I enjoy a good family drama, but they can be so hit or miss at times. This was not one of those times!
I will start out by saying this: there are a lot of characters to keep track of, and the writing seamlessly switches POV as easily as switching to a new paragraph. I can only hope that the finished copies come with some sort of family tree, because there are three generations under one (two?) roof, and I struggled in the beginning to remember who was paired with who. It got a little easier as I went further in the book, but I still easily got confused and probably should have drawn myself a tree.
There was also the fact that the grandkids were my age, and not teenagers, and that kept throwing me for a loop too. Of course, I still have all four of my grandparents, but it kept throwing me for a loop that these "grandkids" were all mid to late 20's.
If you can get past the constantly shifting POV and the way that this book reads like a dream of consciousness, it is overall a good story. It goes to show just how differently everyone processes grief, especially grief on top of earth shattering news about their grandpa's habits, but it also shows all the ways everyone has different lives. You have someone going through a breakup, a single mom not wanting to date, and accidental pregnancy with someone who doesn't know what she wants, and so on. Despite getting characters mixed up, they did all feel pretty unique and had their own things going on.
In short, it felt like a book about a real family dealing with real world issues, and I appreciate that.
I do wish the chapters were shorter though - 50 pages is way too long for one chapter.
Overall, I ended up finishing this book in two sittings. I was just that absorbed into the story at hand, and I wanted everything to work out okay for the characters. While this book does start with a funeral, it ends with a wedding, and all the characters are in their "happily ever now" positions. Even with such a large cast of characters, they each accomplished the thing they wanted to in this book, and in the end they all came together despite other circumstances. One big, happy, messed up, crazy family.
Content warnings: death, grief, infidelity, accidental pregnancy, abortion (mention), sexual content
I will start out by saying this: there are a lot of characters to keep track of, and the writing seamlessly switches POV as easily as switching to a new paragraph. I can only hope that the finished copies come with some sort of family tree, because there are three generations under one (two?) roof, and I struggled in the beginning to remember who was paired with who. It got a little easier as I went further in the book, but I still easily got confused and probably should have drawn myself a tree.
There was also the fact that the grandkids were my age, and not teenagers, and that kept throwing me for a loop too. Of course, I still have all four of my grandparents, but it kept throwing me for a loop that these "grandkids" were all mid to late 20's.
If you can get past the constantly shifting POV and the way that this book reads like a dream of consciousness, it is overall a good story. It goes to show just how differently everyone processes grief, especially grief on top of earth shattering news about their grandpa's habits, but it also shows all the ways everyone has different lives. You have someone going through a breakup, a single mom not wanting to date, and accidental pregnancy with someone who doesn't know what she wants, and so on. Despite getting characters mixed up, they did all feel pretty unique and had their own things going on.
In short, it felt like a book about a real family dealing with real world issues, and I appreciate that.
I do wish the chapters were shorter though - 50 pages is way too long for one chapter.
Overall, I ended up finishing this book in two sittings. I was just that absorbed into the story at hand, and I wanted everything to work out okay for the characters. While this book does start with a funeral, it ends with a wedding, and all the characters are in their "happily ever now" positions. Even with such a large cast of characters, they each accomplished the thing they wanted to in this book, and in the end they all came together despite other circumstances. One big, happy, messed up, crazy family.
Content warnings: death, grief, infidelity, accidental pregnancy, abortion (mention), sexual content