An insanely competitive housing market. A desperate buyer on the edge. In Marisa Kashino’s debut novel, Best Offer Wins, the white picket fence becomes the ultimate symbol of success—and obsession. How far would you go for the house of your dreams?
Delightfully sociopathic ... I cringed at some snippets of Margo’s dialogue ... How far she’ll go felt almost too surprising. Most of the time, Margo comes off like an aspiring tradwife whose antics could inspire a Netflix documentary but probably wouldn’t land her in jail. On rare, jarring occasions, though, she slips into a darker, edgier voice, with blunt sexual references and insults unpublishable here, that felt more fitting for a thriller than a black comedy.
Kashino alchemizes nearly two decades of real estate and home design coverage into a biting debut novel that might seem unbelievable but is utterly, gasp-inducingly, guffaw-out-loud fun.
Kashino paints a gimlet-eyed portrait of the allure of status and the greed for material wealth that turns at least one woman into a predatory monster. Deliciously dark and twistedly funny.
