Emily Giffin writes what i think of as sappy books (Lies That Bind, All We Ever Wanted), so I wasn’t sure how this one would go. Particularly after I read that Meant To Be followed a family  portrayed as “American royalty,” featuring a son whose father is killed in a tragic accident and who feels like he needs to meet the expectations of pretty much everyone in the nation.  Kennedys. anyone?

It isn’t exactly a roman a clef, but the Kingsley clan is more Kennedy-esque than many of the current Kennedys. Joseph S. Kingsley III is somewhat a free spirit, and his exacting mother doesn’t make things easier for him. Joseph marries Carolyn – oops, I mean Cate Cooper, a woman who reveres the  Kingsley family – to the point of having a poster of JK3 on the wall of her bedroom in the trailer where she lived as a young girl. She is gorgeous, to the point that she becomes the most super of supermodels, and falls in love with her hero and becomes fodder for the tabloids herself. She never feels like she belongs, and the dramatic tension revolves around whether she ever will. Or whether she will survive, as they fly off in his small plane to attend a wedding on a coastal island (EEK!). 

I’m sure fans of Kennedy family lore will love it, and it is a good enough read to get you through an afternoon or two, if you enjoy family sagas. Reading the afterword, the author admits to her lifelong attraction to the Kennedy family story, and it was interesting to read how she used that to create this book. Not wonderful, not terrible, and fairly well written so four stars (rounded up from 3.5) and thanks to Random House – Ballantine and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.