Five Books About Families, free edition
Dysfunctional, competitive, loving or murderous, every family is different.
Welcome to Five Books For, a newsletter for people who love great stories. I’m so happy you’re here. I know many of you have just signed up after reading my guest post on
- if that’s you then thank you, I really hope you find something new to read here and that you’ll join in the book chat! For those of you who haven’t read it, the guest post can be found here: A Peek Into My Reading Life - How A Childhood Ambition Turned Into A Lifelong Love Of Detective Fiction. It was really fun to write; if you’re not already subscribed to then take a look - shares not only various book recommendations but also a weekly round up of bookish links and lots of other goodies too.The opening line of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy famously states that “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” I don’t know whether that’s quite true, but I thought this month it would be interesting to look at some books on the theme of families. I suspect this is a theme we’ll eventually return to as it’s such a popular topic for writers that I struggled to narrow it down to just six books (the sixth will be in the paid edition of the newsletter in two weeks’ time). As always, we’re covering a variety of genres here and I hope there’ll be something for everyone, whether you’re in the mood for a gothic thriller, a suburban mystery, a prickly and awkward sister, an epic exploration of family love and dysfunction or a comedy with a touch of romance.
Let’s dive in!
The Cactus by Sarah Haywood
“Dealing with members of the opposite sex isn’t that dissimilar from training a dog; you need to be firm and persistent.”
So what’s it about? When Susan Green finds herself unexpectedly pregnant at the age of 45, she thinks that her life can’t be any more disrupted until her mother dies, leaving her house to Susan’s drunken brother Edward for as long as he wants to live in it. This brings up all kinds of long-repressed resentments for Susan and she decides to take Edward to court to force him to sell the house so that they can split the proceeds. Susan soon finds that her prior habit of tightly controlling both her life and her emotions won’t work now, as she investigates and tries to find evidence that Edward has unduly influenced their mother to change her will in his favour. Can Susan face up to the messy family dynamics she’s spent so long avoiding and perhaps even find love at last?
What’s great about it? Susan is a wonderful character, prickly and closed-off, but as the novel progresses we really see her bloom and grow into a new version of herself. I love when a book has a really well-written character arc and explores difficult emotions with great skill. There is a love story here but it’s rather than being the main plot driver it’s tied in to Sarah’s growth and development which I think is well-considered. Susan reminds me a little of Molly in The Maid by Nita Prose or of Eleanor in Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, in the sense that she’s an unconventional heroine who the author really manages to bring to life.
Give it a try if: you like books about difficult women; you like stories about people finding themselves; you like stories about redemption; you’re fascinated by books exploring complicated grief and tricky family dynamics; you enjoyed The Maid by Nita Prose or Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman.
Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
“Once you’ve hit a ball there’s no point watching to see where it’s going. You can’t change its flight path now. You have to think about your next move. Not what you should have done. What you do now.”
So what’s it about? Stan and Joy Delaney are respected tennis coaches in their local Sydney neighbourhood. Married for 50 years and now finally retired after selling their famous tennis academy, to the outside world it looks like they have the perfect marriage. Only Stan and Joy know that neither of them are happy. When a stranger turns up at their door, injured after a fight with her boyfriend, Joy takes her in and treats her like another daughter, much to the confusion of her four children, all tennis aces themselves. But is shelter and kindness all that Savannah wants, or does she have an ulterior motive?
Before long, Joy has gone missing, Savannah has disappeared, and the Delaney children - and the police - are beginning to question why Stan looks so guilty. How did he end up with scratches on his face? Why isn’t he being more helpful? As the children start taking sides, they begin to reexamine their family history and look more deeply at their parents’ marriage, but they soon find that their perspectives, and their memories of their years together as a family, are very different.
What’s great about it? This is an absolutely masterful mystery novel; the focus of the story stays squarely on the family and the police are incidental to it which gives Moriarty the chance to really explore the way in which the Delaney family relate to each other as well as Stan and Joy’s long marriage. The ending is extremely satisfying and reveals all the clues which Moriarty has carefully placed along the way - it’s brilliantly done. I think I laughed out loud in wonder when it all came together at the end - it’s such a joy when that happens. The book is also a wonderful exploration of family dynamics, particularly between the four children and within Stan and Joy’s marriage. As the novel progresses we also see more from Joy’s point of view and learn about the dreams she has sacrificed for her family, which I think will resonate for a lot of women readers, even if they were never likely to make it to Wimbledon themselves.
Give it a try if: you like perfectly written mysteries; you like spotting clues and red herrings as you read; you like stories about sports; you love stories about sibling dynamics; you’re interested in books that explore long marriages and the way that women have to sacrifice to accommodate their families; you love books about family secrets.
The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo
“Each of their four daughters paused what she was doing in order to watch them, the shining unfathomable orb of their parents, two people who emanated more love than it seemed like the universe would sanction.”
So what’s it about? Marilyn and David Sorenson meet as students in the 1970s and fall helplessly in love; forty years later they are older and surveying the family that they’ve built as fault lines begin to appear everywhere. David is searching for purpose after retiring from his career as a doctor while Marilyn has finally found some space to build a life for herself outside the home after decades of mothering. Their four daughters are all struggling: Wendy, the oldest, is mourning the death of both her husband and the premature baby they’d conceived before his cancer diagnosis; Violet has given up a high-flying career in law to be a stay-at-home mum and is rapidly finding out that parenthood is harder to excel at than a court case; Violet finds herself pregnant by her depressive boyfriend and embarks upon an affair which threatens to wrench her life apart, and Grace, the youngest, is living a lie, pretending to attend law school when in fact her applications were all rejected. Into this comes Jonah, who Violet gave up for adoption 15 years previously. His arrival will force the whole family to re-examine their relationships with each other and act as a catalyst for bridges to be built - or burned.
What’s great about it? Lombardo writes so beautifully and so insightfully about difficult, dysfunctional families that nonetheless are filled with a lot of love. Her portrait of David and Marilyn’s marriage and the shifting dynamic they’re having to navigate as David struggles to feel useful and Marilyn finally finds a purpose of her own outside of the family is astutely observed, as are the many years of marriage we see them live through as the book unfolds. Wendy’s grief and Violet’s struggles with parenthood are perceptively written without falling into the realm of cliché and the stories of Liza, Grace and Jonah are similarly sharply observed. The format jumps back and forth through time to reveal different perspectives, sometimes of the same events, and Lombardo is gifted at showing each character from multiple angles so that in one chapter you might be appalled at their behaviour yet in the next completely understanding of it. None of the characters are presented as perfect or as the one you should be rooting for or attached to and instead Lombardo challenges you to have compassion for each of them, no matter how prickly they are or how difficult or self-destructive their behaviour. I loved how she managed to make me fall in love with even the most abrasive of her characters and how she was able to explore all the ways in which families can hurt each other and yet still love each other desperately, as well as the many layers of motivation that can contribute to a single act.
Give it a try if: you like books about long marriages; you like books about true love; you’re interested in books about families, but especially about siblings; you like books with ‘difficult’ characters; you love beautiful writing; you like books which are emotionally astute; you like being moved to tears by the books you read; you’re looking for something long to read (it comes in at over 500 pages); you love books which explore the redemptive power of love.
The Party Crasher by Sophie Kinsella
“This family may be broken. It may be shattered. But it's my broken, shattered family. And I want to be here, I finally admit to myself. To be at the party, even if I'm invisible. This is the last hurrah, even if no one's cheering. I just can't walk away.”
So what’s it about? Effie has fallen out with her dad after he and her mum broke up, largely because of his awful new girlfriend and the fact that he’s about to sell the family home, to which Effie is deeply attached. To make matters worse, her dad and Krista are having a ‘house-cooling’ party, to say goodbye to the house, and Effie hasn’t been invited. But her most beloved childhood possession is still hidden inside the house and Effie can’t bear to be without it, so she decides to sneak into the party and retrieve it while everyone is occupied having a good time. She doesn’t expect to overhear quite so many revealing conversations and before the weekend is over she’s going to have to face up to some truths which she’s thus far managed to ignore.
What’s great about it? As we’ve discussed previously, Kinsella is laugh-out-loud funny and this novel is no exception. The set-up allows her to introduce all kinds of comedic moments as Effie sneaks around the house, hiding in various nooks and crannies and of course there’s a happy ending which involves Effie learning a few lessons about both herself and the people around her. The house itself almost becomes a character and the way it’s described makes it easy to see why Effie is so attached to it; as a child I also lived in an old, characterful house (although Effie’s house sounds even bigger and more sprawling) and I was devastated when we moved, which made her attachment to the house really resonate for me. Although there are some serious themes explored in the book, it’s all done in a very light-hearted way which makes for a nice easy read. There’s also a love story which is satisfying but doesn’t dominate the whole plot.
Give it a try if: you like books that make you laugh; you like characters who have to grow and mature as the book progresses; you want something light-hearted and funny to read but which still explores themes of family and belonging; you love old houses; you like books with happy endings.
Flowers In The Attic by VC Andrews
“It dawned on me strongly then, that our parents had lived full lives even before they had children, that we were not so important after all.”
So what’s it about? In the late 1950s, the Dollanganger children are beautiful: blonde haired, blue eyed and blessed with equally beautiful and happily married parents, until their father dies in an accident. Their mother, unable to support them herself, suggests a plan to ensure their future thriving: they will return to live with her unimaginably wealthy parents, who disinherited her when she married their father, and she will win back her father’s affection so that they can have a new life as rich heirs and heiresses. The catch? She doesn’t want to introduce the children to her father just yet, so she and her mother find a room in the enormous family mansion that is remote and has access to the attic, where the children can stay for a few days until she can broach the subject with her father. But their grandmother is a sinister, forbidding presence and as the days stretch into weeks and months, and eventually years, the children begin to question whether they’ll ever escape the attic.
What’s great about it? I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this book; it’s notorious for having an incest plotline and often described as deranged although it does regularly pop up on favourite book lists, especially for books that people loved as teenagers. It’s also been banned at various times and in various places. However, it was much more interesting than I expected and while the theme of incest is prevalent throughout there’s very little sex in it, despite its reputation. I was impressed at how Andrews manages to maintain the tension and pace throughout the novel given that the vast majority of it takes place in a single room and an attic - no mean feat. The children are well-written and Cathy in particular is captured in her essential teenage-girl-ness really well. The twist towards the end is nicely done and Cathy makes a credible and interesting narrator. It’s very gothic in sensibility and while parts of it do stretch credulity at times it’s a very fun, if dark, read. I understand there is a whole series of sequels which contain even more melodrama following the lives of the children after the attic, should you wish to continue reading. It reminded me a little of Colleen Hoover; interestingly enough not her actual thriller (Verity) but in the way that her other work often explores traumatic events and their emotional impact in a very accessible way, although her premises tend not to be quite so outlandish.
Give it a try if: you like 1980s popular commercial fiction; if you like gothic novels; if you love books with lots of melodrama; you’re a fan of Colleen Hoover; you like novels about the inner lives of teenage girls; you like books with evil women, especially evil mothers and grandmothers; you like fairytales; you’re looking for something fun to read but fancy something dark rather than light-hearted.
Thanks for reading!
I hope you’ve found something new to read this month; as ever, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you read any of these books and loved (or hated) them? Which books would you add to the list? Feel free to comment and let us know or reply to this email or send me a DM if you’d rather chat one on one! I love hearing from you all.
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Happy reading,
Kate
It was a pleasure working with you Kate, and I'm happy to read that several readers subscribed to Five Books For. I enjoy reading it and the paid subscriber issue has so much more bookish goodness. Thanks again!
I've added Liane Moriarty's book on my TBR list. Great post.