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This Beautiful Life

by Helen Schulman

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4493855,459 (3.01)13
When the Bergamots move from a comfortable upstate college town to New York City, they are not quite sure how they will adapt, or what to make of the strange new world of well-to-do Manhattan. Soon, though, Richard is consumed by his executive role at a large New York university, and Liz, who has traded in her academic career to oversee the lives of their children, is hectically ferrying young Coco around town. Fifteen-year-old Jake is gratefully taken into the fold by a group of friends at Wildwood, an elite private school. But the upper-class cocoon in which they have enveloped themselves is ripped apart when Jake wakes up one morning after an unchaperoned party and finds an email in his in-box from an eighth-grade admirer. Attached is a sexually explicit video she has made for him. Shocked, stunned, maybe a little proud, and scared, a jumble of adolescent emotion, he forwards the video to a friend, who then forwards it to a friend. Within hours, it has gone viral, all over the school, the city, the world. The ensuing scandal threatens to shatter the Bergamots' sense of security and identity, and, ultimately, their happiness. They are a good family faced with bad choices, and how they choose to react, individually and at one another's behest, places everything they hold dear in jeopardy.… (more)
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» See also 13 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 38 (next | show all)
Read this in one gulp. Very good indeed. Closely observed. Chilling. ( )
  fmclellan | Jan 23, 2024 |
Read about on Early Word. Supposed to keep you up reading. Haven't had one of those in a long time.
  Dairyqueen84 | Mar 15, 2022 |
I didn't get what I was expecting from this book but in the end I think Ms. Schulman is a gifted writer/storyteller who crafted a very good story but it was more focuses on the main character and what at times felt like her whining than the story of her son. I just couldn't relate or even like the main character's but I did enjoy some aspects of the story and overall I enjoyed the book. ( )
  sunshine608 | Feb 2, 2021 |
I really wanted to like this! But I didn't. It felt like an unfortunate mashup of Law and Order SVU and a Lifetime movie, and eventually ended with very little fanfare or meaningful discovery. ( )
  Katie_Roscher | Jan 18, 2019 |
Much-hyped yarn about Internet sex scandal at tony UES prep school and its devastating consequences for a formerly picture-book family turns out to be riddled with stereotypes and lazy writing. Schulman was canny enough to pick an eminently book club-ready premise for her novel, but is unable to transcend her setting, which has been more crisply skewered elsewhere, or her characters, who are so bland and self-absorbed that they practically evaporate. Hard for me to believe I'm reading the same book as all those reviewers; maybe there was some kind of weird book-jacket mixup at the warehouse? ( )
  MikeLindgren51 | Aug 7, 2018 |
Showing 1-5 of 38 (next | show all)
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Epigraph
Lord, give us what you have already given.
--Ilya Kaminsky, "Envoi"
Dedication
For Bruce, Zoe, and Isaac
First words
Her mouth filled the screen.
Quotations
It was human nature, it seemed, to Google. Rediculously tempting, highly addictive, a weakness of the flesh.
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When the Bergamots move from a comfortable upstate college town to New York City, they are not quite sure how they will adapt, or what to make of the strange new world of well-to-do Manhattan. Soon, though, Richard is consumed by his executive role at a large New York university, and Liz, who has traded in her academic career to oversee the lives of their children, is hectically ferrying young Coco around town. Fifteen-year-old Jake is gratefully taken into the fold by a group of friends at Wildwood, an elite private school. But the upper-class cocoon in which they have enveloped themselves is ripped apart when Jake wakes up one morning after an unchaperoned party and finds an email in his in-box from an eighth-grade admirer. Attached is a sexually explicit video she has made for him. Shocked, stunned, maybe a little proud, and scared, a jumble of adolescent emotion, he forwards the video to a friend, who then forwards it to a friend. Within hours, it has gone viral, all over the school, the city, the world. The ensuing scandal threatens to shatter the Bergamots' sense of security and identity, and, ultimately, their happiness. They are a good family faced with bad choices, and how they choose to react, individually and at one another's behest, places everything they hold dear in jeopardy.

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