Meant to Be: A Novel
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - He's American royalty. She comes from a troubled past. Is their love story meant to be? This "lively page-turner" (The New York Times) offers a nostalgic, hopelessly romantic escape--from the author of Something Borrowed and The Lies That Bind. "I'm a sucker for an iconic, against-all-odds love story, and Meant to Be truly delivers."--Tia Williams, author of Seven Days in June "A chic, history-inspired summer read [that] strikes a careful balance between simply retelling the true story of JFK Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette, and crafting an entirely new one."--Bookreporter The Kingsley family is American royalty, beloved for their military heroics, political service, and unmatched elegance. In 1967, after Joseph S. Kingsley, Jr. is killed in a tragic accident, his charismatic son inherits the weight of that legacy. But Joe III is a free spirit--and a little bit reckless. Despite his best intentions, he has trouble meeting the expectations of a nation, as well as those of his exacting mother, Dottie. Meanwhile, no one ever expected anything of Cate Cooper. She, too, grew up fatherless--and after her mother marries an abusive man, she is forced to fend for herself. After being discovered by a model scout at age sixteen, Cate decides that her looks may be her only ticket out of the cycle of disappointment that her mother has always inhabited. Before too long, Cate's face is in magazines and on billboards. Yet she feels like a fraud, faking it in a world to which she's never truly belonged. When Joe and Cate unexpectedly cross paths one afternoon, their connection is instant and intense. But can their relationship survive the glare of the spotlight and the so-called Kingsley curse? In a beautifully written novel that captures a gilded moment in American history, Emily Giffin tells the story of two people searching for belonging and identity, as well as the answer to the question: Are certain love stories meant to be?
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Community Reviews
Emily Giffin's latest book, Meant to Be, was inspired by the lives of John F. Kennedy, Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette, whose lives ended tragically in July 1999 when the Piper Saratoga light aircraft Kennedy was piloting en route to Martha's Vineyard plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, killing the couple and Bessette's sister, Lauren. Giffin says she "began to obsess over the personal component of their very public lives and deaths." She pondered both the pressure Kennedy must have endured as the world watched him grow up and expected him to follow in his father's footsteps, as well as how challenging it must have been for Bessette to find her place in the Kennedy family. She found herself returning to the "unfulfilled promise" and unanswerable questions about what might have been had they lived. She was motivated to create an "entirely fictional work" in which the real lives of John Kennedy and Carolyn Bessette serve merely as the underlying "framework." In Meant to Be, a story about the most eligible bachelor in America and a girl with a troubled past, Giffin considers the proverbial question, "Can love conquer all?"
To relate their stories, Giffin employs dual first-person narratives from Joe and Cate. The technique proves highly effective because Giffin takes readers into the minds and hearts of her protagonists in this character study. Joe Kingsley explains his storied family's history and the death of his famous father, who left the U.S. Senate to join NASA and perished when Joe was just three years old. (Giffin places him inside the Command Module of the Apollo 1 that burst into fire in January 1967 killing astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.) In the aftermath, a grieving nation questions what might have happened if only things had gone differently that day and Joe grows up in the shadow of a great man taken too soon. He has never known life without privilege and wealth, as well as "the heavy weight of so many expectations." His own mother, with whom he has a difficult relationship, regularly compares him to her deceased husband. Fortunately, Joe enjoys a close relationship with his grandmother.
Cate is a few years younger than Joe. Like him, she grows up with the knowledge that her father was killed in a motor vehicle accident when she was three years old. Cate's mother, a waitress, is fixated on finding a new husband. Along with money, a husband is, for her, a prerequisite to happiness. Money is tight, but Cate is a happy child except when her mother finds a new boyfriend, sometimes leaving her with an elderly babysitter for days at a time. Eventually, her mother finds Chip, a police officer, who physically and verbally abuses her mother.
Joe has the benefit of a first-class education and the unwavering friendship of Berry Wainwright, a new student that he is asked by the headmaster to "shepherd" when she moves to New York from London after her parents die. She becomes the gatekeeper to Joe, providing advice about which girls he should date and trying to dissuade Joe from reckless pursuits. Cate and her mother finally achieve middle class status, but Chip's presence in the household convinces Cate that boys and men cannot be trusted, and nothing good can come from romance. Her childhood experiences inform her determination and inner strength. Still, she is well aware of handsome and charming Joe Kingsley, and even has a poster of him on the wall of her bedroom because, like most girls her age, she is a bit obsessed with the closest thing America has to a prince and his royal family.
Cate is discovered as a teenager and begins earning money as a model. Her career is far more important to her than school because it is her ticket out of her mother's house as soon as she turns eighteen. As she finds herself becoming increasingly famous and financially secure, she also suffers from "imposter syndrome," convinced that if the truth about her background comes to light, her career will come to an end. and she'll find herself back in New Jersey. Meanwhile, Joe just wants to be the best version of himself, not a carbon copy of his father. After passing the Bar Exam on his third try, he becomes a Deputy District Attorney in New York, but his heart is often not in the fight to convict, especially when the defendant is charged with low level or drug offenses. He dates a woman that his family and Berry approve of, and he genuinely cares about. But one day he happens upon a photo shoot featuring "a gorgeous blond" who seems vaguely familiar -- "the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen . . ." He doesn't believe in love at first sight, but his chemical reaction to Cate is undeniable. "A little explosion in my chest."
Having established her characters' histories and emotional struggles, Giffin deftly portrays their meeting and the development of their relationship. When they meet, Cate is dating another man and reluctant to get into any serious relationship. Giffin believably depicts her conflicting feelings, the basis for them, and the slow, hesitant way in which she acknowledges that her attraction to Joe is growing. Cate is still harboring secrets about her background, including her failure to finish high school and Chip's ongoing abuse of her mother, who steadfastly refuses Cate's offers of help to extricate herself from the marriage. Cate is painfully aware that her life has been far different from Joe's and wants to avoid the media frenzy that will inevitably ensue if it becomes known that they are dating, even though she segues from modeling to fashion styling and sales, giving her a lower public profile. She is also desperately afraid that if the truth about her childhood and how she achieved career success comes to light, Joe will succumb to pressure from his mother, Berry, and others to align himself with a more suitable woman, especially in light of a shocking revelation that further complicates and threatens their relationship. After all, as the only surviving son, it falls to Joe to tangibly carry on his family's legacy. Does he love Cate enough and is he strong enough in his convictions to withstand the stressors that jeopardize their future?
Giffin's affinity for her characters is evident throughout the tale. She compassionately portrays their doubts and fears, along with the joy they experience when they are together. Joe explains that before he met Cate, "I had believed that passion came with a price. That you had to choose between being madly in love and being at peace. With Cate, I had both and it was magic." She believably explores the judgment Joe is subjected to by family and friends, as well as his personal growth as he journeys toward becoming the kind of many he really wants to be and focusing on what matters most to him. Because her characters are fully formed and deeply sympathetic, Giffin inspires readers to care deeply about them and their well-being. This is particularly true of Cate who, as the story progresses, embodies internal strength, resolve, and power, largely because she has had to take care of herself. Giffin expertly enhances the story's tension, accelerating the pace of the narratives, as Joe's reckless nature again surfaces. Will Joe and Cate's story end tragically? Or can Joe overcome the "Kingsley curse" so that he and Cate can enjoy the future they have envisioned together -- madly in love and at peace? Giffin provides a somewhat surprising and thoroughly satisfying conclusion to the story.
Giffin says she believes in "the magic and beauty of fiction -- we can take a sad story and transform it into something completely different." In Meant to Be she invites readers to ponder what it would be like to confront the challenges that Joe and Cate face: how different life would be under the crushing weight of others' expectations, how much courage it would require to defy those expectations in favor of designing a meaningful life, and how difficult it would be to risk privilege, wealth, comfort, and the alluring aspects of fame in order to spend your life with the one person who truly makes you happy.
Is Joe and Cate's romance meant to be . . . and meant to end happily or, like their real-life inspirations, tragically? Meant to Be is meant to be read on a beach or by a pool in order to find out.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
To relate their stories, Giffin employs dual first-person narratives from Joe and Cate. The technique proves highly effective because Giffin takes readers into the minds and hearts of her protagonists in this character study. Joe Kingsley explains his storied family's history and the death of his famous father, who left the U.S. Senate to join NASA and perished when Joe was just three years old. (Giffin places him inside the Command Module of the Apollo 1 that burst into fire in January 1967 killing astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.) In the aftermath, a grieving nation questions what might have happened if only things had gone differently that day and Joe grows up in the shadow of a great man taken too soon. He has never known life without privilege and wealth, as well as "the heavy weight of so many expectations." His own mother, with whom he has a difficult relationship, regularly compares him to her deceased husband. Fortunately, Joe enjoys a close relationship with his grandmother.
Cate is a few years younger than Joe. Like him, she grows up with the knowledge that her father was killed in a motor vehicle accident when she was three years old. Cate's mother, a waitress, is fixated on finding a new husband. Along with money, a husband is, for her, a prerequisite to happiness. Money is tight, but Cate is a happy child except when her mother finds a new boyfriend, sometimes leaving her with an elderly babysitter for days at a time. Eventually, her mother finds Chip, a police officer, who physically and verbally abuses her mother.
Joe has the benefit of a first-class education and the unwavering friendship of Berry Wainwright, a new student that he is asked by the headmaster to "shepherd" when she moves to New York from London after her parents die. She becomes the gatekeeper to Joe, providing advice about which girls he should date and trying to dissuade Joe from reckless pursuits. Cate and her mother finally achieve middle class status, but Chip's presence in the household convinces Cate that boys and men cannot be trusted, and nothing good can come from romance. Her childhood experiences inform her determination and inner strength. Still, she is well aware of handsome and charming Joe Kingsley, and even has a poster of him on the wall of her bedroom because, like most girls her age, she is a bit obsessed with the closest thing America has to a prince and his royal family.
Cate is discovered as a teenager and begins earning money as a model. Her career is far more important to her than school because it is her ticket out of her mother's house as soon as she turns eighteen. As she finds herself becoming increasingly famous and financially secure, she also suffers from "imposter syndrome," convinced that if the truth about her background comes to light, her career will come to an end. and she'll find herself back in New Jersey. Meanwhile, Joe just wants to be the best version of himself, not a carbon copy of his father. After passing the Bar Exam on his third try, he becomes a Deputy District Attorney in New York, but his heart is often not in the fight to convict, especially when the defendant is charged with low level or drug offenses. He dates a woman that his family and Berry approve of, and he genuinely cares about. But one day he happens upon a photo shoot featuring "a gorgeous blond" who seems vaguely familiar -- "the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen . . ." He doesn't believe in love at first sight, but his chemical reaction to Cate is undeniable. "A little explosion in my chest."
Having established her characters' histories and emotional struggles, Giffin deftly portrays their meeting and the development of their relationship. When they meet, Cate is dating another man and reluctant to get into any serious relationship. Giffin believably depicts her conflicting feelings, the basis for them, and the slow, hesitant way in which she acknowledges that her attraction to Joe is growing. Cate is still harboring secrets about her background, including her failure to finish high school and Chip's ongoing abuse of her mother, who steadfastly refuses Cate's offers of help to extricate herself from the marriage. Cate is painfully aware that her life has been far different from Joe's and wants to avoid the media frenzy that will inevitably ensue if it becomes known that they are dating, even though she segues from modeling to fashion styling and sales, giving her a lower public profile. She is also desperately afraid that if the truth about her childhood and how she achieved career success comes to light, Joe will succumb to pressure from his mother, Berry, and others to align himself with a more suitable woman, especially in light of a shocking revelation that further complicates and threatens their relationship. After all, as the only surviving son, it falls to Joe to tangibly carry on his family's legacy. Does he love Cate enough and is he strong enough in his convictions to withstand the stressors that jeopardize their future?
Giffin's affinity for her characters is evident throughout the tale. She compassionately portrays their doubts and fears, along with the joy they experience when they are together. Joe explains that before he met Cate, "I had believed that passion came with a price. That you had to choose between being madly in love and being at peace. With Cate, I had both and it was magic." She believably explores the judgment Joe is subjected to by family and friends, as well as his personal growth as he journeys toward becoming the kind of many he really wants to be and focusing on what matters most to him. Because her characters are fully formed and deeply sympathetic, Giffin inspires readers to care deeply about them and their well-being. This is particularly true of Cate who, as the story progresses, embodies internal strength, resolve, and power, largely because she has had to take care of herself. Giffin expertly enhances the story's tension, accelerating the pace of the narratives, as Joe's reckless nature again surfaces. Will Joe and Cate's story end tragically? Or can Joe overcome the "Kingsley curse" so that he and Cate can enjoy the future they have envisioned together -- madly in love and at peace? Giffin provides a somewhat surprising and thoroughly satisfying conclusion to the story.
Giffin says she believes in "the magic and beauty of fiction -- we can take a sad story and transform it into something completely different." In Meant to Be she invites readers to ponder what it would be like to confront the challenges that Joe and Cate face: how different life would be under the crushing weight of others' expectations, how much courage it would require to defy those expectations in favor of designing a meaningful life, and how difficult it would be to risk privilege, wealth, comfort, and the alluring aspects of fame in order to spend your life with the one person who truly makes you happy.
Is Joe and Cate's romance meant to be . . . and meant to end happily or, like their real-life inspirations, tragically? Meant to Be is meant to be read on a beach or by a pool in order to find out.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
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