Someone died at the Elvis and Audrey school trivia night. They were murdered. The book tells the story of the major players in the year leading up to that event with little funny tidbits of the characters chatting with reporters and cops at the end and the beginning of the chapters.
This is basically a parents behaving badly (worse than the kids) kind of story. I mean the showpiece of the story is the parents getting dressed up like Audrey Hepburn and Elvis Presley and getting wasted on spiked pink drinks. Madeline and Renata are the argumentative worst of the parents (and the most fun.) Jane is a sad sack single mom to a sweet little boy accused of being a bully and Celeste is the super beautiful, super rich mother who everyone wants to be.
I liked this book overall. It made me laugh in some places, made me cringe in some places and I both disliked and loved the characters throughout. There is a serious storyline of domestic violence in this and it provides an interesting POV from that character throughout as she slowly realizes that just because she likes to hit back doesn’t make it right and that it’s escalating probably into her death. Madeline’s a hoot though I wanted to slap her teenage daughter.
The best part? I honestly didn’t know who was going to die or who was going to do it until the end. Do I think they took the easy way out with the victim? Yeah, a little bit. I did figure out who the bully was pretty early on though. It was a shockingly quick read for a book that I’ve sat on since November because I always wanted to read something else first. I really like this author’s writing though- right in the beginning I didn’t think it was going to work too many characters all at once they all sounded the same (except Jane) but as the story goes on and the characters unfold it’s easy to keep them straight and not want any of them to die!
Recommend? Yeah, although I think I’m a bit last to the party with this one. The domestic violence is well done psychologically but I understand that and a small but nasty sex scene (a memory) could be hard for some people to read.