# Read the first page of The Shampoo Effect: A Read with Jenna Pick by Jenny Jackson Read the opening of The Shampoo Effect: A Read with Jenna Pick by Jenny Jackson free, no signup. A newcomer disrupts a seaside circle after a pregnancy changes its balance. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/the-shampoo-effect-jenny-jackson - Genre: Social satire - Year: 2026 - ISBN: 9781804956458 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781804956458&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781804956458 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781804956458 ## The opening @@CHAP@@ ONE @@CHAP@@ Caroline @@CHAP@@ BOSTON CREAM It could have been a Boston cream, puffy white, the inside sweet vanilla pudding, but instead it was a jelly donut, glazed with sugar, filled with the sort of fluorescent red goo that could only be created in a food-science lab. Caroline didn’t even realize she’d stepped on the thing. She was dragging a suitcase, a backpack was thumping on her back, and her eyes were on the track numbers blinking in green over the platform doors. The voice over the loudspeaker was blaring boarding instructions, and Caroline dashed to her train, legs scissoring, suitcase wheels spinning along. Her shoe must have hit the jelly donut from the perfect angle, because when it burst, the jelly squirted straight up, directly hitting the crotch of her light jeans. She ran along the platform, feet pounding, oblivious, and by the time she hoisted her bag onto the overhead rack she had managed to coat her entire inseam with the sticky fuchsia slime, something she only noticed as she flopped down into her leather seat. “Oh my God, what on earth?” Caroline muttered, her glasses fogging in the warmth of the train. She unzipped her backpack and rummaged for a tissue. She had a computer, a charger, two lip balms, a book, a pouch full of pens, and a can of almonds. No tissues. “Does anyone have a Kleenex or a napkin?” she called out to the surrounding seats. The woman sitting across the aisle glanced up, made a horrified face, and shook her head before burying her nose back in her phone. Lovely. Caroline pulled a receipt from her wallet and started trying to wipe at the mess. “Here.” A hand appeared with a sheaf of paper napkins. “Thank you so much.” Caroline sighed, grabbing the napkins and wiping the jelly from her crotch. “This is such a disaster. I might need to change. Do you know which train car has the bathroom?” “Oh, no, I’m sorry, there aren’t bathrooms on the commuter rail. None at the station either.” Caroline looked up and finally registered the napkin-bearer. He was her age, with long, brown hair tucked behind his ears, a fleece jacket, a laptop bag hanging from his shoulder, and the vibe of someone who knew his way around a kayak or a climbing gym. She clearly wasn’t in New York anymore. “I guess I’ll just have to be covered in this stuff for the next hour,” Caroline muttered, resigned. “But thanks for the napkins.” “No problem.” The kayaker started loping off down the aisle. “I get it. I minored in women’s studies.” “What?” Caroline startled. “But it’s not—” she tried, but it was too late. He was already gone, the train door sliding closed behind him. @@CHAP@@ THE GOOD GUY Moving to Massachusetts was the most impulsive thing Caroline Lash had ever done. She recognized that was sort of sad. She was twenty-eight and that was plenty of time to amass some really bold impulses—she could have hooked up with a DJ at Coachella, she could have become a pastry chef at Le Cordon Bleu, she could have dropped out of high school and bartended at an eco-resort. But instead, she had taken the road more traveled by. She stayed in New York for college, attending Columbia, a mere fifty blocks north of her childhood apartment, she majored in English literature, and she spent her weekends drinking iced matcha the color of algae, shopping for vintage clothing in Bushwick, and going to flash tattoo parties where she never actually got a tattoo. She graduated on time, signed a lease for a studio on Third Street, and took a job as an editorial assistant at a publishing house, a position secured by her mother’s industry connections—her mother a bestselling thriller writer, and nepotism remaining a powerful currency in the small world of books. For six relatively happy years Caroline lived the life of a young person in New York publishing—complaining about her meager salary while accidentally spending three figures a week on espresso martinis, staying up all night reading manuscripts only to have them scooped away by more senior editors, and going to readings and parties at bookstores and private clubs, the publishing assistants’ Zara wool coats hanging misshapenly alongside the thick Irish wool of old money New York. Caroline was a writer herself, and so on the nights when she wasn’t perched on a folding chair next to a long-suffering publicist at the Strand or Greenlight, she would venture down to Le Dive to drink wine with her friend Nina and eavesdrop on people, writing down all the best bits of dialogue for her short stories. Nina was an actress, constantly auditioning, so she would arrive at the bar in character, dressed one day like a goth high school student, the next like a homesteader in a prairie skirt, resulting in the same guys accidentally hitting on them multiple nights in a row. These were guys with rings on their pinkies, guys with ironic mustaches, guys conspicuously carrying paperback copies of Kurt Vonnegut in their back pockets. They were funny, they were undatable, they were exhausting, and Caroline and Nina came up with a game where the first boy to mention he’d been to Mexico City had to buy them a round. ## Books with a similar feel - [A Thousand Peaceful Cities by Jerzy Pilch](https://uncovered.ink/read/a-thousand-peaceful-cities-jerzy-pilch.md) - [Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner](https://uncovered.ink/read/mrs-everything-jennifer-weiner.md) - [Saturday by Ian McEwan](https://uncovered.ink/read/saturday-ian-mcewan.md) - [Big Swiss by Jen Beagin](https://uncovered.ink/read/big-swiss-jen-beagin.md) - [Antkind by Charlie Kaufman](https://uncovered.ink/read/antkind-charlie-kaufman.md) - [Within Arm's Reach by Ann Napolitano](https://uncovered.ink/read/within-arms-reach-ann-napolitano.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.