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Cover of The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe

The Best of Everything

  • 448 pages · about 7 hours
  • First published 1958
  • 13 editions

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1 About this book

Before Valley of the Dolls and Sex in the City, there was The Best of Everything—the iconic novel of ambitious career girls in New York City.

When it was first published in 1958, Rona Jaffe’s debut novel electrified readers who saw themselves reflected in its story of five young employees of a New York publishing company. There’s Ivy League Caroline, who dreams of graduating from the typing pool to an editor’s office; naive country girl April, who within months of hitting town reinvents herself as the woman every man wants on his arm; Gregg, the free-spirited actress with a secret yearning for domesticity. Now a classic, and as page-turning as when it first came out, The Best of Everything portrays their lives and passions with intelligence, affection, and prose as sharp as a paper cut.

Good for readers who want: literary fiction, a coming-of-age story, and friendship.

  • Literary fiction
  • Bildungsromans
  • Female friendship
  • Romance
  • Coming of age
  • Friendship
  • Women's fiction
  • Publishers and publishing

2 About Rona Jaffe

1931–2005

Rona Jaffe (June 12, 1931 – December 30, 2005) was an American novelist who published numerous works from 1958 to 2003. During the 1960s, she also wrote cultural pieces for Cosmopolitan.

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