There is something profoundly unsettling about watching someone sprint toward destruction while believing they are simply chasing success. Marisa Kashino’s debut novel, Best Offer Wins, taps into a uniquely modern terror: the desperate, all-consuming pursuit of homeownership in an impossible market. What begins as a relatable tale of real estate frustration morphs into something far darker, twisting the aspirational narrative of the American Dream until it becomes nearly unrecognizable.
Kashino, a former journalist who spent seventeen years covering real estate and urban culture for The Washington Post and Washingtonian magazine, brings authentic insider knowledge to every page. Her understanding of the DC housing landscape is encyclopedic, her rendering of bidding wars and escalation clauses surgically precise. This journalistic grounding gives the novel a documentary-like texture that makes its descent into madness all the more disturbing.
The Premise That Grabs You by the Throat
Margo Miyake is thirty-seven, exhausted, and trapped. She and her husband Ian have spent eighteen hellish months crammed into a cramped apartment, hemorrhaging money on rent while losing eleven consecutive bidding wars. When her real estate agent delivers a tip about a perfect Colonial in the suburbs of Bethesda, coming on the market in just a few weeks, Margo sees her last chance materializing. The house has everything she has ever wanted: a renovated kitchen, a tire swing in the backyard, and proximity to the best schools in Maryland.
The sellers are Jack and Curt, a charming same-sex couple relocating to London with their young daughter Penny. Margo decides she will not leave this to chance. She infiltrates their lives through a yoga class, befriends them under false pretenses, and worms her way into a dinner invitation. What follows is a masterclass in escalation. Each boundary Margo crosses leads inevitably to another, until she finds herself in territory no buyer should ever enter.
Margo Miyake: An Unforgettable Antihero
The novel’s greatest achievement is its protagonist. Margo narrates with a voice that is simultaneously self-aware and delusional, darkly funny and genuinely chilling. Kashino writes her with a specificity that feels almost confessional. Margo knows she is behaving badly. She can articulate exactly why her actions are problematic, even as she commits to them completely. This cognitive dissonance makes her compelling in ways that straightforwardly villainous characters rarely achieve.
What distinguishes Margo from garden-variety thriller antagonists is the legitimacy of her grievances. The housing market really is broken. The system really does favor wealthy cash buyers over middle-class couples scraping together down payments. Margo’s early frustrations are so recognizable, so universally felt, that readers find themselves nodding along before realizing they have been slowly boiled alongside her.
Her internal mantra, repeated with increasing desperation, captures something essential about obsession: when you want something badly enough, every moral compromise starts to seem reasonable.
Writing Style and Narrative Execution
Kashino writes with the sharp, clean prose of a seasoned journalist who has learned to make every word earn its place. Her sentences are propulsive without being breathless, her pacing relentless without feeling rushed. The first-person narration creates an uncomfortable intimacy with Margo’s deteriorating psyche.
The dialogue crackles with authenticity. Kashino has an ear for the performative language of privileged suburban spaces: the casual racism masked as politeness, the competitive parenting disguised as community building. A scene at a playground captures the social dynamics of wealthy motherhood with devastating accuracy.
The novel’s structure mirrors Margo’s escalating obsession. Early chapters allow readers to settle into what appears to be a satirical comedy of manners. Then the ground shifts. By the time readers recognize the genre they have actually been reading, retreat is impossible.
Strengths That Elevate the Novel
Kashino excels in several areas that make this debut particularly impressive:
Her command of setting transforms the DC suburbs into a character unto themselves, capturing the aspirational desperation that drives people to mortgage their futures for the right address
The pacing maintains tension across nearly four hundred pages without relying on artificial cliffhangers
Secondary characters like Margo’s boss Jordana and her journalist friend Erika feel fully realized rather than functional
The dark humor never undercuts the stakes, instead highlighting the absurdity of systems that drive people to extremity
Where the Novel Stumbles
Despite its considerable strengths, Best Offer Wins is not without flaws that justify its average rating rather than an unqualified rave.
The middle section occasionally loses momentum. Margo’s workplace subplot involving a hotel opening feels disconnected from the central narrative, and some readers may find themselves impatient during scenes that delay the inevitable confrontation. The novel could have been tightened by fifty pages without sacrificing anything essential.
Additionally, Ian remains frustratingly underdeveloped. His motivations and inner life are filtered entirely through Margo’s unreliable perspective, which is a deliberate choice but one that occasionally makes the marriage dynamic feel schematic rather than fully inhabited. The revelation about his behavior, while dramatically effective, arrives without sufficient groundwork.
Finally, some readers may find the ending too neat, too calculated in its irony. The novel commits fully to its darkest implications, but the closing pages strike a tone that some will find satisfying while others may consider overly tidy.
Who Should Read This Book
This novel will resonate powerfully with:
Anyone who has experienced the dehumanizing chaos of competitive housing markets
Readers who enjoy domestic thrillers with unreliable narrators and escalating tension
Fans of social satire who appreciate sharp observations about class and aspiration
Those seeking a page-turner that doubles as cultural commentary
Similar Books Worth Exploring
Readers who appreciate Best Offer Wins should consider these comparable titles:
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, for its razor-sharp examination of privilege and performance in affluent communities
My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing, for another marriage hiding dark secrets behind suburban respectability
The Push by Ashley Audrain, for its unflinching exploration of maternal ambition and obsession
Goodrich by Simon Jacobs, for similarly examining how environment shapes destructive behavior
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, the obvious touchstone for domestic thrillers featuring morally complex female protagonists
The Verdict
Best Offer Wins announces Marisa Kashino as a distinctive new voice in psychological fiction. Her debut is imperfect but undeniably memorable, the kind of book that burrows under your skin and refuses to leave. It transforms something mundane into something monstrous, reminding us that the most terrifying villains are often the ones who look exactly like us.
The novel succeeds as both entertainment and cultural critique. It asks uncomfortable questions about what we are willing to sacrifice for stability, security, and a yard with a tire swing. The answers it provides are darkly funny, genuinely disturbing, and impossible to forget.
For readers willing to follow Margo Miyake into her particular brand of madness, Best Offer Wins delivers exactly what its title promises: a bidding war where the stakes are higher than any price tag could reflect.