Everything We Ever Wanted by Sara Shepard

Summary Provided by Goodreads:

How do you choose between your family and your history? Emotional and compelling storytelling from Sara Shepard, author of All the Things We Didn’t Say.

A late-night phone call on a Sunday evening rarely brings good news. So when Sylvie, a recently-widowed mother of two, receives a call from the head teacher of the school she's on the board of, she knows it won't be something she wants to hear. The school was founded by her grandfather, and she's inherited everything he strived to build up - a reputation, a heritage, the school and the grand old family house. And with this inheritance comes responsibility.

So when her son Scott is whispered to be involved in a scandal that led to the death of one of the boys he coaches at the school, it throws the family into chaos: Sylvie has to decide between her loyalty to the school that has been part of her family legacy for years and her son who she feels wants nothing to do with her. She starts spying on the dead boy's father, making an unlikely connection.

Sara Shepard's compelling new novel tells how hard it can be to really, truly connect to people, how making quick, easy judgments can come back to haunt you, and how the life you always planned for - and always dreamed of - often doesn't always turn out the way you imagined at all…

My Thoughts:
Let me start by saying that this review is going to be kind of short and I am sorry about that. Ok, about the book, on the one hand, there were parts of Everything We Ever Wanted that I really enjoyed. I liked learning about the secrets of the Bates-McAllister family, and how those secrets affect the members of the family today. I also really enjoyed the son, Scott and trying to figure him out, and lastly, reading the different POVs of the members of the family. What I disliked mostly was the ending. I like books with closure, and even though I feel there was a little bit of closure, it was not enough to satisfy me.  I was expecting something else at the end, which I did not get.

For me, the book dragged on a lot. The information that I wanted to know, Sara Shepard glazed over, and parts I couldn’t care less about went on for pages. 

I really enjoyed the characters. Shepard did a good job at creating distinct voices for everyone. I wish we would have gotten to learn more about Scott. I feel the whole book was basically about the adopted member of the family, and not only was he a mystery to his family, but he was a mystery to us as well. 

This was the first Shepard novel I ever read. The next book on my list from her is The Lying Game and eventually I would love to read The Pretty Little Liar series.