Really enjoyed this portrait of a marriage, which questions the standards by which we typically judge a marriage as a "success" or "failure." Reminded me of a Meg Wollitzer novel--or a gentler, more realistic FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE. Looking forward to this author's next book.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. I'll be posting my review on Goodreads and Amazon

Flora and Julian are both successful actors and long time married. Julian had told Flora he had lost his wedding ring swimming years ago. Nope, it was sealed up in an envelope in an old fing cabinet. This begins the tale of a marriage in trouble. Ruby, the teenage daughter, is aware of the marriage troubles. Enter Margot, a woman of secrets. This book was definitely a study in characters. The action was slow and was a difficult read for me.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54798430-good-company" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Good Company: A Novel" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1607962006l/54798430._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54798430-good-company">Good Company: A Novel</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/393731.Cynthia_D_Aprix_Sweeney">Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3719466381">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Two couples, friends for a lifetime…one daughter, loved by all of them…and a secret revealed. GOOD COMPANY is the story of Flora and Julian and Margot and David; Flora, a onetime actor turned voice over artist, has given her life to her family, to her husband Julian and his theater company (Good Company), and her daughter Ruby; she has always been the most quiet, easily overlooked member of their community, but also the one who holds them together. But one day, rummaging through an old desk drawer, she finds Julian’s wedding ring…lost at the bottom of a pond during an idyllic summer thirteen years ago…only clearly not. So what was Julian hiding then? And who else was part of this secret?<br /><br />GOOD COMPANY richochets back and forth between the summer of the revealed secret, the summer Ruby transitions from high school to college and all the adults decide what the rest of their lives will be; between that summer and all the previous decades of friendship, from the struggling artist years of Julian and Flora and Margot, to the night they all met David, when he jumped onstage to save a life and ended up as Margot’s love; through make ups and break ups, and Big Breaks (Margot’s especially, when she becomes the Ellen Pompeo of the novel, headlinging a long-running medical drama), and Big Tragedies (no spoilers here). <br /><br />As she did in The Nest, Ms. Sweeney deconstructs upper class New York (and Los Angeles) life like a cultural anthropologist, exploring all the quiet moments and undercurrents that fuel each of the five people at the center of this story; how a family is made, and sustained, and possibly broken. Each of the characters gets at least some time narrating, but the majority of the time is spent with Flora, and this is possibly a bit of a bummer; honestly, I was much more interested in the story of Margot and behind the scenes of a Grey’s Anatomy style megahit. Every time we went into the world behind the scenes of the show, I was particularly riveted (maybe I’m super shallow?) and I was frankly a bit more interested in THAT world, Margot and her work and her marriage, then in whatever happened to Julian’s ring and what Flora is going to do about it. The story of a mid-years marriage rocked by betrayal, and how or whether to put it together again; that story is not new. The telling of it here is authentic and convincing, but what would have been really new is the secondary story, the actor on the big show…how it started, what it costs, how or whether to get out. Can we get a companion piece focusing on THAT story?<br /><br />Still, a solid read. Definite for fans of The Nest, NYC life, and emotional literary drama.
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Thank you to both NetGalley and Ecco for providing me with an advance copy of Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s latest novel, Good Company, in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely adored Sweeney’s previous novel, The Nest. So, you can imagine how excited I was to discover she was coming out with a new book. While Good Company is a decent story, it unfortunately does not hold the same magic for me as The Nest.

If you enjoy reading fiction novels that have absolutely no point to them and serve as more of a study of human relationships, then I suspect this will be your cup of tea. There is nothing wrong with the writing and the chapters move along at a solid pace, but I felt myself wondering what was the point of this novel and what is the author trying to say?

My other major issue with the book is that by the end the characters seemed to have fallen flat. I did not feel growth or recognize anything other than time/events passing. I also think the characters could have used a bit more description. Even though the author threw in some vague descriptors sporadically throughout the story, I still found myself struggling to visualize them.

Overall, three for me.

I was really looking forward to reading Cynthia D'Apix Sweeney's new book since I loved her previous book The Nest. It was almost completely character-driven and unfortunately most of the characters were not very likable. It was about relationships; with spouses, best friends and grown children. The story was enjoyable, but I didn't necessarily find myself "rooting" for anyone since they were often unrelatable. I would read more by this author in the future, but this is not one I would tend to recommend to friends.

Thanks to Ecco and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was pulled right into this novel and swept along by characters that felt so real I half expected them to walk thought my door. I loved the milieu of the theater/acting world and the way the book moved seamlessly back and forth from past and present. Lovely book.

Okay, this one is a little disappointing when you compare it with the author’s brilliant work : “the nest” !

Her talented writing style and unique story telling skills still drag you into this story but extra embellished, long back stories of the characters and their unlikable attributes give you hesitation to connect with them.

Reading stories about theater companies and Hollywood always attract my attention. But this story is more about resentments, what ifs , marriage problems, adultery, second chances. So its genre is closer to domestic drama.

Let’s a closer look to the synopsis:
Flora is voiceover actress who gives life of a popular animation character for a long time. She seems so pleased with her life. She has very skillful daughter Ruby, a best loyal friend Margot and lovely husband Julian. Until she learns, her husband is not loyal to her as like she thinks, safe walk she built around her life starts to crumble into pieces. She starts to question her life decisions, her sacrifices, her resentments. What if she chose another path, could she have better fulfilled life? Did she give up all those things for nothing?

We just get closer look to the both of the friends’ marriage lives. It was still riveting and well written novel! I couldn’t care or connect with the characters but I still admired the author’s story development skills.

I’m giving three mediocre stars this time! Because I was expecting a little more after truly adoring “ the nest” ! But I think this is not the story I could get lost even though it wasn’t boring or below the average reading but I wish it could be more hooking, effective one with more resonating characters!

Special thanks to Netgalley and Ecco for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

Thanks to Netgalley and Ecco for the early ebook. I was a very big fan of The Nest, so I was very much looking forward to this new book. I have to say that I liked it as much or even slightly more. It’s a story told with great insight and humor about the life of two couples and how they all met in the struggling theater scene in NYC when they were young and how their lives become easier, at least monetarily, when they later find steady work in television in Los Angeles. It’s a great portrait of marriage, filled with betrayals and sacrifices, but also such a loving portrait to the lives of working actors. Not the superstars that everyone is obsessed with, but the ones who treat it like a job that pays the bills. And most of all she has written such well rounded characters. Flora and her daughter Ruby are so much fun and heartbreaking as they try and piece together who they want to be and Flora’s husband Julian and her best friend Margot, two talented actors, are equally fascinating as their early talent shines a light on them, but doesn’t take either to where they thought it might and the price that brings when they begin to realize this truth.

Good Company by Cynthia D'aprix Sweeney takes a lazy, maze-like amble through two marriages—Flora and Julian's, and Margot and David's—spanning the easy beginnings, passions as they fizzle out into ambivalence, and questions of whether something ruined can be rekindled anew. The discovery of a wedding ring thought to be lost sends flora and all the relationships around her into tumult and so begins a journey through time—though this journey is by no means chronological or perspective-limited.

More often than not, I find head-switching and leaps through time unnecessarily convoluted. In this case, I felt like Sweeney created something that wasn't at any point incoherent or confused. The narrative is sure-footed; it never seems to stumble. Some perspective shifts were more abrupt than others, yes, and perhaps a little needless, sure, but I wasn't ever really mad at them.

As for the non-chronological shifts through time, I thought this choice lended the novel something almost marvelous—in terms of the marvelous real—and was a very well-executed way of endowing or revoking retroactive realizations as the narrative saw fit. It made certain revelations land more like gut-wrenching blows, and others flutter into stillness like moths.

In spite of the time leaps, the novel is more languid than it is brisk. This is likely because the narrative is character-driven, something I love in a book when it comes with readable prose and an interesting premise, all of which Good Company checked off.

Flora and Margot's early relationship is built around acting in New York City, which means, in addition to meditations on female friendship, there is plenty of theatre to sink your teeth into. This early friendship—rich with wonder, fast-paced, almost claustrophobic—is juxtaposed with later developments that tug the two best friends from the east coast to the west. New York City against LA, the brightly-lit melodrama of theatre versus clinical Hollywood acting, restlessness as it settles into the calm of late adulthood. These parts of the novel were well-researched and always interesting to someone like me, who's obsessed with narrative minutiae. For others, the info-dumping might become unbearable, particularly as relationship histories are dissected and rehashed and dissected again. There's a lot of interiority to Good Company. It's neutralized to some extent, however, by the outward—the kinesthetic—tension between both couples.

Though development is not equally distributed between Flora/Julian and Margot/David, there's a good amount to go around. The women of the novel receive the bulk of this development and are by consequence the most sympathetic characters. Flora and Margot feel fleshed-out, flawed, real and raw. Julian and David sort of fade into oblivion as a result and didn't much interest me. Good Company's greatest strengths and most pointed triumphs are its women—even little Ruby, Flora and Julian's daughter, as she blooms into a bright-eyed adult. The mother-daughter relationship is heartwarmingly excellent. Jealousy, love, and misunderstanding between Flora, Margot, and Ruby make the journey a rewarding one.

But there are also, of course, certain issues.

The developmental deficiency between the women and the men in the novel make it fundamentally flawed. We're supposed to root for these people, to want forgiveness and transformation for them, to see them as a tight-knit family of five, but Julian, for example, remains unsympathetic throughout Good Company. For the vast majority of the narrative, his mistakes are unloaded. His treatment of Flora is questionable at best, terrible at worst, and by the time revelations about this treatment have been made—that Flora has existed for most of their relationship not as her own person, but as a forced extension of him—there's no time for him to atone, to really change. Instead, we're left with the knowledge that he's made grave mistakes and has had to do little to nothing to right them, or himself. We have to buy that most of his evolution has already happened "offscreen" over the last several years, where readers can't see or track it. The result is asymmetrical. Flora feels full-bodied, tender and tear-jerking, while her husband is a shadow of her, someone I didn't want to win or even see earn flora's forgiveness.

As for David, he has so little stake in the novel that he's almost useless. Margot and him share unresolved issues that briefly flicker into view, but neither of their hands are ever forced. Because of this, the narrative ends without a resolution or even conversations about finding one. His character left me bewildered and seemed to exist to provide angst without any of the pay-off. I almost wish we'd had more time with him and Margot, to find the redeeming qualities in their marriage.

There's a lot to like about Good Company, mainly the way Sweeney sketches out the women of her world and allows them to take flight or nurse their injured wings. The novel is tender in places and bitingly bittersweet in others. My biggest issue was the amount of sadness that went to waste, and how forgiving the narrative was to Julian, without reason. Overall, I would call this a 3.5 star read, worth the journey for its detail-driven introspection and its women.

I really appreciated the writing and character development. Ruby, Margo and esp Flora are so well written that they linger after the last page.
I didn’t realize how much I missed the character driven novels where marriage plot, female friendship and fidelity are key. I got use to
the thriller read re: in vogue. I am actually glad I didn’t read The Nest because now I have something apparently amazing to read next. I’ve
always liked the concept of the importance of not rushing in to fill a perceived gap in ones experience/relationships so I appreciated the
ending. The theater bubble was fun and added to the uniqueness a slight but significant departure from the academic, Hollywood Manhattan
place cliches where introspective novels usually roost.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of Good Company by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney. This book was just ok..I found it to be slow moving and repetitive. The characters I couldn't relate to nor did I like. I had to push myself to finish it. I would neither recommend nor advise against reading Good Company.

DNF. So much backstory! After five chapters of nothing happening and the narrators constantly looking back, I started skimming. This is such a shame since I loved The Nest and think the author is talented. There just insist any forward momentum in this story. I'm sorry to say it wasn't for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Good Company.

I was pleased when my request was approved because I read the author's previous book and the premise sounded intriguing.

Overall, the writing was good, but I wasn't interested in the story or the characters.

It's not a domestic drama so much as character studies of the most important people in our lives and what makes a family; our spouse and children, our BFFs and the people that make up our social circle.

It's also about a woman named Flora who discovers the most cliche secrets of all time; her husband had been unfaithful.

But, what does this mean for Flora? Has she given up her hopes and dreams for her husband, Julian?

Has she sold out? Is this the end of her marriage?

Or a second chance?

This wasn't for me but readers interested in theater, exposition on the main and supporting characters, and a narrative based on introspection and soul searching will enjoy Good Company.

Flora Mancini has a lot going for her: talented daughter Ruby, best friend Margot, husband Julian, and steady voiceover work as a popular animated character. But when Flora discovers her husband's been keeping a secret, her life comes crashing down, and she starts to question what she's given up over the years. Can her relationships survive the truth?

Friendships between two couples are common in fiction, but Sweeney puts a nice twist on the theme here by rooting the story in Julian's small theater company, titled Good Company in memory of a well-timed fortune cookie. I enjoyed reading about the complex relationships between the characters and their changing motivations over time. Flora and Margot were both well-drawn female protagonists, and I appreciated how their actions and reactions drove the story (although their husbands were important too). I read a lot of thrillers, and it was refreshing to read a book more grounded in reality.

Thank you to Ecco for providing an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

While it was beautifully written, I was not the right reader for GOOD COMPANY. I didn’t connect with the story, but the storytelling was solid.

Set in New York and LA, among actors, this novel takes a close look at relationships, and how time can make them stronger, and wear them away.

I went in blind, only knowing how much I enjoyed the writer's last book, THE NEST. I was hoping for a more fun and lighthearted read, and that is just NOT this book!

Thank you, NetGalley for the opportunity to read this novel!

I loved Cynthias first novel the Nest I couldn’t wait to read this one. Good Company's beautifully written characters that come alive.a story that kept me turning the pages.I highly recommend this wonderful novel.#netgalley #eccobooks

I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review

This book is a different social strata than her previous book, the world of NYC theatre folk of a certain age, but her sharp eye and ear remain. I winced a few times, but it was enjoyable reading nonetheless. Hits a bit close to the bone. Solid four.

I was drawn to this book for the cover but the inside is just as beautiful.
This book is about family and relationships and how they evolve over time. It's really written well and I enjoyed getting to know each character so in depth.
I enjoyed Cynthia's first book The Nest and I think this one is even better.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my advanced copy.

I really enjoyed this book, particularly for its deep dive into what constitutes a decades-long friendship between women and how marriage complicates it. Not to be a spoiler, but the very end is worth waiting for and was tremendously satisfying!!!