Get into the Holiday Spirit with These Dysfunctional Book Families
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What draws us to dysfunctional family stories? Is it the comfort of knowing families don’t always get along? That there’s a good chance it’ll make you feel even better about your own family? Whether we watch them on shows like Succession, laugh along at their unbelievable lives on reality TV, or read about them in our favorite books, stories of feuding families are guaranteed to entertain. Gear up for this holiday season and read about a few of our favorite dysfunctional families. Don’t worry — if audiobooks are more your thing, we’ve got a post for that too.
{{ product: 9780593545546 }}National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 author Weike Wang (Chemistry, Joan is Okay) returns with a sharp, incisive novel with a married couple at its core. Keru is a Chinese American corporate big wig balancing her career with her stagnant relationship and caring for her aging parents. Nate is a tenured professor of biology grappling with his rural working-class parents and fending off his brother’s continuous requests for money he can’t afford to give him. With questions of home, family and identity, Rental House is sure to put your complicated family into perspective.
Coco Mellors knows how to write unforgettable characters, and her newest novel gives us a few more to fall in love with. The Blue sisters lead totally different lives, all full of incredible success. A lawyer, a former boxer, and a model, all leaving their pasts behind and claiming different parts of the globe for themselves — until their fourth sister passes away, and everything comes to a screeching halt. This story about sisterhood and how grief can pull a family apart — and bring them back together again — is perfect for fans of Lily King and Anne Napolitano.
We couldn’t put this one down, and we have a feeling you won’t be able to, either. From the bestselling author of Fleishman is in Trouble comes a brand-new story about one family’s seemingly perfect, all-American façade, and the past that comes back to haunt them. In her exclusive B&N Reads guest post, Brodesser-Akner writes, “Who are we without our money is a good question, but who are we without our trauma? That was the question for me.” A story about the benefits and consequences of wealth and the lengths we’ll go to run from our personal mythologies — this cast of characters will hold you for ransom until the very end.
The book that inspired the major motion picture of the same name with a star-studded cast (featuring Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, and Adam Driver, just to name a few), this smart, sharp, side-splitting read follows Judd and the Foxman family through a turbulent time of sitting shiva and grappling with Judd’s wife’s affair. A story of marriage, home, brotherhood and family traditions that make or break us, This is Where I Leave You is perfect for fans of Nick Hornby and David Nicholls.
We know you’ve seen the Emmy-nominated show starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington, but have you read the book that started it all? Engrossing, complex and poised, Celeste Ng explores the power of perception, the friction between creativity and conformity, and the futility of trying to outrun your past in this compelling domestic drama. Following two families in one stuffy Cleveland suburb, Ng asks questions of race, identity and class that makes this a perfect read (and discussion) for any book club.