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A smart, thoughtful, and timely exploration of two sisters’ lives from the 1950s to the present as they struggle to find their places—and be true to themselves—in a rapidly evolving world. Mrs. Everything is an ambitious, richly textured journey through history—and herstory—as these two sisters navigate a changing America over the course of their lives.
Do we change or does the world change us?
Jo and Bethie Kaufman were born into a world full of promise.
Growing up in 1950s Detroit, they live in a perfect "Dick and Jane" house, where their roles in the family are clearly defined. Jo is the tomboy, the bookish rebel with a passion to make the world more fair; Bethie is the pretty, feminine good girl, a would-be star who enjoys the power her beauty confers and dreams of a traditional life.
But the truth ends up looking different from what the girls imagined. Jo and Bethie survive traumas and tragedies.
As their lives unfold against the background of free love and Vietnam, Woodstock and women’s lib, Bethie becomes an adventure-loving wild child who dives headlong into the counterculture and is up for anything (except settling down).
Meanwhile, Jo becomes a proper young mother in Connecticut, a witness to the changing world instead of a participant. Neither woman inhabits the world she dreams of, nor has a life that feels authentic or brings her joy. Is it too late for the women to finally stake a claim on happily ever after?
In her most ambitious novel yet, Jennifer Weiner tells a story of two sisters who, with their different dreams and different paths, offer answers to the question: How should a woman be in the world?
(From the publisher.)
A #1 New York Times bestselling author, Jennifer Weiner’s books have spent over five years on the New York Times bestseller list with over 11 million copies in print in 36 countries.
She is the author of the novels Good in Bed (2001); In Her Shoes (2002), which was turned into a major motion picture starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine; Little Earthquakes (2004); Goodnight Nobody (2005); the short story collection The Guy Not Taken (2006); Certain Girls (2008); Best Friends Forever (2009); Fly Away Home (2010); Then Came You (2011); The Next Best Thing (2012); All Fall Down (2014); Who Do You Love (2015); Mrs. Everything (2019); Big Summer (2020); That Summer (2021); and The Summer Place (forthcoming May 2022). She is also the author of two middle-grade novels, The Littlest Bigfoot (2016) and Little Bigfoot, Big City (2017), and the nonfiction collection Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing (2016), which was a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.
Jennifer has appeared on many national television programs, including The Today Show and Good Morning America, as well as #RichkidsofBeverlyHills and, as herself, on Younger. Her essays, including “Mean Girls in the Retirement Home” and “First, I Cried; Then, I Rode My Bike,” have topped the list of trending online articles in The New York Times and been reprinted in newspapers and media outlets across the world. A New Yorker profile called Jen an “unlikely feminist enforcer” and celebrated her “lively public discussion about the reception and consumption of fiction written by women.” The Washington Post wrote that “Weiner has made a major literary career out of writing engrossing popular novels that take women seriously” and Refinery29 deemed her “the master of richly told page-turners about complicated and likable women.” Jennifer’s work has been published in dozens of newspapers and magazines, including Seventeen, Redbook, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Allure, Ladies Home Journal, Time and Good Housekeeping.
Jen uses her social media platform to amplify women's voices and speak on topics including self-esteem, body positivity, and the way books by women are reviewed and consumed. She appeared on Time magazine’s list of “140 Best Twitter Feeds.” Forbes magazine put her on their list of “25 Working Moms to Follow on Twitter," writing "tune in for hilarious shards of brilliance," and Slate praised Jen's "power-tweeting. . . feminist brand." Entertainment Weekly named her as part of its "brain trust" for social media coverage of the 2016 election. In the summer of 2016, she posted a picture of herself in a bathing suit with the #weartheswimsuit hashtag, encouraging women of all ages and sizes to put on their bathing suits and get in the water. The movement, which was covered in media outlets including PopSugar, Time, Kveller, The Today Show and Good Morning America, encouraged hundreds of women to shuck their cover-ups, skip the heat rash, get in the water, and post shots of themselves in their swimsuits.
In 2020, the Arts and Business Council of Greater Philadelphia recognized Jennifer with the Anne D’Harnoncourt Award for Artistic Excellence. In 2022, Jennifer was named the 114th Anniversary Celebration Honoree by Philadelphia’s Settlement Music School, after her return to piano lessons following a thirty-five year hiatus.
Jennifer grew up in Connecticut and graduated summa cum laude with a degree in English literature from Princeton University in 1991. She worked as a newspaper reporter in central Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Philadelphia, where she was a feature writer and columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Today, she can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok and, in real life, in Philadelphia, where she lives with her family.
(Biography provided by the author)
