Tag: Family

Fun for the Whole Family by Jennifer E. Smith (Literary Fiction)

Four currently non-communicating siblings (who used to be closer than close), three big secrets, and a sudden trip to North Dakota bring to a head the lives of the four Endicotts: Gemma, Connor, and twins Jude and Roddy — all in their 50s by the time the story takes place. Gemma — the “normal” one, currently fighting IVF battles; Connor — author of a “tell all” book on the family (while claiming it is fiction with “emotional truth” rather than “literal truth”); Jude — a megastar with constant nightmares; and Roddy — an almost has-been soccer star on the verge of marrying his partner, Winston, while trying to make a comeback.

They had a fairly non-traditional childhood — going for long and extremely disorganized annual summer road trips with the mother who left the family when the youngest was eight. With flashbacks to fill in the blanks and the highly itinerized trip to the wilds of North Dakota to propel the action, the story grabs you from multiple angles and just won’t let you go.

I liked the characters a great deal — they each had a principled core, with frank reflection and sincere longing to reconnect. I’d be happy to be their friends (my ultimate positive assessment!). While there was plenty of drama — as there is in every life — it was (to me) more of a “real” drama, rather than a manufactured and overly manipulative one. The pacing was excellent, and I found the story heartwarming — not because good things necessarily happened, but because of the honest understanding and connection that occurred.

The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman (Audio Book)

Writing: 4.5/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot: 4/5

Four years later, Lily is just barely getting her life together and keeping the grief to a simmer after her husband is killed in a car accident mere feet from the family home. But this is honestly not a sad book (although the author does a good job of exploring how Lily does claw her way back up out of the grief trough). Instead it’s uplifting, humorous, and meaningful all at once.

An illustrator for children’s textbooks, Lily is sent off to a gardening class at the L.A. Botanical Garden to become one with the vegetables she will need to illustrate for a brand new client. She takes her two children (5 and 7) and her sister Rachael with her, and to say the class is populated with some wonderful characters is an huge understatement. The book is clever, literary, and linguistic — I love that Waxman is both a fantastic writer and chooses to write a world where bad things happen, but the individuals involved can make good things happen too. Her characters have agency. I also like the way she works with stereotypes and diversity issues — tackling the assumptions people make about each other and the surprise and follow up understanding when their assumptions are challenged. Very skillfully done.

I listened to this on audio book and the reader was fantastic. I probably would have preferred to read it in book form, though, because I like to savor Waxman’s writing and that is hard to do when you’re listening (and driving, hiking, or otherwise too busy to stop and do some kind of audio underlining). I did manage to capture a couple of lines though: “Just turn the handbag of your soul inside out, and shake it“ and “She has people skills like lions have gazelle skills.” As a bonus, there was a lot of actively good gardening instructions, given in small, digestible, pockets. Take note!

All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien (Audio Book — Literary / Multicultural Fiction)

Writing: 4/5 Characters: 4/5 Plot: 3.5/5

Ky Tran comes back to the violent, drug ridden, largely Vietnamese / Chinese Sydney suburb of Cabramatta when her relatively nerdy, honor student, brother is brutally murdered at a post graduation party. The witnesses won’t talk, the police don’t care, and her parents haven’t the language skills or the will to pursue the matter. Ky tackles the witnesses — most of whom she knows — unable to let the matter rest. The novel structure fills in background, the story each witness reluctantly lets out, and the real story each remembers about while curating what comes out of their mouth. The path of disclosure winds towards a confrontation with Minnie — the best friend Ky hasn’t spoken to in years.

The writing is good and the main reader for the audio book is excellent (I did not love the two minor readers but they only appear once each for a relatively short time). I appreciated the in-depth descriptions of different approaches taken by members of a refugee community trying to make a life in a new country that doesn’t necessarily want them. Insightful commentary on loyalty, friendship, family, justice, and the concept of “being good.”

Thank you to Harper Audio and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on September 13th, 2022.