Grace Reinhardt Sachs and her husband Jonathan are living the New York life.  Grace is a well known therapist and author of several books and Jonathan is an oncologist at Sloan Kettering Hospital. Their son, Henry is a fourth grader at Reardon, a private prep school in the city and is learning the violin from a prestigious New York violinist.  They attend galas and other society events and although not enormously wealthy themselves, know others through the school or the hospital, who are wealthy and influential.  Grace knows that they are lucky to have the lives they lead and in that vaguely liberal way feels a certain amount of ambivalence for it.

From her practice, Grace has realized that wealth, education or high powered careers do not prevent women from making bad choices in their relationships. Often, she has found, they suppress their own inner voices that are warning them to be careful and in the end suffer heart break and sometimes worse when the relationship ends. Which is why she decided to write a book entitled, You Should Have Known, about this phenomenon in order to empower women to listen to their inner voices and make better choices.

Although the book is poised to be a bestseller, Grace has been a bit chagrined to learn that the publisher is positioning her book in the dating manuals category, next to books like The Rules or Dating for Dummies. But having just completed an important print interview on the book which went well, Grace is more sanguine about her publisher’s choices and is looking forward to her next interview which will be on TV.  In the midst of contemplating the vagaries of the book business,  she receives a text from Henry’s school announcing that one of the other fourth graders “has suffered a family tragedy” and grief counselors will be on hand to to talk with the students.   While still trying to digest this information, she receives a call from her friend Sylvia, telling her the text concerns the death of one of the women they had recently met while working on the school fundraiser and auction.  For Grace this would be “the last moment of life she would afterwards think of as “before.””

As Grace’s world and life suddenly begin to fall apart, she begins to question the choices she made, the relationships she has built, and what really matters.  Korelitz, deftly and with graceful prose shows us the strength it takes to come to terms with bad choices, the power of real friendship, the importance of true family, and the value in having things stripped away to what truly matters.

Brenda’s Rating: ***** (5 Stars out of 5)

Recommend this book to: Keith, Sharon. Marian and Lauren

Bood Study Worthy? Yes

Read in ebook format.