Nuclear Family by Susanna Fogel

It’s nearing the end of the year, and I’ve only read 83 books, so I’m looking for slim volumes that I can read in one sitting and thoroughly enjoy to try to up my count to 90. Nuclear Family by Susanna Fogel certainly fits the bill. As the subtitle reveals, it is a ‘Tragicomic Novel in Letters’ and that’s about all I needed to hear. 

The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney

My reading has been far from multicultural lately. Brits and white North Americans seem to be dominating. This is a situation I usually try to avoid, but when a novel about a dysfunctional family comes my way I have a hard time turning away. Enter The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney.

And the Plumb family is definitely dysfunctional. The four siblings have had to wait until the youngest turns forty for their inheritance. But that has not stopped them from spending it. All are caught up in financial and familial turmoil that a large lump sum of money could potentially resolve. But life is never that simple, is it? Oldest brother Leo does something (but what?) that means the windfall will not be going to his siblings. At least not as much as they had initially anticipated and built their lives around.

My only complaint about the book, which i loved, was the ending. Everything is wrapped up a little to neatly for me. They don’t get the money, but everyone lives happily ever after, or at least comes to terms with their state of affairs.

Who will like this book? If you like dysfunctional families as I clearly do, then The Nest will be a winner for you. It fulfills Tolstoy’s adage that each family is unhappy in it’s own way. There’s lots of lies and deceit and the kind of scandal that rocks life in suburbia. Oh, and Amy Poehler is blurbed on the cover, so you know it’s good.