Helpful Score: 6
This book was funny, insightful, and heartbreaking all at once, told from the point of view of one character as both a child and an adult.
Helpful Score: 5
This was a very interesting and compelling book. The book seemed to start out a little slow, flipping back and forth between the past and the present. At times I felt sorry for the adult Rebecca because she is married to a man that does not love her. When she gets pregnant, Alastair convinces her to get an abortion. After making a family tree, she realizes that her grandmother and grandfather were first cousins. Her father and aunt are lovers. While her mother is giving a party at their house, she kills herself in the bathroom. Sometimes a lot of the stuff that happens in the book is hard to keep track of.
Very enjoyable novel. Cultural studies graduate student Rebecca switches between narration on her crumbing marriage to a geneticist and on her family's own troubled history. For once, I thought the use of footnotes in a novel was not overly precious, as the narrator uses them to interject information on the pop culture topics she studies.
Helpful Score: 2
This book is a funny/sad commentary on a family that we can all relate to!
Helpful Score: 1
Excellent book.
