Review: The Means

The Means by Amy Fusselman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I just really don't know how the heck to review this book. To tell you the truth, I couldn't even tell you what the story was about unless you believe the story was about a woman and her house in the Hampton's obsession?

Some readers are going to think that this family, the Means, are wealthy. I think they are just upper middle class. However, my thinking may be skewed because I live around people like this. I'm not one of them, but I can understand them.

Apparently, this is supposed to be satire, and I can see that, but at certain points, this book seems to become nothing but stream-of-consciousness writing. There is no character growth, plot, or even a definitive ending. The parts where the dog talks to Shelly seem more drug-induced tho it's not...at least, I don't think so!

I did stick with the book, was a very fast read. It was easy to stick to as long as I wasn't looking for anything more than cliched fluff with weak-willed characters.

Good luck!

*ARC supplied by the publisher Mariner Books, the author, and NetGalley.

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SYNOPSIS: "The debut novel from "wholly original" (Vogue) memoirist Amy Fusselman, a tragicomic family saga that skewers contemporary issues of money, motherhood, and class through a well-to-do woman's quest to buy a Hamptons beach house.

Shelly Means, a wealthy stay-at-home mom and disgraced former PTA president, is poised to get the one thing in life she really wants: a beach house in the Hamptons. Who would have guessed that Shelly, the product of frugal Midwesterners, or her husband George, an unrepentant thrift shopper, would ever be living among such swells? But Shelly believes it's possible. It might be a very small house, and it might be in the least-fancy part of the Hamptons. But Shelly has a vision board, an architect, and a plan.

But what should be a simple real estate transaction quickly goes awry as Shelly's new neighbors disapprove of her proposed shipping container house at the same time that George's lucrative work as a VoiceOver artist dries up. But Shelly is dogged. She knows how to go into beast mode. But will it ever be enough to realize her beach house dreams?

A novel of real estate, ambition, family, and money from "one of our best interrogators of how we live now, and how we should live" (Dave Eggers), The Means is also a fantastical, fast-moving and very funny exploration of class, wealth, and the value of work."