Thanks to #NetGalley.

Rounding down to 2 and 1/2 stars. I'm just glad it was a fast read.

What a confusing book this was as was the cover which allured me to try it in in the first place I think.

This book was all over the place and sometimes there were two stories going on at once in the same paragraph. Not sure if it was because it was an ebook or what.

A lot of the psychiatric talk with the husband Peter and the bird talk (she was doing research on some type of birds) was over my head and other verbiage was too.

I thought this book was mostly about a missing dog but turned into so much more. Their marriage wasn't the best that's for sure.

3.5 out of 5 Stars!
I found it difficult to like the two main characters. They came across to me as extremely narcissistic and sel-centered. The story made me feel like a voyeur into a private broken life/marriage. It was not the ‘escape’ book I was expecting. Perhaps others will enjoy it more. Not a bad book but not my cup of tea. I received a complimentary copy from NetGalley and the publisher and this is my honest opinion.

UGHHHHH another book about self absorbed privileged people. I wish these came with warning labels for me. Many thanks to publisher and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion

I got this book as an ARC from NetGalley. I honestly couldn’t finish it, it was very sloppy and none of the characters held my interest.

"Private Means by Cree LaFavour is one of two books gifted to me via NetGalley in May. An advanced reading copy (ARC) is always exciting – even when it may evoke unfamiliar feelings of uneasiness and confusion like Private Means did for me.

The reader of Private Means is forced to become a voyeur – closely watching a nuclear, wealthy family begin to fray at the seams. The bright young things have finally flown the nest; the family dog has vanished and so has the flirtation, adoration, and familiarity of love between mother and father. This frustrated, privileged married couple compete in adultery and commit domestic abuse while keeping secrets, masturbating, exhibiting greed, and also excessive wealth.

An odd read which seemingly doesn’t end in a resolve, Private Means leaves a lot to unpack. One thing is for certain however, this book is the hottest mess you can imagine."

In PRIVATE MEANS, Cree LaFavour delves deep into a longstanding, difficult marriage between partners bound by their children and long time together even as they are repelled by one another and attracted to others. I am deeply familiar with the world that the highflying academic and psychiatrist inhabit as well as the terrible bonds that keep them enmeshed in a marriage long past its genuinely respectful, if not loving time. At times, I was utterly transported by the author's deft touch with description, with evoking a time and place, and feeling while other times was astounded that I had kept on reading all the way to the end. I was desperately disappointed in the ending of the story, resolving nothing and not even making it clear what actually happened. I believe in this writer and only hope she tells a more straightforward, less ethereal and ungrounded story the next time.

Published by Grove Press on August 11, 2020

Private Means is a novel of first-world problems. An empty nest couple living comfortably in Manhattan complain to themselves about their inability to afford Dolce & Gabbana ankle boot stilettos in camel eel skin (the wife) or a summer home (the husband) because they spend all their income on European cheese, Icelandic yogurt, and grass-fed meat. They consider themselves members of the “intellectual working class” although only one of them works. Now in her 50s, Alice sacrificed a career as a biophysicist to raise children, a choice she regrets. She doesn’t seem to regret the money her husband earns; her frequent dropping of fashion designer brand names makes clear where her husband’s income goes. Her husband Peter is a psychiatrist whose mind is drifting during the endless 45-minute sessions he spends listening to his well-heeled clients complain about their empty lives or the lack of libidinal control that leads to empty remorse.

Both Alice and Peter are tempted to stray, although only Alice — who feels the need to analyze the word “stray” as part of her relentless contemplation of her life — actually carries through with the act, while Peter chooses to relieve his pent-up desire for a flirtatious patient by masturbating on the couch in his office. Fortunately, his patients rarely use the couch.

It has been a couple of years since Peter and Alice had sex, one of the problems they each obsess about but never discuss. Alice feels transformed by her affair until the man who took her to bed meets her again to apologize for seducing her. His apology is condescending and Alice has reason to be upset by his assumption that he took advantage of her. It is nevertheless remarkable, given all the time that Alice devotes to analyzing the encounter and its meaning, that she faults the man for the “depressingly ordinary morality that took over when conformist impulses met disorderly behavior. Couldn’t anything remain unexamined?” Pot, meet kettle.

Peter and Alice live together but occupy different internal worlds. Peter is “so tired of her theatrics — the need to talk when there is nothing to say.” Yes, that’s wearisome after years of marriage, but Peter makes no effort to engage. He shuts down conversations whether or not they are substantive and he makes no effort to shift their direction to something he might find diverting. Peter’s inattention makes Alice feel uninteresting. To be fair, she has little of interest to say and after many years, her neediness and litany of complaints has likely taken its toll on Peter. Alice seems incapable of recognizing that her petty grievances are not Peter’s fault — he’s always snored, she’s simply decided that it should bother her now.

I’m not sure I’ve ever read about two more tedious characters. Even when they have a physical confrontation, they’re too lost in their own heads to really mix it up, and then they each indulge in an eternity of post-brawl self-analysis. When another analyst (a colleague of Peter’s) comes along to dissect the lives of Peter and Alice, her thoughts contribute to the confusion without helping either of them resolve their issues. By the end, Private Means had me wondering whether the unexamined life is not only worth living, but preferable to the self-inflicted misery of unremitting examination.

By virtue of a contrived coincidence, Peter encounters the man who shagged his wife. That contrivance at least created the possibility for something interesting to happen. Sadly, the moment passes without literary consequence. Alice’s desire to compare everything to the murmuration of starlings is, if not contrived, at least forced. Apart from an affair subplot that goes nowhere, the main plot driver seems to be a lost dog, but that thread ties up in way that had me making “what was that all about?” head scratches.

Writers are often admonished to show, not tell. In most fiction, a certain degree of exposition is inevitable and, in many cases, necessary. We don’t necessarily know what a character is thinking unless the character reveals his or her thoughts. Still, interior monologs dominate Private Means to such an extent that they become tiresome. When no thought goes unanalyzed, my wish is to tell the characters to stop thinking so much and to start living. Maybe that’s the point, but making the reader capture the point only after enduring a wearying series of thought balloons risks losing the reader’s effort.

Notwithstanding the negative tone of this review, a reader might find some value in Private Lives. Readers might see themselves in the main characters, as they exemplify the men from Mars and women from Venus that are standard fare for chroniclers of domestic drama. The couple’s musings are occasionally noteworthy, as when they mock self-important food (a natural subject for a cookbook-writer-turned-novelist). Other food references just fill the space between thoughts, and there isn’t much space to fill. There were times when I wanted to close the book and move on to something livelier, but Cree LeFavour’s fluid prose helped me endure. Fortunately, the story and my attention span ran out of gas at the same time.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Sigh. Peter and Alice met and married young. He's a psychoanalyst who is fantasizing about one of his patients, she's a biophysicist who is rather languid to say the least about her studies. Their twin girls are in college and they don't have a lot to say to each other. Then Maebelle, Alice's dog, goes missing on Memorial Day weekend and all sorts of things sort of happen as the couple navigates the summer. They stay at other people's homes, Alice joins a support group for owners of missing animals, Alice has a brief affair, and Peter feels guilty about his obsession. They almost read as caricatures of residents of the Upper West side where they live. This was saved for me by the writing and periodic incisive observations but much of the time I wanted to just tell them both to grow up. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction.

I was greatly looking forward to Private Means by Cree LeFavour. Unfortunately, I did not connect with the writing and the characters didn't seem completely well-developed. It was difficult to finish reading the novel, and I found myself skimming the last bit of the book.

Strong debut book. I love discovering new authors and this first book is very promising for a good start. Strong plot with three dimensional characters it draws you in and you savor this wonderful book. Happy reading!

After reading the book, I can’t decide why I stuck through it to the end. The story of two empty nester parents who have a boring marriage where one cheats and the other one has fantasies about one of his patients. There’s nothing wrong with the writing or the story. It just didn’t take me anywhere.

Private Means by Cree LeFavour is essentially a stream-of-consciousness whining session by two people in a marriage who maybe need a change or maybe need to talk to one another. This kind of book is really difficult to read as it is sometimes hard to know when the conversations are real and when it's not; when it is real, with whom it is taking place. I don't want to be in someone else's head. I have enough going on in my own and I would certainly never make a novel of it. I enjoy a little more actions; when people take hold and solve their problems whomever that may be. I felt like the time-spent reading this book is time I will never get back. I recommend it only if the potential reader things this kind of book is art.

I was invited to read a free ARC of Private Means by Netgalley. All opinions and interpretations contained herein are solely my own. #netgalley #privatemeans

Cree LeFavour's Private Means was much shorter than anticipated, even though the story spans an entire summer. An entire summer in the lives of unhappy, middle-aged, empty-nester married couple Alice and Peter Nutting.

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

They go on weekend trips to the Cape or wherever rich New Yorkers vacation with their equally rich friends. But this summer is different because their twin daughters are interning in California and the family dog Maebelle has run away from the hired dogwalker. So Alice is depressed and seeks solace from a lost dog support group, which leads to a one-night stand with George. And Peter is annoyed at his wife's obsession over the dog and fantasizes about one of his therapy patients.

About halfway through the book, George ends up as one of Peter's patients, and I thought, "Okay, NOW something is going to happen. Worlds colliding!"

But nothing did. Alice and Peter go on being angry at each other with no resolution at all. Nor do they find out what the other is doing behind their backs. They do get into a physical fight at one point, which I thought might take the edge off, but it didn't.

Oh, and the dog returns.

As someone who is not a 50-something Upper East Sider, I found it hard to relate to these characters, what with all the designer clothing name dropping and fancy food and wine they drink. Those references were over my head. And it sort of made me think, why should I care about these two? Some people have real problems!

There's nothing special about Peter and Alice. It just wasn't interesting to read about them. The whole book just had a negative, depressing vibe that gets transferred to the reader, which is not what I wanted to feel while reading.

A story of what happens when you have two people ,married forever, and moving about a shared space that feels empty and devoid of warmth. It is a study in a life of thought in two separate disciplines each holding out for the upper hand. The language was stilted . The characters lacking in warmth and any appeal. It seems left to their own devices they retreat into study and observation. GL

I'm not sure what it says when you don't feel like you particularly like or care about a story, but you've highlighted a good third of it... This is a story of a longstanding and not particularly happy marriage and the events unfolding within and around it one summer. It is ugly and messy, but it felt honest and interrogated a lot of things that I could recognize, if not relate to. Neither of the main characters are particularly likable, but I still mostly rooted for them, for some reason? I'm honestly not sure. And, wow, boy howdy did they know how to fight!

I think what was the most compelling of this whole piece for me was the everydayness of it... the mundane... the not-specialness. So many stories require something exceptional to happen or one of the characters to be exceptional and it was as disheartening as it was refreshing to watch these everyday characters go about their everyday marriage. And it is certainly the mark of a good writer to make the ordinary as readable as this is. The prose in this book is lovely, albeit LeFavour lost me every time Alice started thinking about starling mumurations. Perhaps understanding that would have added depth to the book, but it was definitely over my head (bird pun totally intended).

The characters in this are very definitively of a different socioeconomic bracket than myself and I had to look up a lot of the referenced goods. I find that task somewhat exhausting, but I suppose it does in a way flush out the character... when Alice daydreams about a Christopher Wool piece, you do learn a bit about her, so more power to you if you're the classy reader who gets the references without google.

On a completely unrelated note - I absolutely love any non-obvious Austen reference and this book has one and it made me so very happy.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the arc to review.

This is a story about a marriage in distress. The couple's beloved dog has gone missing, and wife remains in their lavish UWS apartment while psychiatrist husband takes a break to visit friends upstate. During the book the wife meets and has a short affair with a random man she meets while the husband fantasizes about an attractive patient, blurring professional boundaries.

The writing is overwrought and tedious. There are way too many adjectives and the author tries so hard to involve us that it backfires. The couple is not interesting to me, and both seem bitter and sour throughout.

I love books about summering and people who can afford to summer. This is an impeccable summer tale of traveling and the relationships in between. Hot, restless, sticky we examine the relationship of a couple during the summer months. This is a highly recommended read.

This book is not that long but really a slog to get through because nothing happens. It’s about a married academic couple who have been together for twenty-something years and are bored out of their minds with each other. It’s just hard to drum up sympathy for a couple that isn’t disgustingly well off but is definitely doing just fine financially and health-wise. Are their careers not always as scintillating as they may hope—oh boo hoo, join the club.

They have twin girls going to college in California and Alice had them shortly after they got married, so she really didn’t do much with her Ph.D. and focused on raising them. That’s it. That’s all that happens. They drink a lot and whine a lot. I just saved you the trouble of reading this book. Also, the author chose not to use quotation marks are what people say, so you have to figure out for yourself if someone is speaking or if you’re reading exposition. Usually it’s not that hard, but there are times you have to go back and figure out what you just read—the reason we as a people have agreed to punctuation is to make things easier for readers. In a world where people are attached to the internet and not books, I really don’t think we should make things even less pleasant for the people who can be bothered to read.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book, which RELEASES AUGUST 11, 2020.

Thank you for the ARC. Unfortunately I was unable to push through this one. I understand the empty nest storyline, but gave up reading. Thank you Net Galley.

A carefully written domestic drama about a marriage, infidelity, and the interior lives of its central characters. Well observed worth flashes of poetic language, brilliant sex scenes and narrative drive.