Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson

320 pages

Published March 2023 by Penguin Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary:

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 unknowability 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.

My Thoughts: 

This book was our January book club selection, recommended by one of our members. It was also a Good Morning America book club selection and it appeared on a number of best of 2023 lists. I had really high hopes going into this one. I wish it would have lived up to them. Unfortunately, for me, it didn't. Which is not to say there wasn't something to like about it. 

What I Liked: 

• The ideas of it: middle-class girl marries into rich family and has to learn to navigate that environment, rich person begins to wake up to her privilege and wants to better herself, mom realizes that, while she loves her kids, being a stay-at-home mom isn't necessarily for her.
• There were a lot of themes addressed: family, privilege, racism, classism, infidelity, marriage, philanthropy and its warts. 
• The jabs at the truly rich, in so far as it went. 
• The characters, in so far as they were developed. One I really did like was Tilda. Why her? Because she didn't change - she never apologized for who she was and remained an elitist snob. Which makes her not so much a character I liked, but I appreciated the reality of her character. 

What Didn't Work For Me: 

• Those ideas I liked weren't as fully developed as I would have liked. I get that Jackson was trying to write a book that addressed some big issues but with a lighthearted approach. That approach often works for me (Lian Moriarty is terrific at it). Here I really wanted more depth. 
• All too often I wanted to slap almost all of the characters. Sasha married Chip in no small part because she wasn't too intensely in love with him; yet even before they are married, he hasn't stood up for her when it comes to his family. Why would she marry someone who picks his sisters over her? Why doesn't she stand up to him even after they are married and demand he choose her as his priority? Why doesn't he see that he never puts her first? Georgiana, who has an affair with a married man, who is truly oblivious to her privilege, even though she works in a non-profit to help those in need worldwide. Georgiana and Darley who make up their minds about Sasha early on and refuse to give her any grace, even knowing that she isn't from the world they've been raised in. They adore their brother, but think he's so clueless that he's marry a gold-digger? 
• There are plenty of jabs, as I said, at the rich. But then Jackson goes on about their clothes, their homes, their jewelry, their cars, their airplanes...all in a way that appeared to me to be meant to impress. Nothing is made, for example, of the fact that Brooklyn has been so gentrified that the people who used to live there have been chased out by astronomical prices. 
• I felt like the growth that we did see in the characters was too rapid. Georgiana suddenly wakes up one day and recognizes that she has well more money than she will ever need and decides to give it all away? (At the same time, she doesn't recognize that she's been looking down on her own sister-in-law for having come to the marriage with less.) 
• Georgiana becomes an addict (although it's never called that) and then she just suddenly isn't, without any work put into it. That's not how addiction works. 

Now, I do need to tell you that in addition to all of those glowing reviews from well-known writers and all of those spots on best book lists, everyone else in my book club liked this book a lot more than I did. And it does make a good book for discussion, so in that regard, I would recommend it.