Summary and Reviews of So Much for That by Lionel Shriver

Media Reviews

The Washington Post - Ron Charles [T]his is the rare novel that will shake and change you. With these wholly realistic and sympathetic characters, she makes us consider the most existential questions of our lives and the dreadful calculus of modern health care in this country.

Los Angeles Times Shriver, who writes in precise, dynamic prose that reads almost like literary journalism, can be heartless too, and sometimes her forthright dialogue tips over into cheap shock tactics... the denouement... hovers around the implausible. But page for crazy page, the climax offers more fun, vengeful satisfaction and pure tenderness than any treatise on the future of healthcare.

NPR ... raises searching questions about the value of a human life and government's role in a democracy. It is filled with facts about cancer treatments and copayments, but Shriver does not allow this research to clog the arteries of her novel, which pulses with vivid characters. Readers may wish, however, that Shriver had cauterized some of their diatribes.

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani [T]he author's understanding of her people is so intimate, so unsentimental that it lofts the novel over ...bumpy passages, insinuating these characters permanently into the reader's imagination.

The New York Times - Leah Hager Cohen Shriver... tackles her multifaceted plot with energy and grit. She can and does hold forth smartly on any number of subjects, both topical and esoteric. The book doesn’t suffer from vapidity or diffidence or dearth of event. What it lacks is a fullness of wisdom about its characters’ potential for growth. If none of the characters are particularly becoming, it may be because none become in any meaningful way over the course of the book.

The London Times (UK) Wide-ranging, sometimes zany and unpredictable, this is a compelling read... it goes about the business of deconstructing the meaning of life very quietly, with humour and a degree of humility. All this is explored in lavish detail, with no pat answers. It finishes with a wonderful moral that Shriver succeeds in proving brilliantly.

Booklist Exceptionally timely ... Exposing the many deficiencies in the American health-care system . . . Shriver perceptively dissects every facet of Glynis' illness ... immersing the reader in how this family deals with terminal disease, and its rippling effects.

Kirkus Reviews An overly schematic but powerful study of both marriage and medical care.

Library Journal Readers who prefer a more focused plot will want to stick with Jodi Picoult, but Shriver's fans and others willing to follow the author's turns will find themselves thinking about the novel long after they've finished it.

Publishers Weekly A risk taker with a protean imagination, Shriver ...has produced another dazzling, provocative novel, a witty and timely exploration of the failure of our health-care system. ... Shriver twists the plot to raise suspense until the heart-lifting denouement.

Reader Reviews

Michele LC
Powerful
After reading We Need to Talk About Kevin for my book group, I searched for more titles by Lionel Shriver and immediately requested her newest book, So Much for That. This book hooked me from the first line and I could not put this book down for ...   Read More

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