Man's Best Friend by Alana B. Lytle
A failed actress must decide how much she will give up—and what lies she will overlook—in order to live a life of luxury in this irresistibly suspenseful and slightly surreal debut that is Talented Mr. Ripley meets Nightbitch.
Ever since her year as a scholarship student amongst the ultra-wealthy at a Manhattan private school, El knows what it is like to feel rich—to feel chosen. And being not chosen is her current living at age 30, she has given up her dream of becoming a famous actress, she has no passions, no great love, nothing to look forward to.
Then El meets a mysterious trust-fund Cambridge grad who holds the keys to the world she has long dreamed of. Bryce may not be particularly good-looking, charming, or interesting, but he has chosen her. El allows herself to be lulled by the ease and safety that his wealth provides, becoming Bryce’s little pet, and giving up her job, friends, and apartment in short order. But when a series of disturbing and slightly surreal events reveal that Bryce is not quite what he seems, but something entirely more sinister, El face the consequences when his darkness—and her own—are unleashed.
Review:
I received an advance galley of this book courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Last year, I read “The Guest” by Emma Cline and loved it. At the same time, many people hated it and felt that it meandered far too long and eventually went nowhere. I have a feeling that this book will be just as polarizing this year, and I hate to say it, but as much as I wanted to like this book, I’m going to be on the “what was this all for?” side of things.
The book focuses on El, a young 20-something who comes from a broken home. Since junior high, it’s been El and her mother after her dad left her for the secret other family he’d been hiding from them. While in middle school, El befriends Julia and Anna, two rich, popular girls who take her under their wing and make someone out of El – or at least until middle school ends and Julia and Anna go to a private high school while EL goes to a performing arts high school. The three remained close, but as years passed, Anna moved on, and El and Julia rarely saw each other.
At the top of the novel, EL is working at a bakery and has finally decided to give up on her dream of becoming a famous actress. She’s unsure of where her life is taking her, and when Julia invites her to a weekend at The Hamptons to celebrate Julia’s birthday, she decides to leave her worries behind and have a little fun. A weekend with rich friends who have no cares in the world is just what El needs. She can at least pretend she’s one of them for a few days.
While there, El loses her wallet, and a man she briefly remembers from the party messages her on Facebook letting her know he found it. He lives in the city, and El agrees to meet him for drinks. Bryce (the dude) isn’t exactly handsome, but he’s super rich, and he seems smitten with El, so she agrees, and it’s not long before the two are dating. El always saw herself becoming rich and famous with a gorgeous man by her side. She may be willing to give up the gorgeous man and fame if it means she could be financially free. What’s wrong with being a kept woman? But then she learns something about Bryce that shakes her – he may not be the awkward, doting man she thought he was. But he’s rich and gives El whatever she wants – maybe she can use this to her advantage?
The relationship between El and Bryce is at the heart of the story, and it is a twisted and compelling dynamic, but it doesn’t build up to the suspenseful climax it could have. With his aura of wealth and privilege, Bryce exerts a magnetic pull on El, drawing her into his world of deceit and manipulation. As the layers of Bryce’s true nature are peeled back, the reader is left questioning everything they thought they knew about him and about El herself. When El learned his secret, I felt for sure the book would (finally) move in a direction that would make me invested in her journey, but then El did what El did, and I was back to hating her.
One of the things that drew me to this book was that it sounded like it was going to be a thriller – in my opinion, it wasn’t. It’s nothing more than a story about a woman in her 30s who feels entitled and is pissed that she never became rich and famous. She had several chances to redeem herself along the way but refused to care about anyone or anything other than herself and what she felt she deserved. I felt zero connection to her and absolutely zero empathy. I also didn’t care about Bryce or any other characters, and it’s really difficult for me to enjoy a book when I don’t care about anyone in it.
While some may find morally grey characters and unsettling themes off-putting, I typically love them (provided I can empathize with or see some humanity in one of the MCs). Lytle’s unflinching exploration of power, wealth, and the lengths people will go to obtain them is both gripping and thought-provoking but gets lost in a plot that is almost as shallow as its characters. I mentioned Emma Cline’s “The Guest” earlier, which had a somewhat similar protagonist, but the difference between that book and this one is that despite all of the crap that Alex (the protagonist in that book) did, I felt empathy toward her. She was messed up and made some horrible choices, but I still wanted her to be okay. Had El shown any sort of empathy for anyone other than herself, I may have liked this one more. Sadly, this is on my “nope” list this year.
