Book Review: A Good Life by Virginie Grimaldi

Reviewed by Frankie Martinez

An evocative summertime read about the unbreakable bond between sisters

Emma never wanted a sister: “I won’t lend her my toys. But I do like her teddy.” After Agathe is born, trouble follows close behind, leading with their parents’ sudden divorce and their father’s unexpected death.

Agathe crawls into Emma’s bed for comfort every night as children, and Emma feels the burden of being her caretaker hang heavy on her shoulders. Her only respite? The idyllic summers that she and Agathe spent with their grandmother in the Basque Country, away from the abuse at the hands of their mother. 

Years later, Emma and Agathe reunite for one more summer at their Mima’s house in Anglet shortly after she passes. Well into adulthood with their own separate lives—Emma with a family of her own and Agathe with a career she loves—the sisters do their best to keep things light. However, the resale of their beloved grandmother’s home and the finality of what feels like their last summer together looms over them, along with the ghosts of the very recent past, including Emma’s refusal to speak to their mother and Agathe’s tremendous struggles with mental health. 

Bittersweet and nostalgic, A Good Life is the story of two siblings struggling desperately to make peace with each other after living through harsh circumstances together. Told in first-person and switching between Agathe and Emma’s perspectives in both the past and the present, Grimaldie renders a portrait of a troubled family both tender and heart-wrenching. 

At the center of this family are Emma and Agathe, who are both beautifully portrayed. With both of their perspectives on full display throughout the novel, Emma’s begrudging, Type-A older sister acts as a foil to Agathe’s free-spirited, playful younger sister. Grimaldie captures the core of a sibling relationship where there is unfailing love despite the past, little hurts—Emma spoiling the ending of Titanic for Agathe, Agathe abandoning Emma on the night of a bad breakup. These interactions are fraught in past and present, but Grimaldie makes sure to highlight the good times as well, especially in their present timeline; exploring their Mima’s attic for hidden treasures, grocery shopping for new things to try, and inside jokes about their penny-pinching Uncle Jean-Yves. 

With its highly introspective points of view, there are times when the narrative hints at future conflict a little too heavily, but Grimaldie balances it with satisfying, atmospheric scene-setting. Flashbacks to Emma and Agathe’s childhood are very set in a specific time, referencing a world of Casios and Kurt Cobain, and the present day is filled with picaresque nature in the Basque Country, where Emma and Agathe hike up the Rhune mountain and see the Pottok ponies, stargaze in the hills of Itxassou, and days spent next to the ocean: “I don’t know how I ended up here. I drove aimlessly, carried along by memories of bygone summers. The ocean is at my feet, the water lapping at my toes. It’s calm today. The sun warms my back, I lift my dress and walk a few steps.”  

With its nuanced portrayal of sisterhood, nostalgic flashbacks, and revitalizing moments in nature, A Good Life is the perfect book for a lazy, quiet summer day.

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