book 26

Then Came You: A Novel by Jennifer Weiner
338 pages


Then Came You is the story of four VERY different women.  Annie is a young housewife and mother.  At 24 years old, she had married her high school sweetheart straight out of high school as was the way in the town she grew up in.  Annie and her family have very little money and she wants to contribute to the household in order to have a nicer life.  Jules is a college senior who has trouble connecting to other human beings.  While she has relationships with others, they are all sort of at the surface - she has acquaintances and colleagues, not friends.  Jules' father is an addict, and she would do anything to help him get sober.  Jules is also a girl of limited means, attending Princeton on full scholarship.  India is a very wealthy woman from humble roots.  While looking for a rich man to marry, she meets Marcus and they do marry, giving her everything she ever dreamed of - except she cannot have a baby.  The worlds of these three women collide at Princeton Fertility Clinic, where Jules' sells her eggs to get her father into rehab, Annie becomes a surrogate to help her family with the much needed cash, and India is the one supplying both women with the money they are looking for.  Finally, Bettina is Marcus' daughter, who, upon meeting India, becomes very suspicious that she is a gold-digger and only marrying her dad for the money.

The story is told through each woman in a series of chapters from each perspective.  Something I really enjoyed about this book was the very complex relationships established between men and women - not only do the characters struggle within their romantic relationships, they have relationships with each other and must navigate through unchartered waters at times.  Each woman discovers something about herself as the story progresses, their layered and complex personalities and histories becoming clearer and more entwined as time passes.  Additionally, one finds the theme of class throughout the novel, something that isn't always addressed in "chick lit" (as Weiner notes in the interview at the end of the book).  I picked up on this theme prior to reading the interview, and I thought it was refreshing as well as adding another layer to an already complicated story.  However, the complications and complexities did not take away from the story - they only served to enhance the tale as it was told.

I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend this book to women of all ages, all classes, and all genre-favoring groups.  Read it NOW!