Book review: “Best Offer Wins” by Marisa Kashino
I very rarely read hot-off-the-press books, but this one caught my attention as it’s on the subject currently very relevant to me: the housing market, and the drive to finding that perfect piece of property. This is something that’s consumed the past 12 months of my personal life, and back when I first started house hunting, I had no idea how frustrating and nerve-wracking the whole process would be.
That’s precisely the predicament our protagonist finds herself in: Margo has a loving spouse and a satisfying career, but somehow finding and buying that perfect house keeps proving impossible. Cramped in a small apartment in Washington, D.C., she dreams of becoming the owner of her own suburban home, having a fresh start, and getting on with her life.
This turns into a real obsession once she comes across a house that she instantly recognises as a perfect piece of property. She sees it and simply knows it was meant for her. She is not going to let that particular opportunity pass her by! Right then and there she decides she will do anything it takes to win that bid — by somehow landing the house before it even hits the market.
What follows is a series of acts — partly comical, partly unhinged and utterly devious — that eventually spiral out of control. There’s trespassing, stalking, fraud, betrayal, and more… Actions done by herself and her husband that inevitably put a strain on their marriage, threatening to destroy the life they had both wanted to secure and improve.
Even if you can’t relate to the house-hunting theme of the book, “Best Offer Wins” is a solid page-turner that you won’t be able to put down until the very end. In terms of genre, it might be best described as a domestic thriller, peppered with dark humour and social commentary, mainly on the housing crisis and class anxiety.
Characters are believable, as is Margo’s desperation — both up to a point, and this is where I have a bit of a problem with the book. As entertaining as it was, I felt like the crescendo towards the end was too intense and rather hurried. The plot comes dangerously close to sliding into a farce, as Margo ends up committing acts that are pretty disproporationate to the situation at hand. (Granted, that might have been the author’s intention, but I personally saw it a structural flaw.)
Still, this is an entertaining piece of writing that may feel like a cosy domestic thriller at first, but it gradually develops into a genre-blending narrative with elements of dark comedy and satire. I would love to see it turned into a film.
Four stars out of five.
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“Best Offer Wins” is Marisa Kashino’s debut novel, published in November 2025 by Celadon Books.
NOTES
I’m a freelance language tutor (English, Latin, Classical Greek), researcher, and a literary scholar currently based in Belgrade, Serbia.
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