My Review:

A perfect beach book that surprises and delights, makes you laugh and cry and sing 80’s hair band music… there is nothing better that Lauren Weisberger’s new novel, Where The Grass Is Green And The Girls Are Pretty to escape to a Paradise, of sorts!

Sisters, Peyton and Skye have a close, brutally honest and tell-all relationship with each other yet their lives have gone in different directions. Peyton, a flawless-looking tv morning show host in NYC with a supportive husband and teenage daughter, feels the pressure to keep up with competition in all realms of her life, including her parenting. Skye, an ivy league graduate feeling stuck as a stay at home mom of a young adopted child in a fancy town, spends her time doing charity work, looking for meaning. Both have secrets so big, they choose not to share and when a scandal breaks out, the ripple effect is detrimental.

Inspired by her younger sister, Lauren Weisberger explores sisterly relationships along with helicopter parenting, secret keeping and coming of age. She has a talent for writing dialog, keeping the reader engaged and laughing. Her comedic flair and outrageous snippets elicit feelings, opinions and reactions from readers, bringing them deeper into the story. From mentions of bathtub births, over the top dermatological procedures, and the temple coat closet to renting chickens for the summer and feeding them vegetable risotto, I found so many things to ponder and chuckle at. The imperfect and lovable characters verbalize our censored thoughts in a way that allows us to sigh in relief that someone had the guts to say it all out loud! The sisters’ relationships with each other and their mother were honest and real and when the secrets were divulged and all was forgiven with unconditional love it brought tears to my eyes. Where The Grass Is Green And The Girls Are Pretty is relatable, binge-worthy and oh, so much fun!

I had the pleasure of talking with Lauren about her new book on the eve of publication day at the Westport Library and here is the video of our interview.

My Video Interview with Lauren Weisberger

Lauren’s Recommendations

80s Hair Band Music – Guns and Roses, Cinderella, Aerosmith, White Snake, Damn Yankees

Book for the summer – The Push by Ashley Audrain

I am looking forward to seeing The Devil Wears Prada on Broadway (based on Weisberger’s debut novel published in 2003) in 2022 with music by Elton John.

About Lauren Weisberger

I was born March 28, 1977, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a locale made even more chic, if possible, by The Office. I moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the sixth grade and graduated from Parkland High School in 1995. Trading one small town for an even colder one, I matriculated at Cornell University and spent four delightful years engaged in a blurry mix of fraternity parties, creative writing courses, library stacks, Collegetown bars, and snow. After graduating in 1999 with a BA in English, I moved home for the summer to save money and then traveled all over Europe, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Thailand, India, Nepal, and Hong Kong. I carried a single small backpack and stayed in questionable places, further enriching my authentic cultural experiences by eating only Nutella and drinking Coca-Cola Light.

My first job after returning to the U.S. and moving to Manhattan was the Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief of Vogue, Anna Wintour. I became proficient in the language of stilettos and Starbucks before moving to Departures magazine, where I wrote 100-word reviews by day and took writing classes at night. The Devil Wears Prada, begun at the Writer’s Voice, was published in April 2003, and the book spent a total of a year on The New York Times Bestseller List. It was sold in thirty-four foreign countries and made into a major motion picture by Fox 2000 starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. I have a half-second cameo in the film that even I am hard-pressed to locate after many viewings.

My second, third and fourth novels, Everyone Worth Knowing (October 2005), Chasing Harry Winston (May 2008),  Last Night at Chateau Marmont (August 2010) were all top ten New York Times bestsellers. Revenge Wears Prada, hit number two on the list.  Next was The Singles Game (2016), When Life Gives You Lululemons (2018) and now Where The Grass Is Green And The Girls Are Pretty (2021).
I currently live in Connecticut with my husband Mike, our two kids, and a spoiled nine-pound Maltese named Stella.

You can find me on Facebook and Instagram.

xx Lauren