Review: Everything Must Go

Everything Must Go by Camille Pagán
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I wish I had enjoyed this a bit more!  In theory, the plot works.  Laine is a professional organizer who, at the age of 38, experiences an epiphany of sorts—she wants a baby and her biological clock is ticking louder than a cheap Timex.  Unfortunately, her husband Josh has little interest in expanding the family beyond the two of them.  Moments after telling Josh she wants a divorce, Laine gets a phone call from her sister who impresses upon Laine how important it is for her to come home to New York to help make some long term decisions about their mother’s care, as she is showing increasing signs of dementia.  Home, for Laine, however, holds keys to the past that she isn’t sure she wants to revisit.  There’s her ex BFF Ben and the remnants of a people-pleasing past that she left behind 16 years prior—and both threaten to at once undo her and offer her salvation.

The characters here are supposed to be multi-faceted and on a quest toward self-awareness.  Instead, I found each to be incredibly self-centered, not to mention a little whiny.  The emotional angst that should and usually does accompany many of the life-changing moments in the book is just….absent.  Laine bounces from one relationship to the next with the ease of a child on a trampoline, ending her marriage, confronting her mother and re-engaging with a former friend who has the potential to make things better or a whole lot worse.  She just seems indifferent and emotionally detached.  Those moments when the author does attempt to imbue her with compassion and feeling fall flat, and the reader is left little with which to connect.

There were jumping off points here with the potential for author Camille Pagan to make sweeping statements about everything from single motherhood to racial bias.  Rather than exploring these. Pagan waltzes past them with all the grace of a bull in a china shop.  

All in all, it’s a mediocre quick read that is comprised of a series of strung together events with little emotional impact.

View all my reviews