A Perfectly Good Family
A Perfectly Good Family

Author: Lionel Shriver

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-10-13

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0061846902

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Following the death of her worthy liberal parents, Corlis McCrea moves back into her family's grand Reconstruction mansion in North Carolina, willed to all three siblings. Her timid younger brother has never left home. When her bullying black-sheep older brother moves into "his" house as well, it's war. Each heir wants the house. Yet to buy the other out, two siblings must team against one. Just as in girlhood, Corlis is torn between allying with the decent but fearful youngest and the iconoclastic eldest, who covets his legacy to destroy it. A Perfectly Good Family is a stunning examination of inheritance, literal and psychological: what we take from our parents, what we discard, and what we are stuck with, like it or not.

A Perfectly Good Man
A Perfectly Good Man

Author: Patrick Gale

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2016-05-31

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1504036522

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The bestselling British novel about love, marriage, family, secrets, and how the power of faith can transform lives even in the midst of inconsolable loss After being paralyzed in a rugby accident, twenty-year-old, wheelchair-bound Lenny Barnes feels he has nothing left to live for and is putting his affairs in order before committing suicide. As lively Mazey Day celebrations take place in the Cornish town of Penzance, Lenny summons a parish priest to his home. Father Barnaby Johnson is shocked to discover that he has been called in not to comfort but to deliver last rites. Lenny’s death will reverberate not only in Barnaby’s life but in the lives of his family and those around them, from Barnaby’s wife, Dorothy, to Modest Carlsson, a parishioner and former teacher whose affair with an underage student cost him his job, his marriage, and, quite possibly, his soul. Narrated in a nonlinear style from the characters’ shifting perspectives and ages, this spellbinding, exquisitely crafted novel exposes the fault lines in relationships as it limns the consequences of our actions. The novel that author Patrick Gale describes as “an echo chamber” to his international bestseller Notes from an Exhibition, A Perfectly Good Man reveals another family in crisis and asks what it truly means to be good. This Richard & Judy Book Club pick is a story of warmth, wisdom, and compassion on crises of faith, the power of prayer, morality, and what it means to be a parent.

We Need to Talk About Kevin
We Need to Talk About Kevin

Author: Lionel Shriver

Publisher: Catapult

Published: 2011-05-01

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 1582438870

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The inspiration for the film starring Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly, this resonant story of a mother’s unsettling quest to understand her teenage son’s deadly violence, her own ambivalence toward motherhood, and the explosive link between them remains terrifyingly prescient. Eva never really wanted to be a mother. And certainly not the mother of a boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much–adored teacher in a school shooting two days before his sixteenth birthday. Neither nature nor nurture exclusively shapes a child's character. But Eva was always uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood. Did her internalized dislike for her own son shape him into the killer he’s become? How much is her fault? Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with Kevin’s horrific rampage, all in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin. A piercing, unforgettable, and penetrating exploration of violence and responsibility, a book that the Boston Globe describes as “impossible to put down,” is a stunning examination of how tragedy affects a town, a marriage, and a family.

A Nearly Normal Family
A Nearly Normal Family

Author: M. T. Edvardsson

Publisher: Celadon Books

Published: 2019-06-25

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1250204429

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Now a Netflix Limited Series "...A compulsively readable tour de force." —The Wall Street Journal New York Times Book Review recommends M.T. Edvardsson’s A Nearly Normal Family and lauds it as a “page-turner” that forces the reader to confront “the compromises we make with ourselves to be the people we believe our beloveds expect.” (NYTimes Book Review Summer Reading Issue) M.T. Edvardsson’s A Nearly Normal Family is a gripping legal thriller that forces the reader to consider: How far would you go to protect the ones you love? In this twisted narrative of love and murder, a horrific crime makes a seemingly normal family question everything they thought they knew about their life—and one another. Eighteen-year-old Stella Sandell stands accused of the brutal murder of a man almost fifteen years her senior. She is an ordinary teenager from an upstanding local family. What reason could she have to know a shady businessman, let alone to kill him? Stella’s father, a pastor, and mother, a criminal defense attorney, find their moral compasses tested as they defend their daughter, while struggling to understand why she is a suspect. Told in an unusual three-part structure, A Nearly Normal Family asks the questions: How well do you know your own children? How far would you go to protect them?

The Perfect Family
The Perfect Family

Author: Robyn Harding

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-08-10

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 1982169400

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The bestselling author of the The Swap takes you “on a wild psychological ride with this addictive thriller” (Palm Beach Daily News) about what happens when a seemingly perfect family is pushed to the edge. Thomas and Viv Adler are the envy of their neighbors: attractive, successful, with well-mannered children and a beautifully restored home. Until one morning, when they wake up to find their porch has been pelted with eggs. It’s a prank, Thomas insists; the work of a few out-of-control kids. But when a smoke bomb is tossed on their front lawn, and their car’s tires are punctured, the family begins to worry. Surveillance cameras show nothing but grainy images of shadowy figures in hoodies. And the police dismiss the attacks, insisting they’re just the work of bored teenagers. Unable to identify the perpetrators, the Adlers are helpless as the assaults escalate into violence, and worse. And each new violation brings with it a growing fear. Because everyone in the Adler family is keeping a secret—not just from the outside world, but from each other. And secrets can be very dangerous…. “Unsettling and darkly sublime, Robyn Harding deftly explores twisted family dynamics and devastating secrets in suburbia in this stunning novel that will shock readers by the final page” (Christina McDonald, USA TODAY bestselling author of The Night Olivia Fell).

So Much for That
So Much for That

Author: Lionel Shriver

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2010-03-09

Total Pages: 454

ISBN-13: 0061978493

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“Shriver has a gift for creating real and complicated characters… A highly engrossing novel.” — San Francisco Chronicle From New York Times bestselling author Lionel Shriver (The Post-Birthday World, We Need to Talk About Kevin), comes a searing, deeply humane novel about a crumbling marriage resurrected in the face of illness, and a family’s struggle to come to terms with disease, dying, and the obscene cost of medical care in modern America.

Perfectly Good White Boy
Perfectly Good White Boy

Author: Carrie Mesrobian

Publisher: Carolrhoda Lab ®

Published: 2014-10-01

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 1467765988

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"You never know where we'll end up. There's so much possibility in life, you know?" Hallie said. Sean Norwhalt can read between the lines. He knows Hallie's just dumped him. He was a perfectly good summer boyfriend, but now she's off to college, and he's still got another year to go. Her pep talk about futures and "possibilities" isn't exactly comforting. Sean's pretty sure he's seen his future and its "possibilities," and they all look DISPOSABLE. Like the crappy rental his family moved into when his dad left. Like all the unwanted filthy old clothes he stuffs into the rag baler at his thrift-store job. Like everything good he's ever known. The only hopeful possibilities in Sean's life are the Marine Corps, where no one expected he'd go, and Neecie Albertson, whom he never expected to care about. Carrie Mesrobian follows her critically acclaimed debut, Sex & Violence, with another powerful and wrenching portrait of a teenage boy on the precipice of the new American future.

Property
Property

Author: Lionel Shriver

Publisher: HarperCollins publishers

Published: 2019-02-18

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 9780008265250

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The first ever story collection from the inimitable Lionel Shriver 'Genius' Stylist 'Phenomenal' Observer 'Brilliant' The Times

A Good Kind of Trouble
A Good Kind of Trouble

Author: Lisa Moore Ramée

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2019-03-12

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0062836706

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From debut author Lisa Moore Ramée comes this funny and big-hearted debut middle grade novel about friendship, family, and standing up for what’s right, perfect for fans of Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give and the novels of Renée Watson and Jason Reynolds. Twelve-year-old Shayla is allergic to trouble. All she wants to do is to follow the rules. (Oh, and she’d also like to make it through seventh grade with her best friendships intact, learn to run track, and have a cute boy see past her giant forehead.) But in junior high, it’s like all the rules have changed. Now she’s suddenly questioning who her best friends are and some people at school are saying she’s not black enough. Wait, what? Shay’s sister, Hana, is involved in Black Lives Matter, but Shay doesn't think that's for her. After experiencing a powerful protest, though, Shay decides some rules are worth breaking. She starts wearing an armband to school in support of the Black Lives movement. Soon everyone is taking sides. And she is given an ultimatum. Shay is scared to do the wrong thing (and even more scared to do the right thing), but if she doesn't face her fear, she'll be forever tripping over the next hurdle. Now that’s trouble, for real. "Tensions are high over the trial of a police officer who shot an unarmed Black man. When the officer is set free, and Shay goes with her family to a silent protest, she starts to see that some trouble is worth making." (Publishers Weekly, "An Anti-Racist Children's and YA Reading List")