Skye and Peyton. Sisters with totally different lifestyle, different views on life and parenthood. And one lie can change everything.

Not a typical Weisberger's novel, slow paced, with developed characters and with a well known story of college admissions scandal. The world of priviliged, but still human and reader can relate to character's issues.

Good read.

For Lauren Weisberger, the author of The Devil Wears Prada, this is a more underpowered lighter novel but I still found it a entertaining and enjoyable read, a family drama set in New York and in one of its more wealthier suburb of Paradise. On the cusp of becoming 4o years old, Peyton Marcus is married to the love of her life, Isaac, with a quirky 17 year old daughter, Mackenzie, a regular film journal vlogger, who has graduated from exclusive private Milford School, with a place at the prestigious Princeton University. Peyton is a popular morning news anchor, a well paid job that she loves, she appears to be a woman who has everything, the only trouble she is on the never ending treadmill of fighting all signs of ageing, botoxing to the hilt whilst evermore extreme treatments beckon.

Her life begins to unravel when instead of reading the news, she and her family become the news when Isaac is arrested by the FBI as part of a college admissions scandal and faces the prospect of prison, apparently making a 'charitable' donation that secured Max's place at Princeton. In a damage limitation exercise, the suspended Peyton joins Max at Paradise where her more bohemian sister, Skye, lives with architect husband, Gabe, and their beloved 6 year old adopted daughter, Aurora. The chalk and cheese sisters have always supported each other through thick and thin through the years as we learn their backstories, Skye the more academic one, Peyton having the wilder years in her youth, then having to overcome the obstacles she faced in succeeding in the career she wanted. Skye has her own issues, her growing debts, and in her desire to succeed in setting up a residential project for underprivileged Harlem girls to attend the excellent school in Paradise. Peyton's lies are to threaten every relationship that matters to her.

This is not going to be a read that appeals to everyone, there is not the same level of humour to be found in some of Weisberger's other novels, and the focus on the inconsequential and superficial lives of the class of wealthy New Yorkers depicted, exercising their power and privilege for their children, and chasing the latest in vogue trends can certainly grate. Despite this, I found this an engaging and fun read, I liked the character of Max as she develops to become more independent and secures the future she wants. Peyton begins as a woman who has lost her way, hamstrung by her past, lacking self awareness and not recognising what and who is important in her life, and has to learn the hard way to readjust her priorities. Many thanks to HarperCollins for an ARC.

I've been reading Lauren Weisberger's books since The Devil Wears Prada, even though they frequently make me quite cross, because she seems to be so against women pursuing their own ambitions - The Devil Wears Prada itself is the best example of this, but it's also a pretty clear sub-theme in The Singles Game and Last Night in Chateau Marmont. In her previous novel, The Wives, she softened this message slightly to portray the importance of balancing family and career, and interestingly introduced a relatively older female character (by which I mean a character in her late thirties, nobody is ever actually old in this world) who regrets having completely sacrificed her own life for her children. This theme continues in her latest offering, Where The Grass Is Green, which focuses on two sisters whose lives have taken unexpectedly different paths: Peyton, the high school dropout, is now an incredibly successful TV anchor, while Skye, the academic high-flier, is now totally focused on her daughter Aurora.

As I've said, Weisberger is often out to punish her protagonists when they start getting ideas, so I found this novel surprisingly sweet compared to most of her other work. It's all set in the completely ridiculous world of the super-wealthy, so bears little resemblance to actual life, but the relationship between the two sisters is portrayed as supportive and loving. Neither is glorified at the expense of the other, although Weisberger does default a little back to her 'family over career' agenda by the end of the novel. I also found the portrayal of Peyton's teenage daughter, Max, refreshingly positive compared to the usual ways that teenagers come across in light women's fiction. The book is marketed as being about a college admissions scandal, but that's more of a plot device than anything else (if you want a beach read about college admissions, go for Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman's Girls With Bright Futures). Instead, the focus is the relationships between these three women, which makes this book much more fun and less depressing. 3.5 stars.

This was a good, enjoyable and well written book. I did expect it too be a little darker but a good read overall xx

Look, I love Weisberger and have four-starred her other four books from Prada to Chateau Marmont - but this one feels flat. Where's the sass? The humour? The heart? The focus on three women dilutes the storylines, and the scandal of buying Ivy League places doesn't feel scandalous enough. And why do women in good marriages seemingly never speak to their husbands? Ok, we've all had a weird year so I'll give LW a free pass on this one, and hope she's back to her snarky, hilarious self in the next book.