This beautiful life : a novel

 by Helen Shulman. With one mouse-click, 15-year-old Jake, beloved son of stay-at-home mom Liz and successful self-made man Richard, changes the lives of the happy Bergamot family forever. He forwards a pornographic video created by and featuring Daisy, an eighth-grade girl he rejected at a party, to a friend. The video goes viral, and the repercussions send shockwaves through the family, the cushy NYC private school Jake attends, and the community, all but canceling out the future Liz and Richard envision for not only Jake but also themselves. Set in 2003, the post-9/11, pre-financial-collapse time frame feels oddly like a period of innocence regained, just before the world of upper-middle-class wealth implodes, positioning the Bergamots as a symptom of the oncoming crisis. Schulman subtly explores family and gender dynamics by telling the story through the eyes of Liz, then Jake, then Richard, and eventually, Daisy. She shifts the perspectives expertly while pulling off a striking parable about moral decay, denial, and self-destruction. --Booklist (Check Catalog)