The Nest
Author: Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
Rating: ā 2/5
Date Read: 2016/12/28
Pages: 353
Reading The Nest is kind of like reading Barney Stintsonās alternate universe fanfic take on Arrested Development. There are the ingrate children who get inordinately upset when their financial fortunes change, because now they might have to get real jobs (or, at the very least, deal with economic downturns like everyone else), just like the hoi polloi. No more living lives of leisure! Thereās also a rich matriarch whose idea of maternal love is critical derision, and grandchildren who engage in all sorts of antics. Which is all well and good, except I get the message that weāre all supposed to take these rich assholeās āproblemsā seriously. And I really do not care.
Look, I get it. I understand that wealthy people suffer too, that feelings shouldnāt be minimized just because someone else has it worse. Then again, I didnāt feel any real emotion from the characters, because the only thing they really wanted was their inheritance to fix their problems. Money is nice, but, once you get beyond poverty, it doesnāt buy happiness. Also, most of us donāt have trust funds, so seriously, just grow the fuck up and get a job already. Millions of hard-working Americans canāt be wrong.
To me, this book is just more evidence of a huge rift in the United States, between the haves and have nots, between the 1% and the ones who are just getting by. In the 1%er world, being comfortable is a curse, because the real goal is to be enormously wealthy. No work, just entitlement, followed by snide comments about the middle class, about Mexicans, about people who work for their money (these are straight from the book, by the way; one character does mental gymnastics to feel superior to a more successful writer because said successful writer looks Midwestern, and another character talks about how Mexicans have ruined Italian food, and, again, weāre supposed to feel empathy towards these fuckers). These are not my values, and at this point Iād rather spend time with Lucille Bluth than these assholes who act like their lives are ending because theyāre getting a $50,000 windfall. So screw them. I hope they choke on their fictional silver spoons.