{"id":23661,"date":"2026-09-06T15:00:41","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T23:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=23661"},"modified":"2026-09-06T15:00:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T23:00:41","slug":"the-shampoo-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2026\/09\/06\/the-shampoo-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shampoo Effect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Shampoo Effect: A Read with Jenna Pick: A Novel\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"500\" height=\"550\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"clipboard-write\" style=\"max-width:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/read.amazon.com\/kp\/card?asin=B0FTF73GVN\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Now, for a palate cleanser&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The number one criterion for a book is readability. It&#8217;s got to be something that people want to read!<\/p>\n<p>Which is why you can buy the vaunted award-winner, the book with all the hype, and find yourself falling asleep on the second or third page. Those people are not writing for readers, they&#8217;re writing to impress their brethren, usually overeducated people who believe descriptors are the essence of good literature.<\/p>\n<p>Now I&#8217;ve been on a run of mediocre books. It&#8217;s late at night, I pick up what I&#8217;m reading and within a page or two I&#8217;m not in the mood and I find myself on my iPad, doomscrolling and watching ski videos. I&#8217;m not proud of this, I don&#8217;t like wasting time, but I haven&#8217;t found a book that has called out to me, that I wanted to read, that I had trouble putting down, until &#8220;The Shampoo Effect.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>My expectations were not high. I read Jenny Jackson&#8217;s previous novel, &#8220;Pineapple Street,&#8221; and it was middlebrow at best. Satisfying but not life-changing. And I&#8217;m trying to avoid books like this, which are about killing time more than emotional fulfillment.<\/p>\n<p>But it was long after midnight and I started &#8220;The Shampoo Effect&#8221; and was immediately hooked.<\/p>\n<p>What do we have here&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Thirtysomething millennials, dealing with children and everyday obligations, all the questions of life.<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t about politics.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s partially about family. Why did your parents get married, did they get divorced? Never underestimate role models.<\/p>\n<p>Who do you hook up with and why.<\/p>\n<p>And that person of your dreams from long ago, are you destined to be with them or in truth have you outgrown them?<\/p>\n<p>So the setting is the north shore, up the coast from Boston. It&#8217;s hard to leave a coastal town, don&#8217;t underestimate the pull of the beach. And despite so much lousy weather, which requires character to endure, the people in this area stay. As do the people in &#8220;The Shampoo Effect,&#8221; except for the interloper, Caroline, who is there to write a book.<\/p>\n<p>But Caroline has her own issues&#8230; Her mother is a very successful novelist, far from stupid, but narcissistic. Ever call someone wanting to convey important emotional news and they&#8217;re so busy talking about themselves, doing chores at the same time, that you don&#8217;t even bother? That&#8217;s what Caroline is confronting.<\/p>\n<p>So many issues of life&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Do you marry your partner&#8230;do you need to?<\/p>\n<p>And it&#8217;s the modern world, with betting apps, and people living beyond their means, one bad bet away from losing everything.<\/p>\n<p>Do you stand up for yourself or go with the flow?<\/p>\n<p>If you make trouble will there be trouble?<\/p>\n<p>Now one good thing about &#8220;The Shampoo Effect&#8221; is you don&#8217;t have to wait until the end for certain action to happen. You know, when you can foresee what will happen between two people and you&#8217;ve got to read the rest of the book to get there. Not in &#8220;The Shampoo Effect,&#8221; the action moves right along. The expected occurs, then what?<\/p>\n<p>Now let me be very clear&#8230; This is not highbrow literature. I&#8217;m not recommending &#8220;The Shampoo Effect&#8221; to change your life, because it won&#8217;t. But you will resonate with some life dilemmas and choices.<\/p>\n<p>This is made for a market. Avid female readers. But it&#8217;s a cut above most of the predictable dreck.<\/p>\n<p>So if you&#8217;re a woman who goes from one novel to another, read &#8220;The Women&#8221; by Kristin Hannah&#8230; Hannah is a cut above Jenny Jackson. But having said that, what happens in &#8220;The Shampoo Effect&#8221; rings more true.<\/p>\n<p>And you&#8217;ll get totally caught up in its world. The world of everyday life, not the one of people promoting themselves online.<\/p>\n<p>As for men&#8230; There is a certain type of male that likes to read fiction and is very interested in relationships and family dynamics. They will enjoy &#8220;The Shampoo Effect.&#8221; If this doesn&#8217;t describe you, don&#8217;t even start.<\/p>\n<p>On one hand &#8220;The Shampoo Effect&#8221; is a summer beach read.<\/p>\n<p>But really, it&#8217;s a cut above that. Not a huge cut, but definitely on a somewhat higher plane.<\/p>\n<p>Life is all about people. How they react. Their choices. And that&#8217;s what &#8220;The Shampoo Effect&#8221; is all about. It&#8217;s not going to win any awards, at least none of the major ones, but if you are a reader and you like to be engrossed in a book that calls out to you, I recommend it.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now, for a palate cleanser&#8230; The number one criterion for a book is readability. It&#8217;s got to be something that people want to read! Which is why you can buy the vaunted award-winner, the book with all the hype, and find yourself falling asleep on the second or third page. Those people are not writing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-69D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23662,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23661\/revisions\/23662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}