For fans of Emma Straub and Jennifer Weiner, comes a heartfelt, darkly funny novel about learning to love (and forgive) your family…even when they accidentally put you behind bars.

All families are messy. Some are disasters.

Natalie Walker is the reason her older brother and sister went to prison more than fifteen years ago. She fled California shortly after that fateful night and hasn’t spoken to anyone in her family since. Ten years later, Natalie receives a letter from a lawyer saying her estranged mother has died and left the family’s historic Santa Cruz house to her–sort of. To inherit it, Natalie and her siblings must claim it together.

Natalie drives cross-country to Santa Cruz with her willful cat in tow expecting to sign some papers, see siblings Lynn and Jake briefly, and get back to sorting out her life in Boston. But Jake, now an award-winning ornithologist, is missing, and Lynn, working as an undertaker in New York City, shows up with a teenage son. While Natalie and her nephew look for Jake–and meeting a very handsome marine biologist along the way–she unpacks the guilt she has held on to for so many years, wondering how, or if, she can salvage a relationship with her siblings after all this time.

Review:

Sincere, immersive, and nuanced!

A Very Typical Family is a tender, compelling tale that delves into the complex bonds and emotional scars that can exist between family members and immerses you in a tale about rediscovering one’s self, confronting the past, accepting the things you cannot change, learning to heal, and moving on.

The prose is smooth and fluid. The characters are hesitant, conflicted, and damaged. And the plot is an exceptionally absorbing tale about life, loss, love, tragedy, resentment, regret, guilt, grief, familial drama, self reflection, friendship, and forgiveness.

Overall, A Very Typical Family is a beautiful mix of heart, hope, and healing that is not only a moving, emotive, lovely debut by Godfrey but a must-read novel for anyone who loves a meaty, well-written family saga.

This book is available now.

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