A gripping page-turner for fans of The Woman in the Window and The Perfect Nanny, Michelle Sacks’s You Were Made For This provocatively explores the darkest sides of marriage, motherhood, and friendship. Doting wife, devoted husband, cherished child. Merry, Sam, and Conor are the perfect family in the perfect place. Merry adores the domestic life: baking, gardening, caring for her infant son. … baking, gardening, caring for her infant son. Sam, formerly an academic, is pursuing a new career as a filmmaker. Sometimes they can hardly believe how lucky they are. What perfect new lives they’ve built.
When Merry’s childhood friend Frank visits their Swedish paradise, she immediately becomes part of the family. She bonds with Conor. And with Sam. She befriends the neighbors, and even finds herself embracing the domesticity she’s always seemed to scorn. All their lives, Frank and Merry have been more like sisters than best friends. And that’s why Frank soon sees the things others might miss. Treacherous things, which are almost impossible to believe when looking at this perfect family. But Frank, of all people, knows that the truth is rarely what you want the world to see.
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A sinister, razor’s edge of a book. I was, in turn, totally gripped, completely unsettled, and not just a little freaked out by these brutal characters and the damage they did to themselves and each other. Whatever you feel while reading this dark, twisting story, you definitely won’t be able to put it down.
I am going to start out by saying You Were Made for This by Michelle Sacks is not going to be for everyone. She has a very unique writing style, plus there are no quotations in this book. For whatever reason though, I really liked it!
What it’s about: Merry and Sam move from the hubbub of New York City to a quiet place in Sweden where they can raise a family. Merry is seemingly the perfect wife and mother, she makes her own baby food, keeps the house spotless, and does whatever Sam needs her to do. But when Merry’s friend Frank comes to visit things start to get interesting and we learn that not everything is as it seems, including Merry and Frank’s friendship.
The viewpoints switch between Merry, Sam, and Frank which is something I loved right off the bat. I would say that Sacks’ style of writing is very “in your face” so to speak, it’s very direct and specific, and like I said earlier; she doesn’t use quotation marks in this novel. Somehow she managed to write in a way that I was never confused about who was speaking, which is a problem I have encountered in other novels written in a similar style.
You Were Made for This was also very gripping and I didn’t want to put it down. Short chapters also make it a very fast read and I finished it in just a few hours. I do have to say though that there are 0 likable characters in this book, except for the baby boy who obviously can’t speak. So if you read this book, don’t say I didn’t warn you! The way the characters act is pretty appalling and there is a very dark and ominous theme to the novel, at least in my opinion.
The twists and turns were somewhat expected as well, although a couple of things did surprise me. Even though I pretty much knew what was going on, I still enjoyed reading it and seeing what would happen. It’s like watching a train wreck and not being able to look away – that was basically how I would equate my experience with You Were Made for This.
Final Thought: I think this book is a decent psychological thriller, and there was a very unique female friendship as well. I haven’t read it yet, but I have heard this book compared to Give Me Your Hand at least as far as the female friendship goes. I recommend going into this book blind if you can and letting the story unravel for you. This was a debut novel with not a debut novel feeling in sight, so I will definitely be reading more by Sacks if she writes anything else!
Merry, Sam, and baby Conor have relocated to a rustic cottage in Sweden, leaving behind their life in New York where Sam was a professor. Now Merry spends her days baking, gardening, and mothering little Conor while Sam is attempting to launch a new career as a filmmaker. They have made substantial renovations to the cottage that Sam inherited and appear to be living an idyllic life, even though their neighbors warn them that the long, cold Swedish winters are challenging.
Merry’s best friend, Frank, announces that she is finally coming for a visit! Merry is at once excited to see her and nervous, determined to ensure that everything is perfect when Frank arrives. Frank immediately becomes an integral part of the family — Conor adores her and she begins transforming from the high-powered career woman with no domestic skills to a woman who envies the seemingly tranquil life that her friend has established.
Merry is harboring dark thoughts and even darker actions that render some passages in You Were Meant for This difficult to read and disturbing. Merry is not as enamored with motherhood as she would have others believe and is upset when Conor seems to be happier with Frank than with her. She increasingly defers his care to Frank, claiming she is unwell and taking to her bed for days. Frank watches Merry and discovers her unspeakable secret.
But Sam and Frank also have secrets and when tragedy strikes, they begin coming to light. The sinister truth stands in glaring contrast to the beautiful setting against which it plays out.
Michelle Sacks manages to make three thoroughly unlikable characters utterly fascinating, revealing their motivations, machinations, and manipulations at expertly-timed intervals. Sacks explores the twisted, competitive obsession that binds Merry and Frank together. And she peels away the facade bit by bit, compelling the action forward right up to the jaw-dropping, deeply disturbing conclusion, at which point the meaning behind the book’s title becomes abundantly clear.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader’s Copy of the book.
Very simply written but needed tidying up. It was as if it was written by someone who doesn’t know how to speak english and was translated from their language.
You Were Made For This by Michelle Sacks a thrilling four-star read. This was a difficult one to rate as the author did a great job of getting you to feel a connection with the characters in the way that she writes, you get sucked in and start to see yourself everyone’s darker sides, as we all know that no matter how idyllic life seems on the surface there are things bubbling under the surface that could ruin that life. This is such a good phycological thriller that it does suck you in and you become part of the story, seeing things unfold and clues dropped but will you figure it out before it’s too late? Be warned this is more emotional than you may expect from this type of book.