All We Ever Wanted Was Everything

Set amid the country club gossip and rampant affluenza of Silicon Valley’s nouveau riche, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything is a smart, acerbic comedy chronicling one eventful summer when the lives of the Miller family are turned upside-down.

After his pharmaceutical company’s explosive IPO, Paul Miller leaves his wife Janice for her tennis partner, attempting to cut her out of nearly a half-billion dollars. Eldest daughter Margaret is on the run from her creditors after her fledgling post-feminist magazine Snatch implodes; and neglected Lizzie, a naïve teen enjoying a newfound popularity with boys at school, discovers that she’s actually become the school slut. The three Miller women retreat behind the walls of their Georgian colonial to wage battle with divorce lawyers, debt collectors, drug-dealing pool boys, mean girls, country club ladies, evangelical neighbors, their own demons, and each other.

The All We Ever Wanted Was Everything Reading Guide

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
LIBRARYJOURNAL BEST BOOK OF 2008

“Executed with nerve and wit . . . Brown’s comic scenes and devastating details make her postmillenial consumer universe surprisingly entertaining.” – New York Times Book Review

“A withering Silicon Valley satire . . . From the ashes of their California dreams, the three [women] must learn to talk to each other instead of past each other, and build a new, slightly more realistic existence—but not without doses of revenge and hilarity. Brown’s hip narrative reads like a sharp, contemporary twist on The Corrections.” – Publishers Weekly

“A winning debut – 3.5 of 4 stars” – People Magazine

“Brown is going after the intellectual (and not simply the power) trade-offs of marriage, the double standards of teen sex, the failure—both literal and psychological—of post-feminist feminism, the cutting ways in which women often treat each other and the stomach-turning ways in which they treat themselves in service to the men in their lives. She’s also tackling the poisonous influence of all your major opiates: sex, drugs, money, fame, religion. . . . “All We Ever Wanted Was Everything” is as addictive as the meth on which Janice gets quickly hooked.” – Salon.com

“Brown’s first novel rates as one the most difficult-to-put-down books of the year. It is the quintessential summer read, except that description downplays Brown’s quirky, sharp-as-tacks characters, unbelievably real dialog, and helluva plot.” – Library Journal – Starred Review

“AWEWWE depicts a shining Silicon Valley suburb replete with country club appearances and pool boys. In the grand tradition of the suburban novel, beneath the surface of all that material excess lurks despair, accidental pregnancy and general malaise. It’s sort of like a modern day, West Coast version of the Ice Storm, but instead of key parties there’s . . . meth.” – Jezebel.com