Nancy Harrison is running for the Senate from New York and this race is close. She has two grown children. Her son Nick was her assistant but now is teaching at Columbia. Her daughter, Greta, seems to be at loose ends. About a year ago, she suddenly distanced herself from her family, broke up with her fiance and moved out of a great apartment. Now she is living in a room with strange roommates and working at an Apple store.

Then Greta falls in love with a man she meets online. Unfortunately, he is a French right wing radical who is filled with prejudice and looking to become famous by spouting horrendous diatribes on YouTube. Greta heads to Paris and the next the family sees of her, she is throwing a champagne bottle through a glass window of one of the finest restaurants in Paris. The video goes viral and Nancy's prospects of winning are looking slimmer. She sends Nick to Paris to bring Greta home. Will he succeed?

Grant Ginder is an American novelist whose life is very similar to Nick's. He has woven a tale of family relationships and secrets that will have the reader enthralled. Although Greta seems to have gone off the tracks, the reader will discover what made her change so dramatically and what happens to her as the book progresses. Nick starts a relationship with an FBI agent and thinks about moving away to get some distance from his family and their constant crises. The tone of the book is actually light and the reader will find it easy to read. This book is recommended for readers interested in family relationships.

This is a well written, fast paced, and entertaining tale. It has some fun lines, a few well conceived set pieces, and some snappy dialogue. Characters are engaging, and the plot twists and turns offer some unanticipated and amusing surprises. The political bits are often just on the right side of edgy, and the family interactions can be touching and insightful. A nice find.

I couldn’t put this book down. The characters all captured my attention as their lives are intertwined and presented around a mother who running to become a senator. Each chapter keeps you wanting more because the story just slowly escalates to a very unexpected level. I loved this book. It’s a shame I waited so long to read it. It’s angsty, funny, and heartwarming.

An enjoyable read that starts out as a predictable mother vs daughter story that takes a wild turn that I was not expecting.

This one was just fine. I wasn’t overly impressed, nor did I dislike it. It kind of just was? It’s a political satire with characters who aren’t too likable and some who are gag-inducing. I would have liked to know more about Nick and Charlie. Ah well. Onto the next!

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Ginder crafts an excellent story and I found this quite humorous and compulsively readable. Good stuff indeed.

I requested this book because I thought it sounded interesting. I mostly enjoyed the family dynamics. The political aspects of it were too much for me, I don’t enjoy that kind of book. Overall, it was just OK.

This book is so funny and entertaining! The characters are hilarious and the plot will suck you right in. It's also really smart and timely--basically a book that everyone will enjoy! Can't recommend it enough!

I love a good family story and this one has one of my favorite main characters--the mom. I loved the additional aspect of politics. As a Government teacher, I really liked this aspect.

This book was an interesting read, especially because I’m not sure what genre in which to place it - political drama? Family drama about people that happen to be in politics? The characters are mostly so unlikable, with the exception of Nick, who I just felt sorry for for most of it. Greta is so incredibly frustrating, managing to be both so naive and also somehow jaded. Nancy seemed to be simultaneously both full of feeling and also cool as can be.
Just when I thought I had a handle on what this book was about, there was a twist that made me question it again.
While not perfect, I did enjoy this one and read through it rather quickly. I’d recommend it to those who enjoy family dramas, especially those with an interest in political families.

Part juicy family drama, part thriller, all with a hilarious political angle. Told from several viewpoints throughout but with common and timely themes, the flow was well-paced and the characters (like them or not) well-developed. Will definitely seek more of this author’s work.

This book snuck up on me. I don’t know what I expected, but this book ended up pulling me in and being a page-turner. It feels like it has the pacing of literary fiction, but Ginder masterfully weaves the story with just enough questions throughout to keep you glued to it. I loved this book. Also, I finished it weeks ago and it still randomly pops into my mind, a real measure of a good book.

I am torn on this one. I love Grant Grinder's instagram account, but I am just not a fan of his writing style. The narrative was all over the place with the POV, and I really struggled to keep up with all the information.

I received an advance copy. All thoughts are my own.

This book was an absolute romp. I'd never read anything Ginder wrote before and this was enough to send me down a rabbithole of all his precious novels. It was fun and weird and juicy and spellbinding.

Published by ‎ Henry Holt and Co. on April 5, 2022

Let’s Not Do That Again is the story of a mother-daughter relationship that frays due to poor communication and mistaken beliefs. The family drama offers a typical reconciliation moment, followed by a dramatic moment that straddles the border between horrific crime fiction and dark comedy. A couple of romantic subplots round out the novel. One involves a senator’s gay son and an FBI agent. The other asks the recurring question: When two people in the early stages of love do something really awful together, will it bring them closer together or send them to separate prisons?

Nancy Harrison is a congressional representative who is running for a Senate seat. She won her husband’s seat in Congress after he died. During her Senate campaign, her daughter Greta drunkenly joins a French nationalist protest in the streets of Paris and hurls an empty champaign bottle through the window of everyone’s favorite overpriced restaurant. Greta has no interest in nationalism because, without immigration, the US would have no Italian food. Greta’s motive involves her animosity toward her mother, stoked by her paternal grandmother and by her sexual attraction to Xavier, a French nationalist whose project is to determine “how wholly corrosive love can be.”

Greta’s act of defiance is captured on a cellphone video. After it goes viral, Nancy’s political opposition accuses Greta of being a communist while branding Nancy as the world’s worst mother (something to do with “family values”). The novel is rooted in the unfortunate reality that attacking politicians based on the actions of their children is a thing now.

Nancy sends her son Nick to retrieve Greta from Paris. Nick is gay, has slept with most of the gay men in New York, and is close to Greta, having raised her while Nancy was making laws in Washington. Greta, whose issues with her mother are explained as the story marches forward, thinks Nancy is happy to have a gay son as a symbol of her progressive values. Nick, on the other hand, has spent his life cleaning up the messes made by Nancy and Greta. He’s getting sick of that role, leading the reader to wonder how he’ll respond to the final and biggest mess that comes near the novel’s end.

The other two characters of note are Nancy’s campaign manager Cate Alvarez and her co-worker Tom Cooper. They don’t benefit from the same character development as the Harrison family members, but they play an important role in the novel’s key event. How that event will affect their blossoming relationship is another question that the plot will need to address.

Let’s Not Do That Again is marketed as a comedy. The novel’s darkest moment is best viewed in that light. As a comedy, however, the story offers few laughs. There are elements of parody in the novel’s take on politics and privilege, and an ongoing joke about Nick’s attempt to base a musical on the life of Joan Didion is amusing. The novel’s humor is largely infused in Grant Ginder’s descriptive writing. Walls in a restaurant are “the color of radioactive egg yolks.” Greta refers to a co-worker at an Apple store as “annoying, the sort of person who couldn’t pick up on a hint if it had its hands around his balls.”

The novel is carefully constructed. Seemingly unimportant details in the early pages turn out to have significance. The novel’s lesson is the familiar stuff of light fiction — families are a mess but, in the end, we’re glad to have them. A less familiar lesson is that new beginnings and fresh starts are a myth. We can’t detach from a past that shaped us; we can only try to make sense of the past so that we can do better tomorrow. The novel’s most interesting question is whether it’s possible to live with the guilt of keeping secrets from those we love if revealing those secrets will harm others that we love. Maybe the novel’s lessons and questions aren’t profound, but the story that embodies them is entertaining.

RECOMMENDED

Let's Not Do That Again is an amusing family drama with unusual and well drawn characters. The whole time I was reading it, I thought it would make an excellent play. Everything, including the characters, were a bit over the top as is sometimes the way on the stage. Although there were portions that drug a bit for me, overall I found this a very smart and entertaining read.

Nancy ran for her husband's political seat when he died twenty years ago, and has been firmly ensconced in the world of politics since. Her son, Nick, works for her campaign and does her bidding, but daughter Greta is a rebel and holds grudges and resentment against her mother. The book starts with Greta throwing a bottle of champagne through the window of a Paris bistro which is much loved by her Mother. Unraveling why Greta is in Paris and what led her to this act which will be damaging to her Mother's latest political campaign is a big part of the first portion of the book.

The story shows the tangled threads that weave a family together, and how misperceptions and miscommunication can damage those ties. I really enjoyed watching the Harriman family work through there many problems and misunderstandings.

Thank you to NetGalley, author Grant Ginder, and Henry Holt & Company for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Let's Not Do This Again - Grant Grinder
Fiction, 305 pages

The Harrison family is political royalty in New York. After taking over her late-husband's seat in Congress, Nancy Harrison has worked hard to do all the things a Democratic congresswoman is supposed to do, setting her up perfectly for a Senate run. Control of the Senate is at stake and Nancy must win, not least because of her opponent - a former TV actor turned Republican firebrand. Enter Nick, Nancy's oldest child and former staffer cum fixer. Burned out by politics, Nick is now a writing professor at NYU and working on a musical about Joan Didion. He's called in as the fixer one more time just weeks before the election when his younger sister Greta goes viral throwing a champagne bottle through the window of a fancy restaurant in Paris. Upon arriving in Paris, Nick and Nancy's team discover that Greta has been living with a far-right nationalist named Xavier, who has been manipulating Greta's anger towards her mother's parenting to enhance his fame and mess with American politics. Let's Not Do This Again, is equal parts political satire and social commentary on the lives of the ultra elite. It is fast-paced, funny, and engaging, leaving me invested in characters even if I didn't like them.

“Justice always comes first.”

Grant Ginder is one of the funniest writers alive. I read and reviewed Honestly, We Meant Well when it came out in 2019, and I knew then that I’d read whatever he wrote from that time on. Is Let’s Not Do That Again as funny? No, friend, it’s even funnier.

My thanks go to Net Galley, MacMillan audio, and Henry Holt for the review copies. This book is for sale now.

Nancy Harriman is running for Senate in New York City, with the assistance of her loyal son, Nick, and hindrance from her rebellious daughter, Greta. She’s focused; she’s determined. And that’s a good thing, because her daughter is focused on ruining Nancy’s life.

Parents don’t always know what their children get up to online; this is doubly true when there’s only one parent, and she’s busy running for the public office her late husband used to hold. And so Nancy doesn’t know that Greta is in league with the devil, till Greta has obtained an ungodly sum of travel money from her grandmother, and has flown to Paris to be with him.

With Greta is Paris, one thing leads to another and in a breathtakingly short amount of time, the wicked little Frenchman has manipulated her into causing destruction on a level that makes international news. Nick, the good son, is sent across the Atlantic to retrieve his sister, who appears penitent, but isn’t.

From there things spiral further out of control, and it’s hard to imagine just how this story will play out, but when I see where Ginder takes it, I bow in awe.

I am fortunate enough to have received both the digital and audio versions of this delightful spoof. Susannah Jones is such a skilled narrator that at times, I forget that there’s only one person telling the story. On the other hand, there’s some creative, very funny spelling peppered into the narrative that you’ll miss out on if you don’t see the text. All told, I’d say it’s a toss-up. Go with whichever mode makes you happiest.

Highly recommended, especially if you lean a little to the left.

In the first couple of chapters of this book I felt like I was reading repetitive drivel I’ve read in just about every other political comedy I’ve read in the past few years, right down to the opposition candidate being a gross caricature for the Rotten Tangerine One. So I was immediately just done. I really tried to keep giving it a chance, but this book seemed more in love with itself than anything, and that came across as just pretentious. The dialogue wasn’t funny, witty, snappy, insightful, or heartful enough to compare to Aaron Sorkin during his “The West Wing” days, and I struggled constantly to care about any of the main characters.

It offered me no challenge, it offered me nothing new, and it made me feel nothing. I was utterly bored.

Thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. Per personal policy, this review will not be posted on social media or bookseller websites due to the 3 star or lower rating.

Grant Ginder, for some reason I keep wanting to say Grinder, writes another knock-out, snarky and hilarious book. Family dysfunction seems to be his genre combined with humor and a sprinkle of love.

Just the line that one of the characters, is writng a musical about Joan Didion's life. That in a nutshell is Grant humor. In case you've never heard of author, Joan Didion, nothing about her life would lend to a musical.

But the storyline is Nancy, baby-boomer, is running for a Senate seat and she needs good press. Her two adult children are not helping her with this task. Greta is in Paris and all other the news when she through a champagne bottle through a popular bistro's window. Nancy sends her son, Nick, to Paris to retrieve his sister. (But he's so busy writing that musical!)

Wonderful family drama ensues with laugh-out-loud moments and a few tears. Grant has done it again!

Thank you Netgalley and Henry Holt and Co.