F***ing hell this is life. ( )

It set a lot up over the course of its 600+ pages but it only felt like it touched the surface of the fragile family drama that it proudly wears on its chest as its highest assurance.

While relating heavily to each and every character, with a father who has Parkinson's and my mom takes care of to him to her detriment, this couldn't have hit me harder nor at a better time. Its characters are annoying, funny, bratty, endearing, entitled, crazy, and uniquely familiar on every front. Everything about Denise and her history with Alfred, aside from Alfred's very weird and, not very well explained, love of Denise. Chips adventures in Lithuania and everything about Chips situation there had me laughing or gasping or learning something new. Gary and his perfectly dysfunctional nuclear hellscape of a family. These characters each spoke to me on a unique level, they all felt individual and beautifully flawed. I saw myself in them and I saw people I hated in them, existing together. These personalities along with that of the parents; Alfred and Enid, is the books biggest strength. Alfred's diseased rants of age and hallucinations made me laugh but also angry and sad.

All of these personalities and personal grievances, vendettas, secrets, and other story-related family drama were set up carefully for collision with dramatic fireworks and meticulously picked apart and solved through complex conversation and the theatrical drama of a finale we all expect from fiction. All of this had been leading up to the penultimate moment of the book, the "last Christmas at home together".

But when the book finally got there, it felt as if it happened so quickly and in a vacuum. That moment at the dinner table, we were Chip, speechless as these moments unfurled, held back by nothing and then passed by, and then we are met with an epilogue. *SPOILER* The book leaves you with the answer that everything in these dysfunctional people, at least the things set up throughout the book, was fixed by Alfred's entering into a nursing home. *END SPOILER*

Perhaps these unsolved threads that are the books biggest grievance for me are actually its greatest strength as a "family novel". As much like with family, we wish we could've said more, we each feel like we have the answers, that we know whats best, and get angry or detached as a result of just trying to do what we each think is best. We each want to communicate our deepest wants and needs with each other without all of the colorful generational baggage that existence brings. But in the end we are helpless in the face of circumstance to be able to communicate anything close to what we truly feel, so we are cut short and left to be happy with what we still have, rather than what we long for.

Overall a delightful and effortless read, a refreshing but heart-achingly realistic depiction of family. ( )

A masterpiece by any measure.

I struggled to get past the non-sentences. As my daughter put it, forgiving a novelist trying to be a poet. Then it got gross. Being an Oprah pick, I knew there would be irredeemable characters, but I couldn't even get past Chip's terrible decisions and the unnecessary description of his sex life. Just not for me.

Not since 100 Years of Solitude have I been so convinced that an author wrote a book to specifically piss me off.

I have no idea what to make of this. I was into it early, but after about page 200 I felt like I was having a mental breakdown; what the fuck was going on? Why are we spending 100 pages on this, 100 pages on that, all of which are bloated, pretentious and boring tangents.

But the book is so well written, it's maddening. The prose and descriptions flow effortlessly, as long as you're ok with going along for the ride. I got a very clear idea of who these characters were and why they were like that, I just didn't like any of them...nor was I supposed to. Is this satire? I have no clue - the final 100 pages are, frustratingly, really good. True moments of reflection, quiet and difficult family moments hit hard. The ending was very satisfying.

But still, fuck this book. I hated how there weren't any chapter breaks, I was frustrated at the structure, and most of all I am immensely annoyed that a beautifully written book is one of my least favorite ever.

Some parts are 5 stars, some made me want to give up reading for a few months. ( )