with "The Best of Everything". I tried to read it 3 times over the past 30+ years, but only finished reading it the... Read more
Published 23 months ago by C. Mathieu
1.0 out of 5 stars
over charging!
I am so excited to read this on my kindle, but will not purchase it so long as the kindle edition is more expensive than the paperback edition. Read more
Published on May 13, 2011 by Melinda Byerley
5.0 out of 5 stars
the best book ever
I love Rona Jaffe's books but the best of everything was the best book so far I have ever read.
Published on April 2, 2011 by tracy
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