Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino
Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino is such an odd, interesting book. It was one of the Book of the Month selections for the month of December 2025, and I couldn’t decide between Best Offer Wins or Good Spirits. So I got both! Lol. I’m really glad that I did because this brand-new novel was such an interesting read. And as absurd as it was, I felt like the house hunting process really can be this stressful for some people. Especially if you like in the most desirable neighborhood in an affluent area. That’s a big issue since theya are looking in the DC area.
Finding the house of your dreams is never easy. And it gets even harder when the real estate market is oversaturated like it was during the pandemic. Margo’s dream home just might be more difficult to find than she originally thought.
To find out more about this engrossing story, keep reading for my full Best Offer Wins book review. Marisa Kashino’s debut novel is filled with dark humor and twists. It’s a biting debut novel that you won’t want to miss!
What is Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino About?
An insanely competitive housing market. A desperate buyer on the edge. In Marisa Kashino’s darkly humorous debut novel, Best Offer Wins, the white picket fence becomes the ultimate symbol of success—and obsession. How far would you go for the house of your dreams?
Eighteen months and 11 lost bidding wars into house-hunting in the overheated Washington, DC suburbs, 37-year-old publicist Margo Miyake gets a tip about the perfect house, in the perfect neighborhood, slated to come up for sale in one month. Desperate to escape the cramped apartment she shares with her husband Ian — and in turn, get their marriage, plan to have a baby, and whole life back on track — Margo becomes obsessed with buying the house before it’s publicly listed and the masses descend (with unbeatable, all-cash offers in hand).
A little stalking? Harmless. A bit of trespassing? Necessary. As Margo infiltrates the homeowners’ lives, her tactics grow increasingly unhinged—but just when she thinks she’s won them over, she hits a snag in her plan. Undeterred, Margo will prove again and again that there’s no boundary she won’t cross to seize the dream life she’s been chasing. The most unsettling part? You’ll root for her, even as you gasp in disbelief.
Dark, biting, and laugh-out-loud funny, Best Offer Wins is a propulsive debut and a razor-sharp exploration of class, ambition, and the modern housing crisis. (from Amazon.com)
My Initial Thoughts
In the beginning I felt sad for main character Margo and her husband, Ian. Their house hunting journey began during the Pandemic, when they decided to sell their starter home (a row house) in an attempt to profit as much as possible before searching for their dream house. It’s Margo’s idea. She has the naive belief that once they have their dream house, they’ll be able to start a family and Margo’s life will be perfect.
But as we all know, early 2020 was a time filled with unpredictability. So even though they have the money, they can’t seem to find a house in the neighborhood that they want. Each listing ends in a bidding war that they just can’t win. After 18 months of house hunting, they are still living in the tiny and cramped apartment that they thought would be a temporary situation.
This is Marisa Kashino’s first novel after a long career at the Washington Post, and I found it to be very enjoyable. From the first couple of pages, I was sucked into their house hunting journey from early chapters. I couldn’t wait to find out what other dark twists were in store.
This Book Felt Weirdly Relatable
Okay, okay. Let me explain.
I’m not at all condoning Margo’s behavior throughout this novel. But I felt like her desperation was very relatable and something that readers will be sympathetic to. I can’t say that I know what they’re going through because I bought my house in 2019 (and sold it to my brother after seven years). My fiance bought his house (the house we currently live in) in 2017. So things were much different back then.
But recently, the house next door to us went up for sale. We don’t live in a city by any means. But we do live in a good part of town. The neighborhood is nice for families and the location is good. So the day that it was listed, the house tours started. And we watched as prospective buyers toured the house for 3 days straight until the listing agent said that all offers had to be in at 5 PM on Monday.
Based off how many tours there were and what the home eventually sold for, I imagine there were a lot of offers. And this is in a small town in Pennsylvania. So I can’t even imagine what it’s like in the DC area.
I liked the Backstory
Although this book got incredibly dark, it was also funny. Not in a laugh out loud kind of way but in a “this is so absurd I can’t believe what I’m reading” kind of way. I liked Marisa’s backstory as a journalist (which I assume was based off the author’s life, since a bulk of her career was writing for the Washington Post). And I liked how we learned a little bit about Margo’s family and her childhood.
There’s just a lot of reasons why we act the way we do. And a lot of it has to do with our parents, doesn’t it?
The events in this book definitely aren’t normal. Margo is on the prowl for houses at even the hint of an impending sale. It’s a little unsettling. She dreams of the perfect house with a lush front lawn and a tire swing in the tree. She wants window boxes and to have a lawn that needs a lawn mower. She thinks it’s part of creating her perfect life. But over the course of this novel as she tries to find the kind of place she dreams of, her plan goes way off the track. And that is an understatement.
In Conclusion
There’s just a lot going on in this book, and I found it to be a fun and mischievous thriller. Did I love Marisa? Not really. But it’s very interesting to watch the house hunting journey take a toll on her mental health. Some of it made me laugh. Other scenes made me cringe. But all in all, it was a book that kept me entertained up until it’s final pages.
If you’re looking for a twisty domestic thriller, I would suggest adding this one to your to be read list. It’s a great book for readers of all ages but I think millennials will find it especially interesting.
So that’s it for today! I hope my Best Offer Wins book review has convinced you to check out this wild and riveting thriller.
