Entitlement, by Rumaan Alam: What Do We Actually Deserve?

Advertisers love to tell us how much we "deserve" things: A break, to treat ourselves, to own their product! But do we really "deserve" these things? What are we truly entitled to, if anything? 

Rumaan Alam's new novel Entitlement is a nuanced, subtle, and brilliantly considered examination of how easy it is to talk ourselves into feeling like we DO deserve fancy clothes, a new apartment, a life free of financial worries. With so much wealth floating around the ether, it's only fair that we all get ours, right? 

That's how our protagonist Brooke starts to think (even if she never explicitly admits this to herself) as she becomes a confidante of a billionaire philanthropist named Asher Jaffee. It's the early 2010s in New York City and Brooke, a former teacher, has lucked into a job with the Asher and Carol Jaffee Foundation -- an organization set up to give away all the billionaire's money. Brooke impresses the old man with her candor and he soon begins to rely on her -- both for her company and her ideas. 

Brooke is a little like Andrea in The Devil Wears Prada -- she's skeptical of this whole world, at first. And skeptical of Asher's intentions. But as she slowly sips the Kool Aid, she falls further and further into the thrall of the monied life. 

When just a few have so much, but everyone is hustling just to get by, isn't it moral and just to take it upon yourself to make small steps toward balancing the equation? After all, a thousand-dollar pair of shoes is nothing but a rounding error to a billionaire.

I loved one of the points Alam subtly makes early in the novel, and a signal that maybe we shouldn't trust Asher's intentions at all. Alam writes that billionaires spend their lives amassing fortunes based on nothing more than a head start and a willing work force. And along the way, they bend rules, destroy the environment, and do all they can to widen the wealth gap. Therefore, if billionaires didn't exist in the first place, they wouldn't have to give back their fortunes to solve all the problems to which they're contributing. It's like an arson bringing a fire hose to the fire he started.

But so the central questions of this novel become how deep Brooke will get in with this billionaire? What truly are his intentions, both with his money, and with her? Will Brooke sell her soul for a taste of the good life she feels she's entitled to?

You read this novel with a deep sense of unease throughout, even as you're enjoying it immensely. If you like basically good characters who make bad decisions, this is a perfect read for you.