The Shampoo Effect

Caroline Lash is the daughter of a famous novelist, but she is determined to make it in the literary community on the strength of her own merits. After publishing a short story in The New Yorker, she decides to focus entirely on her writing, applying for—and winning—a fellowship that grants her 18 months in a writing cottage in the fictional coastal town of Greenhead, Massachusetts. Caroline quits her job in New York publishing and moves to the coast.

Greenhead is a sleepy harbor town full of lifelong locals. Caroline soon meets one of them: Van Whittaker, an outdoorsy environmental scientist who charms her, and the two begin dating. As things get serious, Van introduces Caroline to his tight-knit group of friends: Bailey, his gorgeous ex-girlfriend and high school sweetheart; Augusta and her husband Colin, who seem the most grounded; and Fran and her partner RJ.

The Greenhead crew have been close since elementary school, and despite her best efforts, Caroline never feels like she truly belongs. Things get even more complicated when Bailey turns out to be pregnant with Van’s baby—the result of a one-night hookup before he met Caroline. Even so, Bailey and Van insist they don't want a romantic relationship, and Caroline and Van decide to try to make things work.

Decades of shared history permeate all of the friends' interactions—the very dynamic that inspires the book's title:

"Back in high school when they all started drinking and going out, they became obsessed with 'the shampoo effect'. When they had a big night of partying and followed it with a beer the next morning, they could get drunk again in an instant, the way a second squirt of shampoo in the shower produced outsized suds. It was...because instead of starting with a blood alcohol content of zero, they were really starting with 0.03, or something. Fran thought about the shampoo effect at moments like this, and the way it applied to so many interpersonal dynamics, the way that in these old relationships nobody was ever really working from a clean slate. New feelings were built on old feelings..."

As the friends' past comes to light, old rivalries and relationships color their present interactions. I expected some major bombshells to surface, but for the most part, they are mere blips. This isn't a romance—there is some sex, but it’s neither sexy nor spicy—nor is there much drama. It’s a slice-of-life character study where not much happens. For a book like this to work, the characters need to evoke a strong response: either a deep investment in their success or a villain so polarizing you root for their downfall. Instead, these characters are all prototypical, vapid WASPs, and I felt completely apathetic toward them. Reading about kids having meltdowns, catching lice, and obsessing over Pokémon might entertain mothers, but it wasn't the escapist summer read I was hoping for. I felt like I was trapped at a cocktail party with people I couldn't stand, constantly checking the clock until I could leave.

There may be a niche audience for this book—likely readers who see themselves in the characters. It's written for mothers raising young kids who are feeling a bit stifled by their ordinary lives, exhausted by parenting, and annoyed with their spouses. Outside of that demographic, I can't imagine a Midwestern grandmother or any male reader connecting with these characters or this story. It simply wasn't for me.