Pineapple Street

Author: Jenny Jackson
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2023
Pages: 320
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Darley, the eldest daughter in the well-connected old money Stockton family, followed her heart, trading her job and her inheritance for motherhood but giving up far too much in the process; Sasha, a middle-class New England girl, has married into the Brooklyn Heights family, and finds herself cast as the arriviste outsider; and Georgiana, the baby of the family, has fallen in love with someone she can't have, and must decide what kind of person she wants to be.

Rife with the indulgent pleasures of life among New York's one-percenters, Pineapple Street is a smart, escapist novel that sparkles with wit. Full of recognizable, loveable, if fallible, characters, it's about the peculiar knowability of someone else's family, the miles between the haves and have-nots, and the insanity of first love - all wrapped in a story that is a sheer delight.

Review: Prior to selecting this book, I noticed that reviews were split between those that loved this book and those that didn't. There really wasn't a middle ground. Curious, I requested it from my library, and even told the librarian I was going to give it a shot and if it didn't appeal to me in the first 30 pages, I would set it aside.

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed it and read long into the night on Saturday, finishing it Sunday morning before heading to my parents' for Father's Day.

I found it to be a fun summertime escapist type novel, as the synopsis suggests. If I have one complaint, it's that the ending was odd, but that doesn't negate how entertaining the rest of the book was. Perhaps, I can see the humor in the ending as well. 

It may help knowing that it's satire before jumping in feet first.