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A review by brooke_review
Good Company by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
3.0
Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, author of the 2016 bestseller The Nest, returns with her sophomore novel, Good Company, a book about marital issues among acting couples. Having not read The Nest, I primarily picked up Good Company because I was seeing this book everywhere and wanted to discover why everyone was so buzzy about this novel and author. Honestly, I was also attracted to Good Company's vibrant and beautiful cover, which interestingly enough, doesn't have any meaningful connection to the novel's content.
The premise of Good Company is entirely spun around wife and voice actress Flora Mancini finding her husband Julian's wedding ring that he supposedly lost over a decade ago hidden away in a drawer. What is his wedding ring doing in an envelope and not on his finger? While you may assume that Good Company fast forwards from this pivotal point, it doesn't. Rather the past and present swirl around this discovery of the wedding ring, and readers learn about Flora and Julian's marriage in the early days and how it is affected after the truth comes out.
I personally expected there to be something more gripping and startling about this novel, but rather, it is standard marital fare. Couples come together, couples fall apart ... usually for the expected reasons. So anyone going into this novel should view it mostly as a study of a failing marriage set against the backdrop of the New York and Los Angeles acting scenes. Julian's acting company, aptly titled Good Company, is a focus of the book, and Flora's best friend Margot is also a major interest point, as she is a star on a hit hospital television series. Told from multiple POVs, Good Company's biggest draw for me was Margot and her life as a celebrity, and how that changes the ways she relates to the people in her life. I personally didn't get much from the marital bits, although I did find Flora and Julian's teenager daughter Ruby to also be of some interest.
In all, Good Company is a solidly average novel. It is not bad, but it's not great either. Instead, it kind of just wades there in the middle with nothing entirely unique or outstanding about it.
I received a Libro.fm complimentary audiobook of Good Company narrated by Marin Ireland, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite readers for adult literary fiction. I previously listened to her work on The Push, and she sold that novel for me, much like she also does on Good Company. I do not think I would have liked this novel as much if I had read it as a physical book. Ireland adds a little something to the story and makes it more interesting than it is.
The premise of Good Company is entirely spun around wife and voice actress Flora Mancini finding her husband Julian's wedding ring that he supposedly lost over a decade ago hidden away in a drawer. What is his wedding ring doing in an envelope and not on his finger? While you may assume that Good Company fast forwards from this pivotal point, it doesn't. Rather the past and present swirl around this discovery of the wedding ring, and readers learn about Flora and Julian's marriage in the early days and how it is affected after the truth comes out.
I personally expected there to be something more gripping and startling about this novel, but rather, it is standard marital fare. Couples come together, couples fall apart ... usually for the expected reasons. So anyone going into this novel should view it mostly as a study of a failing marriage set against the backdrop of the New York and Los Angeles acting scenes. Julian's acting company, aptly titled Good Company, is a focus of the book, and Flora's best friend Margot is also a major interest point, as she is a star on a hit hospital television series. Told from multiple POVs, Good Company's biggest draw for me was Margot and her life as a celebrity, and how that changes the ways she relates to the people in her life. I personally didn't get much from the marital bits, although I did find Flora and Julian's teenager daughter Ruby to also be of some interest.
In all, Good Company is a solidly average novel. It is not bad, but it's not great either. Instead, it kind of just wades there in the middle with nothing entirely unique or outstanding about it.
I received a Libro.fm complimentary audiobook of Good Company narrated by Marin Ireland, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite readers for adult literary fiction. I previously listened to her work on The Push, and she sold that novel for me, much like she also does on Good Company. I do not think I would have liked this novel as much if I had read it as a physical book. Ireland adds a little something to the story and makes it more interesting than it is.