Praise Perfect Life
“Jessica Shattuck offers a smart, sad rumination on the pursuit of happiness — and how the elusive ideal has evolved into a sort of stubbornly held birthright for privileged twenty- and thirtysomethings...With her elegant prose, Shattuck manages to make her characters' stories feel both engrossing and utterly real.” --Entertainment Weekly Read the full review
“In this smart and engaging follow-up to her well received debut, The Hazards of Good Breeding, Shattuck focuses on three privileged Gen-X college roommates who are now grown-up, coupled up and raising kids in pre-recession Boston...Stylish story-telling and sharp social commentary-- on issues ranging from adultery to genetic engineering-- make Perfect Life both topical and eminently readable.” --People Magazine Read the full review
“...sharp characterizations, a lively narrative line and wry observations...[Shattuck] dares us to flex our social consciences with questions that include “who ‘deserves’ to be happy?” even as she reminds us that not just breeding but life itself can be hazardous--but worth the risks.”--NPR Read the full review
“Shattuck’s seamless second (after The Hazards of Good Breeding) explores how one woman’s decision to shut the biological father of her child out of her life affects a group of old college pals... Shattuck does a great job with her characters, and the bizarre situations they find themselves in—Neil particularly—come across as oddly believable. Light humor and breezy prose seal the deal.”--Publishers Weekly
We plan our lives with such detail and hope for perfection, but as Shattuck’s exceptional novel shows, life doesn’t usually allow things to work out that way...Each of the four fully delineated characters is unique, and their situations clearly reflect their personalities as Shattuck describes their feelings with great accuracy, reveling in the fact that her characters are well educated and reflective people who demonstrate admirable self-awareness. In all, this is an excellent, resonant novel. –Booklist
“Perfectly timed..."Perfect Life" is a social commentary on rampant capitalism, unbridled science, love and fidelity.”--The Associated Press (SF Chronicle, ABC, NBC...) Read the full review
“...Minute by minute, and from within, author Jessica Shattuck vividly inhabits the varying viewpoints of her characters and their dilemmas, while simultaneously delivering a subtle sting of commentary and criticism...Illuminated by Shattuck’s sophisticated voice, the characters feel excitingly real.” -- The Improper Bostonian
"Jessica Shattuck writes warmly and wryly of family, friendship, nature versus nurture, and the quest for the perfect life. This novel is smart, funny, and life-affirming in all its permutations."
-- Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of The Scenic Route
“In graceful, lambent prose, Jessica Shattuck explores modern life, with all its moral ambiguity and complicated compromises, never judging, always illuminating. A beautiful book.”
--Janice Y.K. Lee, author of The Piano Teacher
Praise for The Hazards of Good Breeding
“A witty and promising first novel . . . [Shattuck’s] descriptive brio can leave the reader punchy with surprise and admiration.” —Jennifer Egan, New York Times Book Review
"Will naturally be compared to Cheever's stories and Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. What's more surprising is that it deserves a place beside those masterpieces."—Newsday
“Shattuck is a wonderful writer. Her domestic interiors and etched portraits of ‘Bostonus erectus’ evoke the surface of Vermeer, the gentle bite of Austen. .. A gracefully choreographed novel that shines a sharp, clear light on a dying world and brings it to vivid life.” -- The Boston Globe
“Reading Jessica Shattuck’s pitch-perfect novel is like spying on the children and grandchildren of John Cheever’s Wapshots.” —Mark Rozzo, Los Angeles Times
“A loopy, tightly wound WASP family in Concord, Massachusetts, unravels with the introduction of alien elements in a generously portrayed and richly appointed debut. . . . Shattuck has done wonders bringing to luminous life her patriotic diorama.” —Kirkus Review
“Wised-up and witty” –-Entertainment Weekly
“[With a] keen understanding of human nature and frailty [Shattuck] often displays a magnetic use of detail that not only makes her scenes come visually alive but also illuminates character.” —David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle
“The Hazards of Good Breeding showcases Shattuck’s sophisticated eye and her talent for turning arch observation into words.” —Dan Santow, Chicago Tribune
“Spare and Elegant” –The New York Observer
“[A] stunning debut novel, Cambridge native Shattuck renders the sad, comic decline of the Dunlap family, mirroring the demise of the Boston Brahmins themselves.” —Greg Lalas, Boston Magazine
“Quiet . . . funny and moving.” —Kristine Huntley, Booklist
“[Shattuck] has a real gift for crafting beautiful small moments.” —Leah Greenblatt, Seattle Weekly
“[Hazards of Good Breeding] is at once a funny send-up of blue bloods in debauched decline and a profoundly compassionate contemplation of the burdens of inheritance.” —Donna Seaman, Ruminator Review
“Ms. Shattuck is a meticulous, probing story-teller, not unlike Richard Russo or John Irving…an impressive achievement”-- WBAI
“It is Shattuck’s ongoing rich description of each character’s very different inner world, combined with her ability to take a sharp, amused, detached view of their attitudes and foibles that makes Hazards so pleasing.”—Improper Bostonian
“Hazards of Good Breeding heralds a talented new writer’s voice that is at once observant, funny, and graceful.”—Rutland Herald and Times Argus
“Shattuck’s prose is graceful and unforced, full of unexpected and casually tossed insights, and, like Lorrie Moore, her humor acts both as scourge and salve, to skewer and to deflect.” —Nicola Smith, Valley News
“An excellent novel. . . . The author avoids contrivance in presenting sensitive issues experienced by totally credible, thoughtful people and comes up with a new understanding of American life every bit as affecting as Richard Yates’s magnificent Revolutionary Road.” —Ann Beattie
“Jessica Shattuck has written a thoughtful and elegant first novel, full of insight and humor. It is set in a rarefied world, one that she knows intimately and reveals perceptively; one which, for all its flaws and eccentricities, she loves.” —Roxana Robinson
“With great skill and wisdom Jessica Shattuck weaves an intricate domestic web that highlights the most vulnerable threads in a myriad of relationships: parents, children, friends, and lovers. The Hazards of Good Breeding is all that the title promises and more. It is a terrific debut by a talented writer.” —Jill McCorkle
“With her sharp eye for detail and witty, winning prose, Jessica Shattuck takes the familiar story of a high-WASP family’s demise and turns it on its head. There are at least fifteen certifiable pleasures in every paragraph of this charming, intelligent, and exceedingly well-crafted debut.” —Helen Schulman