What do you think?
Rate this book
First You Try Everything
An engrossing tale of a marriage that’s falling apart and a wife who will stop at nothing to keep it together.
From their early days in college, Evvie and Ben were drawn to each other by feelings of isolation stemming from their wounded childhoods, passionate idealism, and zeal for music. Sheltered by their love, they weathered the challenges and trials of the imperfect world around them. But as the years passed, they grew apart. Now Ben has his sights set on a completely different kind of future—alone, or with someone else.
Convinced that Ben cannot live without her, Evvie begins to unravel, as she obsessively devises ways to reclaim the love that she cannot let go of. She gambles on a spectacularly dangerous scheme, one that may ultimately have devastating consequences.
Jane McCafferty has written a highly original, utterly beguiling, and emotionally satisfying novel about marriage. Told from alternating viewpoints, this gripping, psychologically astute, and madcap novel illuminates the power of love to define and transform our lives, for better or for worse.
From their early days in college, Evvie and Ben were drawn to each other by feelings of isolation stemming from their wounded childhoods, passionate idealism, and zeal for music. Sheltered by their love, they weathered the challenges and trials of the imperfect world around them. But as the years passed, they grew apart. Now Ben has his sights set on a completely different kind of future—alone, or with someone else.
Convinced that Ben cannot live without her, Evvie begins to unravel, as she obsessively devises ways to reclaim the love that she cannot let go of. She gambles on a spectacularly dangerous scheme, one that may ultimately have devastating consequences.
Jane McCafferty has written a highly original, utterly beguiling, and emotionally satisfying novel about marriage. Told from alternating viewpoints, this gripping, psychologically astute, and madcap novel illuminates the power of love to define and transform our lives, for better or for worse.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 17, 2012
48 people are currently reading
787 people want to read
About the author
Jane McCafferty
15books10followersJane McCafferty is the author of the novel One Heart and two collections of stories, Thank You for the Music and Director of the World and Other Stories, which won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize. She is the recipient of an NEA award, the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writers Award, and two Pushcart Prizes. She lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 109 reviews
August 29, 2024
In the film, A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson’s character, Colonel Nathan Jessup, barks at the courtroom, “You can’t handle the truth.� If you can’t handle some truth about marriage, then First You Try Everything is not the book for you.
Evvie Muldoone is a happy-go-lucky sort, a free spirit, a person with a huge heart, but maybe not the best focus. She experiences great pain and great love, is eager to defend our feathered friends from the horrors of foi gras, and meat animals from their factory hellholes. She is an innocent. She is also a bit paranoid. Of course sometimes you are not paranoid enough. She senses something is up with her husband, Ben, and begins taking measures. A bear hug she used to give him when they were new, playing music that recalled their first days together, telling him things like “everything is going to be beautiful with us.� It isn’t.
Ben is dissatisfied, feels trapped, and despite his love for Evvie, and the weight of memory their years together have accrued, he is preparing to move on. He is no longer ok with making a meager living selling middle eastern food from a pushcart. He wants a 9 to 5 life. He wants to wear a suit to work. He wants a normal partner to come home to, someone whose idea of supper is a perfectly made rosemary chicken, not a banana dipped in peanut butter. Ben is not a monster.
On page 1, Evvie recalls a favorite song, 5 Days in May. I included the full lyric at the bottom of this review. None of it appears in the book. I had to wonder if the song had been one of the inspirations for this novel. One piece of it in particular
Jane McCafferty - image from Mercyhurst uiniversity
The book is set up as, mostly, alternating chapters, Ben’s and Evvie’s, and offers us both perspectives on the potential end of their marriage. I went into the book expecting that Evvie would be cool and Ben would be a stick in the mud, but McCafferty treats both her characters, and their perspectives with respect.
Speaking of characters, I found the supporting cast a bit thin. Ben’s new girlfriend, Lauren, seemed to me a bit too lightly drawn, although she does share a tale from her past that puts her childhood into the same class of screwed-up-edness as both Ben’s and Evvie’s. Rocky and Bruno, two questionable characters, who propose an unusual method to Evvie for trying to win back her man, work effectively as comic relief. Evvie’s brother, Cedrick, serves a purpose, but we do not get to know him particularly well. But then, they are secondary.
For many of us who have been through a divorce, so much of the emotional content of this novel rings true. I know I felt both Evvie’s desperation and Ben’s unhappiness. When I was trying to prevent, then survive the breakup of my first marriage, I did not break down quite so much as Evvie, although I too suffered unfortunate symptoms that bled out into the real world. How many people who have been married for a long time harbor no reservoir of unhappiness? Ben deceives Evvie, but the deception is the endpoint, not the cause.
People do grow apart, change, find that they want things now that they did not want then, grow dissatisfied, with their lives, with their partners. And in the 21st century, we have the option to make a change.
Imagery flutters in here and there, but this is not a book that I found to be heavily weighted with lit-fic technique. It is about the possible end of a marriage, who the people were, who they are, how they got to where they are now, and how they deal with this traumatic situation. It is moving, and occasionally humorous. There is some outrageousness, but on an emotional level, it is very, very real. The book is filled with keen observations and almost any of you who are, or have been married, or equivalent, will find items here that ring bells. There is hope and joy here, hard times recalled and lived, change and stasis, longing and regret, honesty and dishonesty. There are signs of great love and moments of profound loss and sadness. There is a lot of truth here, if you can handle it.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
I found no personal website for McCafferty. Her FB page looks pretty much unused, and her Twitter presence is very slight.
Mc Cafferty is a professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University - Here is a nice
In an excellent interview on the site. McCafferty talks about Evvie's challenges and the role of music in the novel
=================================QUOTES
4 - What Evvie wanted to say—and would have had she known how to bridge the gulf—was that it was odd to be forty-one and have no real idea who you were. It had been all right when her husband, Ben, was beside her, not knowing who he was. But now Ben wore a suit. It no longer looked like a costume. He had been told he’d soon be promoted into something called knowledge management at the medical equipment firm. He would rise. He was forgetting their years when they’d worked a pushcart in fresh air, selling Middle Eastern food so they could get home by three and do what they really wanted to do—make art, play music. Not get trapped, as they used to say.
94 � did he have to take the pain of the present and inject it into the past so that all memory was rendered suspect?
142 - ”Are you telling me you’re lonely in your marriage to Neeni, too?�
“Let’s just say I feel like most of me is shelved away at least half of the time. Maybe more. But that’s life! We got kids. They’re demanding as hell! Even when I was with Danielle, before kids, we had the stress of shitty jobs. Basically what happens, unless you’re rich as hell, is you just pour yourself into making it through the days. The days zap you, and you can’t expect to come home to some kind of love nest, since the days are zapping her too.
…”Let’s just say I feel like we all have to be who we are, no matter who you’re with. That it doesn’t matter in the end. You get zapped. You think one woman’s not the right one. So you go shopping for another, and for a while she’ll seem like a lucky charm. You get a lot of action, you get some sweet talk over coffee in the morning. But then it goes back to just getting by. And one day you say to yourself, whether I’m here or there, whether it’s this woman or that woman, my balls will eventually be kicked and I’ll still be the man in the mirror.
…Ben considered saying good-bye and hanging up. Instead he took a deep breath, waited, then said, “Murphy, you should really talk to Neeni about this. You shouldn’t just go through the years feeling lonely.�
Murphy laughed. “Who said? Who said that wasn’t exactly what most people do, whether they’re married or not? Ever hear of the human condition?�
“This is where romanticizing your pain gets you, Murph. You’re a guy who hides in your bathroom.�
“I love my bathroom. It has everything I need.� Murphy laughed. “When we hang up, I get to sit on my throne with Calvin and Hobbes. The door is locked. This is the secret to happiness, brother.
Ben laughed, with a sinking sensation, since part of him suspected this might be true.
155 � Ben understood that the house of childhood cast a spell, gave her a form of multiple personality disorder, rendered her all the ages she had ever been inside of its walls. Without him, how was she to navigate the collision of selves? He’d seemed to love those selves, had lifted photographs out of albums and taken them for his own possessions: a picture of her when she was fat, bald baby: her second-grade school picture where she’d tried to look like she had extreme buckteeth like her friend Kenny Walters, who kept mice in a Barbie castle; and a photograph of her fourteen-year-old self in black cowboy boots, holding her pet rabbit, Zorro. Ben had framed this last one. Now it seemed to her he’d rejected not just the self she was now, but all those other people too. The ones whose ghosts still haunted the old house.
160 � Why did old wounds still seem present in the body, in the way that happiness did not? Why couldn’t happiness leave the same deep traces?
Evvie Muldoone is a happy-go-lucky sort, a free spirit, a person with a huge heart, but maybe not the best focus. She experiences great pain and great love, is eager to defend our feathered friends from the horrors of foi gras, and meat animals from their factory hellholes. She is an innocent. She is also a bit paranoid. Of course sometimes you are not paranoid enough. She senses something is up with her husband, Ben, and begins taking measures. A bear hug she used to give him when they were new, playing music that recalled their first days together, telling him things like “everything is going to be beautiful with us.� It isn’t.
Ben is dissatisfied, feels trapped, and despite his love for Evvie, and the weight of memory their years together have accrued, he is preparing to move on. He is no longer ok with making a meager living selling middle eastern food from a pushcart. He wants a 9 to 5 life. He wants to wear a suit to work. He wants a normal partner to come home to, someone whose idea of supper is a perfectly made rosemary chicken, not a banana dipped in peanut butter. Ben is not a monster.
On page 1, Evvie recalls a favorite song, 5 Days in May. I included the full lyric at the bottom of this review. None of it appears in the book. I had to wonder if the song had been one of the inspirations for this novel. One piece of it in particular
But I know my pastflows through the novel, as Ben, in particular, keeps thinking about their past, recalling many joyful moments he and Evvie had shared. Moving on is not an easy process for Ben, not at all a black-or-white, but it is well past middle-gray.
You were there
In everything I've done
You are the one
Jane McCafferty - image from Mercyhurst uiniversity
The book is set up as, mostly, alternating chapters, Ben’s and Evvie’s, and offers us both perspectives on the potential end of their marriage. I went into the book expecting that Evvie would be cool and Ben would be a stick in the mud, but McCafferty treats both her characters, and their perspectives with respect.
Speaking of characters, I found the supporting cast a bit thin. Ben’s new girlfriend, Lauren, seemed to me a bit too lightly drawn, although she does share a tale from her past that puts her childhood into the same class of screwed-up-edness as both Ben’s and Evvie’s. Rocky and Bruno, two questionable characters, who propose an unusual method to Evvie for trying to win back her man, work effectively as comic relief. Evvie’s brother, Cedrick, serves a purpose, but we do not get to know him particularly well. But then, they are secondary.
For many of us who have been through a divorce, so much of the emotional content of this novel rings true. I know I felt both Evvie’s desperation and Ben’s unhappiness. When I was trying to prevent, then survive the breakup of my first marriage, I did not break down quite so much as Evvie, although I too suffered unfortunate symptoms that bled out into the real world. How many people who have been married for a long time harbor no reservoir of unhappiness? Ben deceives Evvie, but the deception is the endpoint, not the cause.
“but even before Lauren, he reminded himself, he’d looked across the table that last year with Evvie, as if she were light years away. He’d been dying of loneliness and now said as much…�Ben would not be the first person to have had an eye out for a place to land when jumping out a marriage. Evvie deceives Ben in attempting to keep their marriage together, rather dramatically.
People do grow apart, change, find that they want things now that they did not want then, grow dissatisfied, with their lives, with their partners. And in the 21st century, we have the option to make a change.
“It’s terrible, what you’re going through. All you young people. In my day, you got married, you stayed married, that was that. My husband and I didn’t expect life should be so fun. Now it’s everybody has to have their fun.� She sipped her own glass of wine, which was leaving a purple mustache on her face. “And all the rush, rush, rush. Where do people think they are going?� Evvie took another sip and sighed. “I don’t know.� “Six feet under.�A lot is made, appropriately, of the element of accumulated time in relationships.
Ben understood that the house of childhood cast a spell, gave her a form of multiple personality disorder, rendered her all the ages she had ever been inside of its walls. Without him, how was she to navigate the collision of selves? He’d seemed to love those selves, had lifted photographs out of albums and taken them for his own possessions: a picture of her when she was a fat, bald baby: her second-grade school picture where she’d tried to look like she had extreme buckteeth like her friend Kenny Walters, who kept mice in a Barbie castle; and a photograph of her fourteen-year-old self in black cowboy boots, holding her pet rabbit, Zorro. Ben had framed this last one. Now it seemed to her he’d rejected not just the self she was now, but all those other people too. The ones whose ghosts still haunted the old house.Those old selves are always lost when the newer ones are discarded. Later, after remembering some of his history with Evvie
“We’re gonna have a lot of good years together,� he said, a pressure in his chest rising up into his throat. “A lot of good years.� He wished they would hurry up, those years, and get behind him and Lauren. A history to lean on. Filled with memories of rooms where they’d made love, or cried, or laughed until they cried. They hadn’t done that yet—laughed until they cried. They needed more rooms.My fingers were kept dancing typing in the many passages in the book that spoke to me, so many that I have slapped on the end of this what I did not use in the body of the review. You might want to wait until you read the book, as the material is slightly spoiler-ish
Imagery flutters in here and there, but this is not a book that I found to be heavily weighted with lit-fic technique. It is about the possible end of a marriage, who the people were, who they are, how they got to where they are now, and how they deal with this traumatic situation. It is moving, and occasionally humorous. There is some outrageousness, but on an emotional level, it is very, very real. The book is filled with keen observations and almost any of you who are, or have been married, or equivalent, will find items here that ring bells. There is hope and joy here, hard times recalled and lived, change and stasis, longing and regret, honesty and dishonesty. There are signs of great love and moments of profound loss and sadness. There is a lot of truth here, if you can handle it.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
I found no personal website for McCafferty. Her FB page looks pretty much unused, and her Twitter presence is very slight.
Mc Cafferty is a professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University - Here is a nice
In an excellent interview on the site. McCafferty talks about Evvie's challenges and the role of music in the novel
=================================QUOTES
4 - What Evvie wanted to say—and would have had she known how to bridge the gulf—was that it was odd to be forty-one and have no real idea who you were. It had been all right when her husband, Ben, was beside her, not knowing who he was. But now Ben wore a suit. It no longer looked like a costume. He had been told he’d soon be promoted into something called knowledge management at the medical equipment firm. He would rise. He was forgetting their years when they’d worked a pushcart in fresh air, selling Middle Eastern food so they could get home by three and do what they really wanted to do—make art, play music. Not get trapped, as they used to say.
94 � did he have to take the pain of the present and inject it into the past so that all memory was rendered suspect?
142 - ”Are you telling me you’re lonely in your marriage to Neeni, too?�
“Let’s just say I feel like most of me is shelved away at least half of the time. Maybe more. But that’s life! We got kids. They’re demanding as hell! Even when I was with Danielle, before kids, we had the stress of shitty jobs. Basically what happens, unless you’re rich as hell, is you just pour yourself into making it through the days. The days zap you, and you can’t expect to come home to some kind of love nest, since the days are zapping her too.
…”Let’s just say I feel like we all have to be who we are, no matter who you’re with. That it doesn’t matter in the end. You get zapped. You think one woman’s not the right one. So you go shopping for another, and for a while she’ll seem like a lucky charm. You get a lot of action, you get some sweet talk over coffee in the morning. But then it goes back to just getting by. And one day you say to yourself, whether I’m here or there, whether it’s this woman or that woman, my balls will eventually be kicked and I’ll still be the man in the mirror.
…Ben considered saying good-bye and hanging up. Instead he took a deep breath, waited, then said, “Murphy, you should really talk to Neeni about this. You shouldn’t just go through the years feeling lonely.�
Murphy laughed. “Who said? Who said that wasn’t exactly what most people do, whether they’re married or not? Ever hear of the human condition?�
“This is where romanticizing your pain gets you, Murph. You’re a guy who hides in your bathroom.�
“I love my bathroom. It has everything I need.� Murphy laughed. “When we hang up, I get to sit on my throne with Calvin and Hobbes. The door is locked. This is the secret to happiness, brother.
Ben laughed, with a sinking sensation, since part of him suspected this might be true.
155 � Ben understood that the house of childhood cast a spell, gave her a form of multiple personality disorder, rendered her all the ages she had ever been inside of its walls. Without him, how was she to navigate the collision of selves? He’d seemed to love those selves, had lifted photographs out of albums and taken them for his own possessions: a picture of her when she was fat, bald baby: her second-grade school picture where she’d tried to look like she had extreme buckteeth like her friend Kenny Walters, who kept mice in a Barbie castle; and a photograph of her fourteen-year-old self in black cowboy boots, holding her pet rabbit, Zorro. Ben had framed this last one. Now it seemed to her he’d rejected not just the self she was now, but all those other people too. The ones whose ghosts still haunted the old house.
160 � Why did old wounds still seem present in the body, in the way that happiness did not? Why couldn’t happiness leave the same deep traces?
5 Days in May
They met in a hurricane
Standing in the shelter out of the rain
She tucked a note into his hand
Later on they took his car
Drove on down where the beaches are
He wrote her name in the sand
Never even let go of her hand
Somehow they stayed that way
For those 5 days in May
Made all the stars around them shine
Funny how you can look in vain
Living on nerves and such sweet pain
The loneliness that cuts so fine
To find the face you've seen a thousand times
Sometimes the world begins
To set you up on your feet again
And ohh it wipes the tears from your eyes
How will you ever know
The way that circumstances go
Oh its going to hit you by surprise
But I know my past
You were there
In everything I've done
You are the one
Looking back its hard to tell
Why they stood while others fell
Spend your life working it out
All I know is one cloudy day
They both just ran away
Rain on the windshield heading South
Oh she loved the lines around his mouth
Sometimes the world begins
To set you up on your feet again
And oh it wipes the tears from your eyes
How will you ever know
The way that circumstances go
Oh it’s going to hit you by surprise
But I know my past
You were there
In everything I've done
You are the one
February 7, 2012
First You Try Everything reminds me of opening a Wal-Mart package and finding a Tiffany bracelet inside. It’s unexpected and it shines.
I expected something else: a quirky book about a woman who is driven over the edge by a cheating husband and an impending divorce. Instead, this book is about two good people who are no longer good together and it authentically mines the emotions that ensue from that decision
Evvie is an emotionally fragile woman, the victim of a wounded childhood, who marries a man named Ben, who is similarly mining his childhood issues. Together, they form a life that is based on passionate idealism. But eventually, Ben grows up; he takes a “real job� and begins to stake out a different kind of destiny. He is convinced he has to “go it alone.�
Since Ben was Evvie’s “everything�, she is unable to cope with his decision. As one of Evvie’s friends says, “It affects everyone. I mean, how are you supposed to have a community?� In a particularly poignant passage, Evvie reflects, “Ben had been her skin. Ben had understood that the house of childhood cast a spell, gave her a form of multiple personality disorder, rendered her all the ages she had ever been inside of its wall. Without him, how was she to navigate the collision of selves?�
The insights that Jane McCafferty renders are stunning in their authenticity. Evvie and Ben are flawed but sympathetic people, who must cope with the fall-out of leaving someone who has salvaged them from childhood dysfunction and who holds the key to their past and present lives. Ben wonders, “This girl in her twenties, the person she’d been � did she survive inside of the woman who’d broken into his place and said his heart was black ice?� As readers, we understand that these two are not meant to be together at this juncture in life but we wish they could find a way, all the same. That’s a difficult feat for an author to pull off.
I am very close to giving this book five stars because I loved most of it. However, Jane McCafferty doesn’t seem to trust in her own instincts. Evvie eventually gambles on an off-the-wall scheme to get Ben back once and for all and the first note of inauthenticity appears. One of the minor characters, Ranjeev � the only one who is awarded his own chapter other than the two of them � also doesn’t seem fleshed out enough. Don’t let these minor flaws stop you. This is a wonderful book and deserves a strong readership.
I expected something else: a quirky book about a woman who is driven over the edge by a cheating husband and an impending divorce. Instead, this book is about two good people who are no longer good together and it authentically mines the emotions that ensue from that decision
Evvie is an emotionally fragile woman, the victim of a wounded childhood, who marries a man named Ben, who is similarly mining his childhood issues. Together, they form a life that is based on passionate idealism. But eventually, Ben grows up; he takes a “real job� and begins to stake out a different kind of destiny. He is convinced he has to “go it alone.�
Since Ben was Evvie’s “everything�, she is unable to cope with his decision. As one of Evvie’s friends says, “It affects everyone. I mean, how are you supposed to have a community?� In a particularly poignant passage, Evvie reflects, “Ben had been her skin. Ben had understood that the house of childhood cast a spell, gave her a form of multiple personality disorder, rendered her all the ages she had ever been inside of its wall. Without him, how was she to navigate the collision of selves?�
The insights that Jane McCafferty renders are stunning in their authenticity. Evvie and Ben are flawed but sympathetic people, who must cope with the fall-out of leaving someone who has salvaged them from childhood dysfunction and who holds the key to their past and present lives. Ben wonders, “This girl in her twenties, the person she’d been � did she survive inside of the woman who’d broken into his place and said his heart was black ice?� As readers, we understand that these two are not meant to be together at this juncture in life but we wish they could find a way, all the same. That’s a difficult feat for an author to pull off.
I am very close to giving this book five stars because I loved most of it. However, Jane McCafferty doesn’t seem to trust in her own instincts. Evvie eventually gambles on an off-the-wall scheme to get Ben back once and for all and the first note of inauthenticity appears. One of the minor characters, Ranjeev � the only one who is awarded his own chapter other than the two of them � also doesn’t seem fleshed out enough. Don’t let these minor flaws stop you. This is a wonderful book and deserves a strong readership.
July 10, 2016
What do you do when love dies? Not your partner, but the love between you and your partner? Do you sink into despair and adopt the ways of the sorrowed? Do you try to "win" your partner back by trying to be all the things you think you partner wants you to be? If you're Evvie Muldoone, a 41 year old wife in Pittsburgh, you do all the above, plus a little more. It's the "little more" that gets Evvie into a bit of trouble. Jane McCafferty's first novel, "First You Try Everything", is a story about love and the death of that love, and the times that come after.
Evvie Muldoone and her husband, Ben, have been married 20 or so years when the story opens. They've been hippies and carefree, vegans, and always feeling vaguely responsible for the world around them. They're best friends, who've made their own world. Unable to have children, they're satisfied with their life together. But Ben begins to feel that something's missing. Feeling the lack of a "real" job - he and Evvie'd previously run a food cart together - and looking at the settled world around him, Ben gets a "real" job and begins to dress and think the part. Business suits take the place of LL Bean and a new-found responsibility to work makes him think seriously about himself and the still-flaky Evvie. They grow apart and Ben decides to leave Evvie for an indeterminate period to think things through. He also meets a divorced mother with whom he moves in. His life moves on while Evvie's stays the same, and she becomes sickened by the pain of it all. She continues her semi-career of making documentaries, but is never serious about much.
As Ben Muldoone makes his way in the real world, Evvie descends into a sort of madness. Her interactions with her brother - a sort of sad-sack with whom she lives - and the other, peripheral people in her life cannot help her accept the situation she now finds herself in. She tries one mad act to try to get Ben back.
Jane McCafferty draws her main characters, Ben, Evvie, Lauren, and Cedric with a loving touch. No one's all bad or all good; all are nuanced portrayals of people in flux. The side characters are also well written. The plot is never really far-fetched and the reader can see why Ben and Evvie act as they do. They are simply all of us who have gone through the death of a love we once held dear. Very good book, and I'll look forward to McCafferty's next one.
Evvie Muldoone and her husband, Ben, have been married 20 or so years when the story opens. They've been hippies and carefree, vegans, and always feeling vaguely responsible for the world around them. They're best friends, who've made their own world. Unable to have children, they're satisfied with their life together. But Ben begins to feel that something's missing. Feeling the lack of a "real" job - he and Evvie'd previously run a food cart together - and looking at the settled world around him, Ben gets a "real" job and begins to dress and think the part. Business suits take the place of LL Bean and a new-found responsibility to work makes him think seriously about himself and the still-flaky Evvie. They grow apart and Ben decides to leave Evvie for an indeterminate period to think things through. He also meets a divorced mother with whom he moves in. His life moves on while Evvie's stays the same, and she becomes sickened by the pain of it all. She continues her semi-career of making documentaries, but is never serious about much.
As Ben Muldoone makes his way in the real world, Evvie descends into a sort of madness. Her interactions with her brother - a sort of sad-sack with whom she lives - and the other, peripheral people in her life cannot help her accept the situation she now finds herself in. She tries one mad act to try to get Ben back.
Jane McCafferty draws her main characters, Ben, Evvie, Lauren, and Cedric with a loving touch. No one's all bad or all good; all are nuanced portrayals of people in flux. The side characters are also well written. The plot is never really far-fetched and the reader can see why Ben and Evvie act as they do. They are simply all of us who have gone through the death of a love we once held dear. Very good book, and I'll look forward to McCafferty's next one.
July 18, 2016
A unique story of a marriage, separation and the psychological intrigue of obsessive love: "First You Try Everything" written by award winning novelist and short story writer Jane McCafferty.
After 16 years of marriage, Evvie was stunned when her husband Ben announced he had grown in "unexpected" ways and rented an apartment in a nearby vicinity, leaving her. Frantically she pleads: "No Ben, I'm sorry! Ben, I'm sorry! I'm sorry for everything! I'll calm down, I'll change, I'll go on meds, I'll go to a marriage counselor, a therapist, whatever you want, I promise!"
Ben was trying to exit his marriage as kindly and gracefully as possible, offering to pay some of Evvie's living expenses. Naturally, the marriage had several problems including Evvie's (likely mildly autistic) brother Cedric who lived in the attic of their rented house. They all seemed to have a good cordial relationships, though not much privacy as a married couple.
The story alternated between Evvie's viewpoint and Ben's. We learn that they both met in college, had dysfunctional unhappy childhoods, and shared a love of music. Evvie was an animal rights activist and clearly suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness, to the point of delusion. Clueless that Ben was involved with Lauren, a woman who worked near his office where he sold medical supplies. Evvie was convinced and determined that Ben would return to her. With two very strange con men, Evvie concocted a disjointed bizarre plan that would help her gain Ben's attention, and to her way of thinking might facilitate his return.
Although this was a unique story because of the psychological theme, towards the end of the book it seemed as if something was missing. Ben's relationship with Lauren was significant, yet it was described in vague fleeting moments throughout the story. Cedric's character was written about in a similar manner, and as with Lauren's character, was under developed. Some of the storylines McCafferty chose to write more about were less than interesting: an example was Lauren's daughter Ramona, which seemed to hint how much Ben wanted to be a father. The story was interesting overall despite the intense focus on Evvie's odd unusual behavior and thought process. 3* GOOD.
After 16 years of marriage, Evvie was stunned when her husband Ben announced he had grown in "unexpected" ways and rented an apartment in a nearby vicinity, leaving her. Frantically she pleads: "No Ben, I'm sorry! Ben, I'm sorry! I'm sorry for everything! I'll calm down, I'll change, I'll go on meds, I'll go to a marriage counselor, a therapist, whatever you want, I promise!"
Ben was trying to exit his marriage as kindly and gracefully as possible, offering to pay some of Evvie's living expenses. Naturally, the marriage had several problems including Evvie's (likely mildly autistic) brother Cedric who lived in the attic of their rented house. They all seemed to have a good cordial relationships, though not much privacy as a married couple.
The story alternated between Evvie's viewpoint and Ben's. We learn that they both met in college, had dysfunctional unhappy childhoods, and shared a love of music. Evvie was an animal rights activist and clearly suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness, to the point of delusion. Clueless that Ben was involved with Lauren, a woman who worked near his office where he sold medical supplies. Evvie was convinced and determined that Ben would return to her. With two very strange con men, Evvie concocted a disjointed bizarre plan that would help her gain Ben's attention, and to her way of thinking might facilitate his return.
Although this was a unique story because of the psychological theme, towards the end of the book it seemed as if something was missing. Ben's relationship with Lauren was significant, yet it was described in vague fleeting moments throughout the story. Cedric's character was written about in a similar manner, and as with Lauren's character, was under developed. Some of the storylines McCafferty chose to write more about were less than interesting: an example was Lauren's daughter Ramona, which seemed to hint how much Ben wanted to be a father. The story was interesting overall despite the intense focus on Evvie's odd unusual behavior and thought process. 3* GOOD.
February 17, 2024
While I found the story and writing interesting enough, and I wanted to know how things worked out, I did not really like this book. I'm not sure if the author meant for Evvie to be a sympathetic character, but I found her to be silly, self-involved and insensitive. Even her love for animals and tireless efforts to campaign for their rights came off as selfish indulgence. I understood why Ben had had enough of her and I felt no sympathy for her; her attempts to "get him back" were cringe inducing. The religious notes were somewhat perplexing in addition to the mystical elements. I didn't really understand the two characters Evvie later employed and felt the author built them up so much in the story only to be summarily dropped. Also, Evvie's attempts at filmmaking were just plain weird and her relationship with the store clerk was very poorly drawn. It seems as though there was a lot of good stuff in this story, but the author didn't know or care enough to develop it.
May 14, 2012
It is hard for women, as I'm sure everyone knows.
If you don't try and save your marriage, you are a coward.
If you try and save your marriage with desperation, you are needy and clingy, and that's almost worse.
The main character of this book, Evvie Muldoone, is the latter. At least, that is how I'm seeing her perceived in these reviews. I saw so much of myself in her that I could not hate her character. Nor did I hate the character of Ben.
Evvie is someone who feels too much and dreams too big. Someone who probably needs to see a psychiatrist but has always refused to go as the result of one bad experience. Her husband, Ben, has begun to find solace with another woman and tells Evvie he is seeking a divorce. To people like Evvie (and me), this is unacceptable. She believes they are meant for each other, and so they will come back to each other in the end.
The only problem is that Ben does not see things this way. He revels in the fact that Lauren is the exact opposite of Evvie. She would never crawl through someone's window and force that person to take her back. But Evvie is driven by a love that will not die; a kind of madness. She is one of those people who sees herself doing things she cannot stop.
When it becomes increasingly clear that Ben will not come back to Evvie, she does one last thing that has irreparable consequences. This is where the book gets a surreal, but I can see how someone with her unhinged mental state could do what she did. Evvie meets two guys on the subway (your first warning alarm) who claim that they reunite couples for a living. Even after they tell Evvie they are ex-cons (another warning), something about them just seems so gentle and kind to her. Mind you, she first meets with them in daylight. Anyone can change their stripes at night. They tell Evvie it will all just be a bit of acting, a bit of theater... they ultimately kidnap her and Ben at his workplace and force them to swim naked in a river and then take them to a warehouse.
The ironic thing is that for a while Ben really does seem to want Evvie back. Throughout this whole ordeal he can only think of their times together and how Lauren is now a distant memory. But this whole thing has the exact opposite effect on Evvie. She finally realizes that she only wants him to be happy, and he'll never be happy with her. She also realizes how much she needs help, and after telling Ben that she was the one who hired the men, she lets him drive her to the hospital and checks herself in.
When she sees him in the last chapter she wishes that he knew her now that she is a better person. It's a familiar pang for me... so many people only saw my crazy side, and I just wish I could prove them wrong now. Life doesn't work that way. Evvie finds peace, and Ben has a daughter with Lauren.
I think a lot of the negative reviews on here may also stem from the fact that Evvie and Ben are in their mid-40s. But, seriously, have you ever known an adult who was not flawed in some major way? I think it's a misconception that these people should know how to handle themselves with dignity and grace. In the end, we all have two-year-old flesh. We want what we want when we want it. And letting go of a marriage and a love... it's no easy feat. I think everyone who comes out of those types of situations unscathed are very, very lucky.
If you don't try and save your marriage, you are a coward.
If you try and save your marriage with desperation, you are needy and clingy, and that's almost worse.
The main character of this book, Evvie Muldoone, is the latter. At least, that is how I'm seeing her perceived in these reviews. I saw so much of myself in her that I could not hate her character. Nor did I hate the character of Ben.
Evvie is someone who feels too much and dreams too big. Someone who probably needs to see a psychiatrist but has always refused to go as the result of one bad experience. Her husband, Ben, has begun to find solace with another woman and tells Evvie he is seeking a divorce. To people like Evvie (and me), this is unacceptable. She believes they are meant for each other, and so they will come back to each other in the end.
The only problem is that Ben does not see things this way. He revels in the fact that Lauren is the exact opposite of Evvie. She would never crawl through someone's window and force that person to take her back. But Evvie is driven by a love that will not die; a kind of madness. She is one of those people who sees herself doing things she cannot stop.
When it becomes increasingly clear that Ben will not come back to Evvie, she does one last thing that has irreparable consequences. This is where the book gets a surreal, but I can see how someone with her unhinged mental state could do what she did. Evvie meets two guys on the subway (your first warning alarm) who claim that they reunite couples for a living. Even after they tell Evvie they are ex-cons (another warning), something about them just seems so gentle and kind to her. Mind you, she first meets with them in daylight. Anyone can change their stripes at night. They tell Evvie it will all just be a bit of acting, a bit of theater... they ultimately kidnap her and Ben at his workplace and force them to swim naked in a river and then take them to a warehouse.
The ironic thing is that for a while Ben really does seem to want Evvie back. Throughout this whole ordeal he can only think of their times together and how Lauren is now a distant memory. But this whole thing has the exact opposite effect on Evvie. She finally realizes that she only wants him to be happy, and he'll never be happy with her. She also realizes how much she needs help, and after telling Ben that she was the one who hired the men, she lets him drive her to the hospital and checks herself in.
When she sees him in the last chapter she wishes that he knew her now that she is a better person. It's a familiar pang for me... so many people only saw my crazy side, and I just wish I could prove them wrong now. Life doesn't work that way. Evvie finds peace, and Ben has a daughter with Lauren.
I think a lot of the negative reviews on here may also stem from the fact that Evvie and Ben are in their mid-40s. But, seriously, have you ever known an adult who was not flawed in some major way? I think it's a misconception that these people should know how to handle themselves with dignity and grace. In the end, we all have two-year-old flesh. We want what we want when we want it. And letting go of a marriage and a love... it's no easy feat. I think everyone who comes out of those types of situations unscathed are very, very lucky.
October 6, 2012
I stayed up late reading this last night, hungry to find out what happens in the end--and then I couldn't sleep, thinking about how perfect it is.
This isn't another book about a divorce. It's told with wit and a rare ability to present two sides of a story so effectively that you find yourself rooting for both people.
McCafferty tells the story of a husband and wife, but she laces in childhood, courtship, marriage and career so deftly that you suddenly understand who each is to the bone, and why they do what they do.
Then, hang on! Halfway through the book, things take a desperate turn. Just when you think you know what the wife is capable of doing, she shocks you--and herself.
This isn't another book about a divorce. It's told with wit and a rare ability to present two sides of a story so effectively that you find yourself rooting for both people.
McCafferty tells the story of a husband and wife, but she laces in childhood, courtship, marriage and career so deftly that you suddenly understand who each is to the bone, and why they do what they do.
Then, hang on! Halfway through the book, things take a desperate turn. Just when you think you know what the wife is capable of doing, she shocks you--and herself.
January 10, 2012
I started reading this book and found I could not put it down until I finished the book. It was impossible to for me to quit reading until I found out what happened to the main characters. Any book which keeps my interest late into the night is extraordinary.
February 2, 2012
When I was offered the opportunity to read First You Try Everything by Jane McCafferty, I immediately said yes based on one single fact � I loved the cover. Knowing that the book was about the dissolution of a marriage, the cover art on the book jacket is just genius. You can see it to the left, there � six rows of musical staves slowly unraveling. The coloration of the title’s font also changes � starting as a rosy pinkish red and ending as a deep maroon with a decidedly blood-like quality. If the dust jacket told such a great story, surely the novel beyond wouldn’t disappoint. And yes, I will totally read a book based on its cover art � guilty as charged.
“She hardly slept at all for the next three days. Each day she felt a little more unhinged. In certain moments, she was like a tightrope walker, the one who never should’ve been in that business, the one who falls down and looks back up at the rope and thinks, No way. Never again. I’m staying right here for the rest of my life. And then climbs back up.�
Ben and Evvie met and fell in love during college � a time when they were bound and linked by their similarities. Now in their early forties, something has gone wrong. Ben confronts Evvie, tells her he’s leaving her, and moves out hoping to share custody of their dog as they were never able to have children. Stunned, Evvie stoically enters the denial stage of grief, begins plotting outlandish schemes to get Ben to come home, and completely loses her grip on reality. Meanwhile, Ben is doing his best to juggle his own grief and guilt over Evvie’s obvious slide into mental illness while beginning a new relationship with a woman who’s the absolute antithesis of his first wife. And oh, the shenanigans that follow!
First and foremost, First You Try Everything was a complete win for me, but my reading was framed and influenced by something currently taking place in my personal life. My parents are going through a not-so-pretty divorce after 37 years of marriage and my mom is devastated in a major way. So what this means is that Evvie’s character, no matter how crazy she seems or the outrageous things she does that many readers won’t find realistic, is spot on. I love how McCafferty shows how Evvie’s passions become obsessions because she’s doing everything in her power to make sense out of her situation and gain some sort of control over these larger world problems since she’s lost any control she ever tenuously had over her own life. When everything you’ve ever known is ripped out from underneath you, when the co-dependent relationship you’ve defined yourself with has suddenly vanished, your sanity won’t be far behind.
That being said, Evvie isn’t entirely innocent and Ben isn’t really the villain. The story switches every chapter between their viewpoints which serves the novel well. Just when you think Ben is irredeemable, you realize how deeply he’s loved Evvie to the point of ignoring his own happiness � and just when you’re ready to cart Evvie off to the loony bin, she gives you a nugget of truth and clarity that stops you dead while you spend several minutes re-reading her observation. McCafferty’s ability to dig inside the psychological foundations of marriage, human connection, and how easy it is to lose ourselves in other people is simply amazing.
“For these visits home, Ben had been her skin. Ben had understood that the house of childhood cast a spell, gave her a form of multiple personality disorder, rendered her all the ages she had ever been inside of its walls. Without him, how was she to navigate the collision of selves? He’d seemed to love those selves, had lifted photographs out of an album and taken them for his own possessions…Now it seemed to her he’d rejected not just the self she was now, but all those other people too. The ones whose ghosts still haunted the old house.�
Despite the rather dour atmosphere I’ve described above, First You Try Everything is rich with a dry, witty, dark humor that keeps the story from drowning in its own bleakness. And while the novel doesn’t end with everything all peachy keen and promises of happily ever after, Evvie and Ben have both begun their journey from rock bottom with nothing but possibilities and hope for the future � with or without each other (you’ll just have to read to discover which!).
So, if you enjoyed Stewart O’Nan’s, The Odds, or the movie, Blue Valentine, I think you’ll find something to enjoy here. Also, this novel seems tailor made for book groups and will look lovely on your shelves!
“She hardly slept at all for the next three days. Each day she felt a little more unhinged. In certain moments, she was like a tightrope walker, the one who never should’ve been in that business, the one who falls down and looks back up at the rope and thinks, No way. Never again. I’m staying right here for the rest of my life. And then climbs back up.�
Ben and Evvie met and fell in love during college � a time when they were bound and linked by their similarities. Now in their early forties, something has gone wrong. Ben confronts Evvie, tells her he’s leaving her, and moves out hoping to share custody of their dog as they were never able to have children. Stunned, Evvie stoically enters the denial stage of grief, begins plotting outlandish schemes to get Ben to come home, and completely loses her grip on reality. Meanwhile, Ben is doing his best to juggle his own grief and guilt over Evvie’s obvious slide into mental illness while beginning a new relationship with a woman who’s the absolute antithesis of his first wife. And oh, the shenanigans that follow!
First and foremost, First You Try Everything was a complete win for me, but my reading was framed and influenced by something currently taking place in my personal life. My parents are going through a not-so-pretty divorce after 37 years of marriage and my mom is devastated in a major way. So what this means is that Evvie’s character, no matter how crazy she seems or the outrageous things she does that many readers won’t find realistic, is spot on. I love how McCafferty shows how Evvie’s passions become obsessions because she’s doing everything in her power to make sense out of her situation and gain some sort of control over these larger world problems since she’s lost any control she ever tenuously had over her own life. When everything you’ve ever known is ripped out from underneath you, when the co-dependent relationship you’ve defined yourself with has suddenly vanished, your sanity won’t be far behind.
That being said, Evvie isn’t entirely innocent and Ben isn’t really the villain. The story switches every chapter between their viewpoints which serves the novel well. Just when you think Ben is irredeemable, you realize how deeply he’s loved Evvie to the point of ignoring his own happiness � and just when you’re ready to cart Evvie off to the loony bin, she gives you a nugget of truth and clarity that stops you dead while you spend several minutes re-reading her observation. McCafferty’s ability to dig inside the psychological foundations of marriage, human connection, and how easy it is to lose ourselves in other people is simply amazing.
“For these visits home, Ben had been her skin. Ben had understood that the house of childhood cast a spell, gave her a form of multiple personality disorder, rendered her all the ages she had ever been inside of its walls. Without him, how was she to navigate the collision of selves? He’d seemed to love those selves, had lifted photographs out of an album and taken them for his own possessions…Now it seemed to her he’d rejected not just the self she was now, but all those other people too. The ones whose ghosts still haunted the old house.�
Despite the rather dour atmosphere I’ve described above, First You Try Everything is rich with a dry, witty, dark humor that keeps the story from drowning in its own bleakness. And while the novel doesn’t end with everything all peachy keen and promises of happily ever after, Evvie and Ben have both begun their journey from rock bottom with nothing but possibilities and hope for the future � with or without each other (you’ll just have to read to discover which!).
So, if you enjoyed Stewart O’Nan’s, The Odds, or the movie, Blue Valentine, I think you’ll find something to enjoy here. Also, this novel seems tailor made for book groups and will look lovely on your shelves!
August 24, 2016
I am in awe of Jane McCafferty’s writing. It is deft and deceptively simple. Every page is full of fresh, touching details and clever phrases. This story is light-hearted and serious, funny and heartbreaking. It is never showy or mannered or labored.
The plot moves along well and ends with a satisfying blend of surprise and inevitability. It is well structured with great twists and permanent, wrenching consequences. McCafferty is never overly dramatic; rather, she uses well observed, small details and action to convey deep, genuine emotion.
Right from the start, I loved how she handled the tension of opposites, blinding her characters to the subtleties of both/and. They are stuck in the oversimplification of either/or, and aren’t we all? Especially with the Big Things like fidelity, happiness, kindness and success.
A good example is the all-or-nothing, black/white ways that people respond to and debate a complex issue like animal cruelty. The attitude that we are at the top of the food chain so of course we can do whatever we want. It's our right! And no one can take that away! Most people don’t see the vast middle ground at all. And a well-meaning woman like the main character, Evvie, can easily slip into righteousness and become tedious even to those who love her.
McCafferty’s fondness for all her characters is contagious. She lovingly observes everything that makes them tick—their childhoods, longings, gripes, ways of seeing the world, how they respond in a crisis, the knife’s edge of choices they make in reaching for happiness.
You feel how difficult it is for Evvie to know that everything, all of life, is interconnected, and sill have to function in a deluded, destructive, cruel world. She feels too much and it makes her a little nuts. Her husband, Ben, is also sympathetic. He deserves to be content and secure. If he can bear no longer the weight of being his wife’s only friend and confidante, who can blame him? If he wants to give in to the pull to conform to societal norms of success and comfort, why shouldn’t he?
McCafferty gives us Ben’s inner turmoil, his conflicted coping and dogged optimism, right up to the pure terror that gives him such a perfect and fleeting moment of clear insight. It is impossible to simplify his choices. They are presented in all their complexity and contradiction and (unintentional but inevitable) cruelty to Evvie. The lack of blame or interpretation shows beautiful restraint. It’s up to us to make our own meanings from this story.
For such a subtle book, there are big themes here, including several thoughtful conversations about God that, again, are refreshingly devoid of preaching or leading the reader to any particular conclusion. We humans have imperfect ways of dancing with love in all its forms—human, divine, and everything in between. The ways we deal with its demands, it darkness and power. How we tune it out and numb out and choose safety because feeling too much is frightening and potentially annihilating. Those who idolize love (and we all do it) will surely stumble and fall, dragging those we love most down with us. And yet there is room in the heart for both the pain and the promise of love.
The plot moves along well and ends with a satisfying blend of surprise and inevitability. It is well structured with great twists and permanent, wrenching consequences. McCafferty is never overly dramatic; rather, she uses well observed, small details and action to convey deep, genuine emotion.
Right from the start, I loved how she handled the tension of opposites, blinding her characters to the subtleties of both/and. They are stuck in the oversimplification of either/or, and aren’t we all? Especially with the Big Things like fidelity, happiness, kindness and success.
A good example is the all-or-nothing, black/white ways that people respond to and debate a complex issue like animal cruelty. The attitude that we are at the top of the food chain so of course we can do whatever we want. It's our right! And no one can take that away! Most people don’t see the vast middle ground at all. And a well-meaning woman like the main character, Evvie, can easily slip into righteousness and become tedious even to those who love her.
McCafferty’s fondness for all her characters is contagious. She lovingly observes everything that makes them tick—their childhoods, longings, gripes, ways of seeing the world, how they respond in a crisis, the knife’s edge of choices they make in reaching for happiness.
You feel how difficult it is for Evvie to know that everything, all of life, is interconnected, and sill have to function in a deluded, destructive, cruel world. She feels too much and it makes her a little nuts. Her husband, Ben, is also sympathetic. He deserves to be content and secure. If he can bear no longer the weight of being his wife’s only friend and confidante, who can blame him? If he wants to give in to the pull to conform to societal norms of success and comfort, why shouldn’t he?
McCafferty gives us Ben’s inner turmoil, his conflicted coping and dogged optimism, right up to the pure terror that gives him such a perfect and fleeting moment of clear insight. It is impossible to simplify his choices. They are presented in all their complexity and contradiction and (unintentional but inevitable) cruelty to Evvie. The lack of blame or interpretation shows beautiful restraint. It’s up to us to make our own meanings from this story.
For such a subtle book, there are big themes here, including several thoughtful conversations about God that, again, are refreshingly devoid of preaching or leading the reader to any particular conclusion. We humans have imperfect ways of dancing with love in all its forms—human, divine, and everything in between. The ways we deal with its demands, it darkness and power. How we tune it out and numb out and choose safety because feeling too much is frightening and potentially annihilating. Those who idolize love (and we all do it) will surely stumble and fall, dragging those we love most down with us. And yet there is room in the heart for both the pain and the promise of love.
January 17, 2012
Evvie and Ben are a middle aged couple that have drifted apart. They don’t have children and live quite separate lives. Separate enough for Ben to start an affair with Lauren, a single mother.
Not much later, he moves out and Evvie is left on her own. She doesn’t know Ben has found someone else and expects them to get back together again. She phones and visits him much more often than he is happy with.
She is desperate get back together and eventually, she finds a drastic way to get Ben back again.
The book is told form the perspectives of Evvie and Ben, and, in one chapter, from a secondary character’s view.
This book was both interesting and depressing. It took me a long time to start caring a little for Evvie. She’s strange, even before she falls apart. She was rather childish and dependent and I couldn’t connect with her at all.
Ben was a more reasonable character that I could understand. I think he could have tried a bit harder to stay with Evvie, but as she was acting rather odd, it was no surprise that he left her. He still cared for her (and probably felt guilty) and was patient with her when she phoned or came by his work or new home.
Evvie’s solution to get Ben back was very original but clearly something you’d only find in a book. Ben’s reaction, again, was very natural and reasonable, I thought.
I liked the ending, when Evvie developed an unlikely friendship.
Not for the newly-divorced, this book gives insight in the breakdown of a marriage and the consequent breakdown of one of the ex-partners. A well-written emotional roller coaster.
Not much later, he moves out and Evvie is left on her own. She doesn’t know Ben has found someone else and expects them to get back together again. She phones and visits him much more often than he is happy with.
She is desperate get back together and eventually, she finds a drastic way to get Ben back again.
The book is told form the perspectives of Evvie and Ben, and, in one chapter, from a secondary character’s view.
This book was both interesting and depressing. It took me a long time to start caring a little for Evvie. She’s strange, even before she falls apart. She was rather childish and dependent and I couldn’t connect with her at all.
Ben was a more reasonable character that I could understand. I think he could have tried a bit harder to stay with Evvie, but as she was acting rather odd, it was no surprise that he left her. He still cared for her (and probably felt guilty) and was patient with her when she phoned or came by his work or new home.
Evvie’s solution to get Ben back was very original but clearly something you’d only find in a book. Ben’s reaction, again, was very natural and reasonable, I thought.
I liked the ending, when Evvie developed an unlikely friendship.
Not for the newly-divorced, this book gives insight in the breakdown of a marriage and the consequent breakdown of one of the ex-partners. A well-written emotional roller coaster.
July 27, 2012
This was a pleasant surprise. Once more I am victim to the skinny shelf of newish books in my ghetto library - I grabbed this with no preconceived notion and figured it might be horrible; it was actually - while by no means outstanding and by many means rather strange - a decent read with some real nice gems in there.
As one GR reader put it, I too am curious/gossipy about relationships - I don't know, somehow the interactions and dynamics of other people have always fascinated me, and all the more so now that I am married. This book is an inside look into a couple who, after sixteen years, have fallen into the slump that seems all too common. Evvie is a rather off kilter, melodramatic and slightly crazy person (she was a little too off for my taste but kudos to McCafferty for creating such a zany character; it was definitely a good thing for me to study as a writer) and her husband Ben is someone who feels he has lost himself in this marriage, that what had been charming is now irritating, and he has struck up a friendship with the calmer, cooler Lauren who now haunts him as an out from Evvie's zaniness.
A separation ensues, which has Evvie on edge and Ben mostly relieved until his time with Lauren begins to tarnish as well.
This book was wacky and might have been better as a short story, but every few pages there was a turn of phrase or insight that I just adored. There were real gems in here, if you can just go along for the ride.
As one GR reader put it, I too am curious/gossipy about relationships - I don't know, somehow the interactions and dynamics of other people have always fascinated me, and all the more so now that I am married. This book is an inside look into a couple who, after sixteen years, have fallen into the slump that seems all too common. Evvie is a rather off kilter, melodramatic and slightly crazy person (she was a little too off for my taste but kudos to McCafferty for creating such a zany character; it was definitely a good thing for me to study as a writer) and her husband Ben is someone who feels he has lost himself in this marriage, that what had been charming is now irritating, and he has struck up a friendship with the calmer, cooler Lauren who now haunts him as an out from Evvie's zaniness.
A separation ensues, which has Evvie on edge and Ben mostly relieved until his time with Lauren begins to tarnish as well.
This book was wacky and might have been better as a short story, but every few pages there was a turn of phrase or insight that I just adored. There were real gems in here, if you can just go along for the ride.
June 7, 2012
The novel's two POV protagonists, Evvie and Ben, find themselves on the other side of true love: in their early forties, each puzzled by the person their spouse has become. When Ben leaves Evvie for a more emotionally stable woman, Evvie loses her last kite string to earth and begins to look for ways to bring Ben back to her. What results is a potentially violent ploy that is equal parts darkness and innocence.
First You Try Everything is not misty-edged, upmarket women's fiction. It's raw, unpredictable, stripped of the white-collar padding that often collects around marriage-related novels by college professors. Disclosure: Jane McCaffery is a former teacher and friend of mine, and I know her well enough to say that if Kierkegaard, Mother Theresa, and Chuck Palahniuk collaborated on an MFA, you'd get writing a bit like hers.
Evvie and Ben sort their way through nothing less than existence itself, always walking in that wobbly place between self-transcendence and identity. To me, the novel seems to open up the adage, "You know me better than I know myself," and looks at the messy place inside: the absurdity of knowing oneself, the risks of being in love, how scary and beautiful life becomes when you start to pay attention to it.
First You Try Everything is not misty-edged, upmarket women's fiction. It's raw, unpredictable, stripped of the white-collar padding that often collects around marriage-related novels by college professors. Disclosure: Jane McCaffery is a former teacher and friend of mine, and I know her well enough to say that if Kierkegaard, Mother Theresa, and Chuck Palahniuk collaborated on an MFA, you'd get writing a bit like hers.
Evvie and Ben sort their way through nothing less than existence itself, always walking in that wobbly place between self-transcendence and identity. To me, the novel seems to open up the adage, "You know me better than I know myself," and looks at the messy place inside: the absurdity of knowing oneself, the risks of being in love, how scary and beautiful life becomes when you start to pay attention to it.
April 19, 2012
This book is like that parasite that you know is bad for you but you're reluctant to get rid of (you know, the tape worm that will eventually destroy you but in the mean time is making you lose all the weight you've been trying to get rid of?).
I know, really weird analogy.
But it's so true. This book gets all up in your grillz with its unflinching look at love and relationships and how ending a marriage is one of the most difficult things you could ever do. It has this insane ability to mess with your head, because you're all like, crap, this is so TRUE, and sad, and now I'm depressed, so you put it down, and then you pick it back up again because you HAVE to keep reading.
I wanted to hate Ben. I really did. Not for leaving Evvie, but for being so typically...MALE, for his inability to be alone. In the end, though, I just felt bad for him. More so than Evvie, because it was clear from the beginning that woman is all kinds of crazy. He stuck with her for so long, and his piercing moments of sadness were quite poignant.
And it STICKS with you, which makes it even more depressing, so you have to read something fluffy and inane in order to wrench your mind (and heart) back into balance.
I know, really weird analogy.
But it's so true. This book gets all up in your grillz with its unflinching look at love and relationships and how ending a marriage is one of the most difficult things you could ever do. It has this insane ability to mess with your head, because you're all like, crap, this is so TRUE, and sad, and now I'm depressed, so you put it down, and then you pick it back up again because you HAVE to keep reading.
I wanted to hate Ben. I really did. Not for leaving Evvie, but for being so typically...MALE, for his inability to be alone. In the end, though, I just felt bad for him. More so than Evvie, because it was clear from the beginning that woman is all kinds of crazy. He stuck with her for so long, and his piercing moments of sadness were quite poignant.
And it STICKS with you, which makes it even more depressing, so you have to read something fluffy and inane in order to wrench your mind (and heart) back into balance.
April 28, 2012
I loved this book so, so much. Essentially its a story of how love ends and how messy it can become when one takes a little longer to accept the death of a marriage. Desperately sad when there are no bad guys or no 'he done me wrong' tales to tell in order to blame one person, just two people who needed each other once and then one changed and the other one doesn't. Very revelatory moments about the illusion of falling in love, that it really is a kind of 'altered state' that doesn't allow for the messy humanity of the other person, that there are no perfect people to mate with. I empathized with all characters, big and small, in this book and my heart cracked for the powerlessness all of them felt over the all the broken parts of their love that lay at their feet and all that's left to do is move on. There's a real lack of judgement about men & women exiting marriages that I found refreshing in McCafferty's novel. I loved this book so much I just finished reading her first novel 'One Heart' which is lovely,too. I highly recommend First You Try Everything.
January 31, 2013
First of all, thanks to GoodReads First Reads for sending me this book! Probably one of the best books I've won.
I didn't know what to expect, and was completely blown away by the writing: crisp, smart, with great understanding and sympathy for her characters, Jane McCafferty weaves two points of view -
Hers: Evvie, the wife whose eccentric tastes and habits begin to unravel when her husband, Ben, announces he's leaving her.
His: Ben, the husband whose life and values have shifted so far from Evvie's that remaining together seems unthinkable.
Evvie, trying to hold the marriage together, tries on one scheme after another to win her husband back until the final part of the book when she engages with two strangers to take part in a scheme that might, just might, bring her and Ben back together...or destroy them both.
What pulled me in was the storyline, what kept me reading was the strenth and beauty of the writing.
Highly recommended.
I didn't know what to expect, and was completely blown away by the writing: crisp, smart, with great understanding and sympathy for her characters, Jane McCafferty weaves two points of view -
Hers: Evvie, the wife whose eccentric tastes and habits begin to unravel when her husband, Ben, announces he's leaving her.
His: Ben, the husband whose life and values have shifted so far from Evvie's that remaining together seems unthinkable.
Evvie, trying to hold the marriage together, tries on one scheme after another to win her husband back until the final part of the book when she engages with two strangers to take part in a scheme that might, just might, bring her and Ben back together...or destroy them both.
What pulled me in was the storyline, what kept me reading was the strenth and beauty of the writing.
Highly recommended.
February 18, 2012
There are books that are about sad or deep topics that make you think, but don't bring the mood down and then there are books that just quite bring the mood to the pits. This one is of the latter group. What a debbie downer that left me hoping that no one would compare me with Evvie and her crazy antics to get her estranged husband back.
Evvie went to the ends of the earth to try to repair her marriage that was holding on by a string until the string broke. She went above and beyond, hence the title to try to get her husband back in their home and in love with her. I respect her ideas to try to repair, but she did some crazy things.
I rarely read reviews of books before or during reading it, but this one made me stop and see if I was the only one that wasn't enjoying Evvie and her craziness. Maybe I am.
Has anyone else read this? Am I alone in my thoughts?
Evvie went to the ends of the earth to try to repair her marriage that was holding on by a string until the string broke. She went above and beyond, hence the title to try to get her husband back in their home and in love with her. I respect her ideas to try to repair, but she did some crazy things.
I rarely read reviews of books before or during reading it, but this one made me stop and see if I was the only one that wasn't enjoying Evvie and her craziness. Maybe I am.
Has anyone else read this? Am I alone in my thoughts?
February 1, 2012
I got this book in the mail and started reading it. I realized that it was unedited so, most of the books had lots of errors, long paragraphs, and unnecessary wording. It was very creative though. The characters were unlike most characters I've come across in books. They were crazy and psychotic. The whole time I was wondering if it should've been a romantic humor book. I found myself laughing at Evvie way too much. Well, over-all it was decent.
January 13, 2019
This is a beautifully written book about the end of love and about how hard it is to let go. The heroine of the novel, Evvie, is a wonderfully flawed woman who has lost her way in the world and we weep and laugh with her as she tries desperately to hang on to her husband and to find herself in her grief. Evvie is all of us at our most vulnerable and our most poetic.
February 5, 2012
There was something discombobulating about reading this book that made me not like it. The main character Evvie and Ben are a couple with a marriage on the decline. Evvie was clearly insane. So why did Ben like her in the first place ? Neither character was interesting nor relatable to me.
January 20, 2018
I picked this book up because the blurb said "fans of Anne Tyler will enjoy this unpredictable, off-beat novel." Well, yes, it was unpredictable and off-beat.
First You Try Everything is a weird book with two distinct halves. In the first half, we have the story of a faltering marriage between two fascinating individuals. Evvie, the main character, is quirky, fun, and a bit crazy. Nice writing and some interesting turns of phrase ("This all flashed through her like a sneeze"). And then comes the second half-- completely unexpected, completely unbelievable, and quite depressing.
First You Try Everything is a weird book with two distinct halves. In the first half, we have the story of a faltering marriage between two fascinating individuals. Evvie, the main character, is quirky, fun, and a bit crazy. Nice writing and some interesting turns of phrase ("This all flashed through her like a sneeze"). And then comes the second half-- completely unexpected, completely unbelievable, and quite depressing.
December 10, 2019
While this book got off to a slow start, once it got going, I couldn't put it down! I worried for Evvie, even when I'd put the book down for the night. And Ben was not a typical asshole male. He clearly loved her and struggled with their seperation. I ached for this couple and I felt the book ended just about as good as it could have without it being hokey or unrealistic. Beautiful writing and amazing characters! Kudos to Jane for a heart-breaking, lovely book that takes place in the city I love!
September 11, 2021
I wanted to give this book 5 stars from the first 50 pages but oh well I had to wait to finish it to rate it
July 18, 2022
Really wanted to love this book.
April 12, 2025
What an exhausting partner.
January 11, 2012
Prize-winning author Jane McCafferty delivers a wry, engrossing, and provocative tale of the radical chances an anguished woman will take to try to save her crumbling marriage. As love’s loss and the death of dreams push Evie to the edge of obsession and to a spectacularly outlandish scheme, one which will have unexpected consequences for all involved. Following her acclaimed debut novel One Heart, which Elizabeth Strout, author of Amy and Isabelle, calls "a lovely book, full of surprises, with characters that stay in your heart long after the book has been put down," McCafferty’s First You Try Everything is a piercing, surprising, and sympathetic look at the emotional fallout of divorce and the unforeseeable changing tides of love.
My take: I don't even know how to describe this book. The story is told from two different viewpoints. Actually, three because Apu gets a small part, as well. Ben and Evvie have been married for 16 years. Their history is quietly revealed but, essentially, Evvie is a quirky character very much in touch with her Freudian Id. She is endearing and at times frustrating. Yet she is very easy to relate to. She is insecure and feels her husband slipping away. She buries herself in animal rights activism while fighting the societal norms.
Ben was drawn to Evvie for her free spirit and easy way of relating to anybody. She listens to Ben and allows him his feelings. Together they were street vendors in order to stay free from the constraints of middle class. Eventually he found a middle class job and started wearing a suit. His eyes wander and he meets another woman who is completely different from his wife. He enjoys the conversation, the organized way of her life and emotions and allows himself to wander down that path.
The real meat of the story is the exploration by both parties of their emotional journey. Ben feels guilty and torn. He struggles with systematically painting his years with Evvie using the emotions of today then remembering how happy he felt in a certain situation with her. He also feels protective of Evvie from his new lover because he understands Evvie so well. At the same time, he doesn't want Evvie to know about the other woman in order to protect the current relationship, believing it has nothing to do with his cheating on his wife. He was unhappy before. His rationalizations are fascinating, infuriating, and sad. He makes valid points and the reader feels empathy for him to some degree.
Evvie, not knowing what unraveled the marriage, continues being her quirky self. Inside her head we see her wrestling with her feelings, her past, and possible reasons for the marriage problems. Again, the reader empathizes as the author articulates the confusion and the sudden interpretations from past events, coloring the previous 16 years. It is heart breaking and turns into a train wreck where I simply could not look away. Evvie's quirkiness, endearing at first, begins to slowly spiral into areas of insanity. It progresses logically (insanity and logically can be used in the same sentence) and it is evident why she desperately will do anything to get Ben to return to her.
There is an ultimate conflict and it is just the train wreck reaching maximum velocity and the situation gets out of control. Maybe a little on the ridiculous side and I was left wondering what happened to the other players but ultimately the real conflict was whether Evvie's pure soul could live with her manipulations. I wasn't crazy about the ultimate conflict or resolution. I found the story, itself, to be compelling. The author artistically articulates the feelings and thought processes of both parties of a middle-aged marriage.
My take: I don't even know how to describe this book. The story is told from two different viewpoints. Actually, three because Apu gets a small part, as well. Ben and Evvie have been married for 16 years. Their history is quietly revealed but, essentially, Evvie is a quirky character very much in touch with her Freudian Id. She is endearing and at times frustrating. Yet she is very easy to relate to. She is insecure and feels her husband slipping away. She buries herself in animal rights activism while fighting the societal norms.
Ben was drawn to Evvie for her free spirit and easy way of relating to anybody. She listens to Ben and allows him his feelings. Together they were street vendors in order to stay free from the constraints of middle class. Eventually he found a middle class job and started wearing a suit. His eyes wander and he meets another woman who is completely different from his wife. He enjoys the conversation, the organized way of her life and emotions and allows himself to wander down that path.
The real meat of the story is the exploration by both parties of their emotional journey. Ben feels guilty and torn. He struggles with systematically painting his years with Evvie using the emotions of today then remembering how happy he felt in a certain situation with her. He also feels protective of Evvie from his new lover because he understands Evvie so well. At the same time, he doesn't want Evvie to know about the other woman in order to protect the current relationship, believing it has nothing to do with his cheating on his wife. He was unhappy before. His rationalizations are fascinating, infuriating, and sad. He makes valid points and the reader feels empathy for him to some degree.
Evvie, not knowing what unraveled the marriage, continues being her quirky self. Inside her head we see her wrestling with her feelings, her past, and possible reasons for the marriage problems. Again, the reader empathizes as the author articulates the confusion and the sudden interpretations from past events, coloring the previous 16 years. It is heart breaking and turns into a train wreck where I simply could not look away. Evvie's quirkiness, endearing at first, begins to slowly spiral into areas of insanity. It progresses logically (insanity and logically can be used in the same sentence) and it is evident why she desperately will do anything to get Ben to return to her.
There is an ultimate conflict and it is just the train wreck reaching maximum velocity and the situation gets out of control. Maybe a little on the ridiculous side and I was left wondering what happened to the other players but ultimately the real conflict was whether Evvie's pure soul could live with her manipulations. I wasn't crazy about the ultimate conflict or resolution. I found the story, itself, to be compelling. The author artistically articulates the feelings and thought processes of both parties of a middle-aged marriage.
February 28, 2012
First You Try Everything: A Novel is a well-written novel that took me by surprise at how good it was. It is an insightful look into the heart-breaking devastation of lost love from the viewpoint of the two protagonists, Evvie and Ben.
Evvie and Ben have been together for almost 17 years when Ben decides to leave her. It virtually destroys Evvie's already fragile psyche. Evvie is a woman of extremes, highs and lows, introversion and extroversion, independence and dependency. However, she is totally enmeshed with Ben and can not see her life going on without him. Ben, on the other hand, has grown apart from Evvie. Where once they were happy to run a food cart, Ben now has a good job that requires a suit and tie. He may even be promoted at work. Evvie is an animal rights activist, a self-defined documentarian, an advocate for the homeless, and a supporter of various other 'causes'. However, "she was still not a follow-through person, but rather one of those often befuddled souls who seem paralyzed by the exorbitant weight of their own good intentions". "Sometimes the past could rise up so vividly in Evvie, the present would disappear. She was affected enough by the sweep of memory that she'd been prone to things like car accidents (three in one year), and wearing two different shoes...or talking to herself in public (regularly, which was OK, since everyone just imagined she was talking on one of those headset phones.) But still, she knew she wasn't."
Once deeply in love, sharing everything, Ben now finds himself annoyed by the very things about Evvie that he once treasured. And, he has also met someone else who has sparked his interest. Lauren represents everything that is polar opposite to Evvie - she is steady and stable, having boundaries so that Ben has room to try to find out who he is himself. With Evvie, everything had to be shared - every thought, every event that occurred during the day, every lifetime experience.
Once Ben leaves, Evvie becomes unglued and obsessed with getting him back. Her behavior is very unstable and she is in dire need of psychiatric help. People allude to this with her but no one directs her to take that step. She begins to unravel and her behaviors become more and more bizarre and extreme.
I found this book very readable and loved parts of it. What prevents me from giving it a '5' is that I was unable to suspend belief about the initiation of Evvie's plan to get Ben back. It just seemed too improbable. I loved the writing and the story hooked me from the beginning. I felt that I got to know Ben and Evvie very well and that Ms. McCafferty has a superb ability to draw depth and specificity in her characterizations of people. It is definitely a book I would recommend to others and I have just ordered two of the author's other books.
Evvie and Ben have been together for almost 17 years when Ben decides to leave her. It virtually destroys Evvie's already fragile psyche. Evvie is a woman of extremes, highs and lows, introversion and extroversion, independence and dependency. However, she is totally enmeshed with Ben and can not see her life going on without him. Ben, on the other hand, has grown apart from Evvie. Where once they were happy to run a food cart, Ben now has a good job that requires a suit and tie. He may even be promoted at work. Evvie is an animal rights activist, a self-defined documentarian, an advocate for the homeless, and a supporter of various other 'causes'. However, "she was still not a follow-through person, but rather one of those often befuddled souls who seem paralyzed by the exorbitant weight of their own good intentions". "Sometimes the past could rise up so vividly in Evvie, the present would disappear. She was affected enough by the sweep of memory that she'd been prone to things like car accidents (three in one year), and wearing two different shoes...or talking to herself in public (regularly, which was OK, since everyone just imagined she was talking on one of those headset phones.) But still, she knew she wasn't."
Once deeply in love, sharing everything, Ben now finds himself annoyed by the very things about Evvie that he once treasured. And, he has also met someone else who has sparked his interest. Lauren represents everything that is polar opposite to Evvie - she is steady and stable, having boundaries so that Ben has room to try to find out who he is himself. With Evvie, everything had to be shared - every thought, every event that occurred during the day, every lifetime experience.
Once Ben leaves, Evvie becomes unglued and obsessed with getting him back. Her behavior is very unstable and she is in dire need of psychiatric help. People allude to this with her but no one directs her to take that step. She begins to unravel and her behaviors become more and more bizarre and extreme.
I found this book very readable and loved parts of it. What prevents me from giving it a '5' is that I was unable to suspend belief about the initiation of Evvie's plan to get Ben back. It just seemed too improbable. I loved the writing and the story hooked me from the beginning. I felt that I got to know Ben and Evvie very well and that Ms. McCafferty has a superb ability to draw depth and specificity in her characterizations of people. It is definitely a book I would recommend to others and I have just ordered two of the author's other books.
February 26, 2017
Weird but well written
This book is incredibly literate and full of rich imagery. Not sure that I really liked the alternating perspectives approach. I just finished a book like that recently, and it was a tough read. But the writer uses her words and images so skillfully that I would have to say that I liked the book although the plot was completely bizarre.
This book is incredibly literate and full of rich imagery. Not sure that I really liked the alternating perspectives approach. I just finished a book like that recently, and it was a tough read. But the writer uses her words and images so skillfully that I would have to say that I liked the book although the plot was completely bizarre.
May 13, 2013
I went to see this movie once called The Breakup. It starred Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston and looked to be really quirky and funny. It was not. It was appropriately named since I was held hostage in a movie theatre watching a painful breakup. This book, too looked quirky and funny yet heartwarming. But, sadly, it suffered from The Breakup syndrome. At least the movie had so e extremely funny portions. There was nothing funny in this book. It was really heart wrenching. Perhaps because I have been married for 15 years? Maybe. Maybe it struck a cord.
Honestly though, Evvie is such a flighty nutcase I felt absolutely noting but contempt for her. Ben didn't fair much higher in my esteem since he started a relationship with Lauren prior to his leaving his marriage. We learn their courtship through each others perspectives. The really sad thing that my mind got stuck on was how people in a marriage change, and if you don't take the time to communicate with your mate, a rift is sure to develop. Yes, Ben went and got a "suit" job and Evvie threw herself into animal rights campaigns. But I don't think she was very good at it. We got a bit of a clue from a Ben chalter and the woman cannot even write a letter. I also found Bens whining about how hard it was for him to be grating. He made his bed, shut up about it.
And then the nutball made this drastic move which does. To exist in real life. Perhaps this was meant to be quirky, but it was pathetic. This woman was pathetic. Yes, I am a stay at home mom. I don't have much of a life outside running my kids and my house, but I do have friends and I do have activities that I am involved in. My husband works a very exhaustive schedule, but we make time to talk and we make time to be together. These people just seemed to exist together and Ben kept bottling his emotions and ignoring her everytime she asked him what was wrong. Instead he found an outlet in Lauren. Shame on him. And he did go to therapy, but it seemed like the therapist was talking him out of staying in s marriage. Shame on that therapist.
The one thing that gives this book three stars is the writing. I may not have liked the characters or their decisions, but this lady can turn a phrase. Her language gives it the high marks, not the story. For me at least that is.
Honestly though, Evvie is such a flighty nutcase I felt absolutely noting but contempt for her. Ben didn't fair much higher in my esteem since he started a relationship with Lauren prior to his leaving his marriage. We learn their courtship through each others perspectives. The really sad thing that my mind got stuck on was how people in a marriage change, and if you don't take the time to communicate with your mate, a rift is sure to develop. Yes, Ben went and got a "suit" job and Evvie threw herself into animal rights campaigns. But I don't think she was very good at it. We got a bit of a clue from a Ben chalter and the woman cannot even write a letter. I also found Bens whining about how hard it was for him to be grating. He made his bed, shut up about it.
And then the nutball made this drastic move which does. To exist in real life. Perhaps this was meant to be quirky, but it was pathetic. This woman was pathetic. Yes, I am a stay at home mom. I don't have much of a life outside running my kids and my house, but I do have friends and I do have activities that I am involved in. My husband works a very exhaustive schedule, but we make time to talk and we make time to be together. These people just seemed to exist together and Ben kept bottling his emotions and ignoring her everytime she asked him what was wrong. Instead he found an outlet in Lauren. Shame on him. And he did go to therapy, but it seemed like the therapist was talking him out of staying in s marriage. Shame on that therapist.
The one thing that gives this book three stars is the writing. I may not have liked the characters or their decisions, but this lady can turn a phrase. Her language gives it the high marks, not the story. For me at least that is.
February 28, 2012
I received this book for free as a First Reads giveaway.
It's been a while since I read a book like this one. It made me think, it tore at my heart, and it confused me. Reading this book was like being on a roller coaster: at first I enjoyed it, but halfway through the ride I started wanting to get off.
McCafferty has an elegant writing style that drew me in from page one. At times the words spoke right to my heart, as if the author was writing just for me. There were quite a few moments where I had to go back and read a sentence again because it was just so true and so honest.
Plot-wise, the first half of the book was great. It was dark, heavy, and depressing, but great. Whenever I put the book aside after reading a few chapters, it was hard to completely separate myself from it; the dark feeling hung over me for a while. Evvie's struggle to hold on to Ben was heartbreaking, and Ben's need to escape Evvie was equally tragic.
In the last half of the book, when Evvie gets desperate and as a last resort tries "everything," the plot got a little bizarre for my taste. I read with a detachment that I haven't felt since I tried to make it through Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. Haunted repulsed and irritated me; I couldn't connect with that book because I had zero desire to. Conversely, I really wanted to get lost in First You Try Everything, but I just couldn't. I felt like I was a little kid trying to follow along with the grown-ups' conversation; I know there was something more I should have gotten from the last half of the book, but it was over my head.
This is a very interesting, very finely written book that is definitely worth a read, but personally, it's not really my style. Am I glad that I read it? Yes indeed. Would I read it again? Most likely not.
It's been a while since I read a book like this one. It made me think, it tore at my heart, and it confused me. Reading this book was like being on a roller coaster: at first I enjoyed it, but halfway through the ride I started wanting to get off.
McCafferty has an elegant writing style that drew me in from page one. At times the words spoke right to my heart, as if the author was writing just for me. There were quite a few moments where I had to go back and read a sentence again because it was just so true and so honest.
Plot-wise, the first half of the book was great. It was dark, heavy, and depressing, but great. Whenever I put the book aside after reading a few chapters, it was hard to completely separate myself from it; the dark feeling hung over me for a while. Evvie's struggle to hold on to Ben was heartbreaking, and Ben's need to escape Evvie was equally tragic.
In the last half of the book, when Evvie gets desperate and as a last resort tries "everything," the plot got a little bizarre for my taste. I read with a detachment that I haven't felt since I tried to make it through Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. Haunted repulsed and irritated me; I couldn't connect with that book because I had zero desire to. Conversely, I really wanted to get lost in First You Try Everything, but I just couldn't. I felt like I was a little kid trying to follow along with the grown-ups' conversation; I know there was something more I should have gotten from the last half of the book, but it was over my head.
This is a very interesting, very finely written book that is definitely worth a read, but personally, it's not really my style. Am I glad that I read it? Yes indeed. Would I read it again? Most likely not.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 109 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.