9 Must-Read Books About Family Dysfunction and Drama

Three Junes

Author: Julia Glass

This 2002 National Book Award-winning novel brings us into the lives of Paul, Fenno, and Fern over the course of three different summers. Their lives are woven together in different ways, but the story isn’t necessarily about their relationships with one another, but about each of their struggles to come to terms with the deaths of loved ones.

A slow-mover, for me, but a nonetheless fascinating look at families, love, and how death and the things learned in the aftermath can define the lives of those left behind.

Commonwealth

Author: Ann Patchett

In Commonwealth, Ann Patchett brilliantly weaves together flawed families who fail one another over the decades but keep trying and trusting in spite of the failures. Where you would expect villains, she instead presents complicated characters struggling with their own hopes, inadequacies, and feelings about the past and how to move forward.

Where you would expect broken, bitter relationships, she shows the enduring power of loyalty, love, and forgiveness. This is not an action-packed novel, but one where the subtle emotional tensions will resonate. Highly recommended, along with all of her other books.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Author: Karen Joy Fowler

Rosemary is 22 and hasn’t seen her brother or sister in years. Her sister was removed from the home before Rosemary was 6, and now she’s determined to learn more about the reasons. It’s been long enough since this book came out that you may already know the “secret” of this family, but if you don’t, I’ve removed it from the longer summary and won’t reveal it here. Go in blind and don’t read more reviews, if you don’t know.

If you have already read more, rest assured: what seems like it could be a gimmick is actually a smartly rendered novel about family, memory, and science. I loved this novel and would like to read it again.

The Last Romantics

Author: Tara Conklin

Much of The Last Romantics hinges on the moments that define four siblings in childhood. Together, Renee, Caroline, Joe, and Fiona have the Pause. Following their father’s early death, their mother’s years-long retreat defined their relationships, cementing a lifelong closeness, sense of responsibility, and knowing of one another.

But it’s the unknown traumas and struggles that sends each on their own paths into adulthood, paths that the others don’t understand–though they feel their connections should make understanding a given.

Told over decades, The Last Romantics is a beautifully rendered portrait of complicated familial relationships, examining the nature of love, commitment, and the strength of those bonds even as what we know changes. Read my full review.

The Almost Sisters

Author: Joshilyn Jackson

Leia Birch Briggs is a successful comic book artist who is working on the origin story of her most famous characters when her life turns upside down: she is pregnant. And the father is a man who was dressed as Batman at a comic book convention. In the midst of this, her stepsister Rachel’s marriage is falling apart and her beloved grandmother, Birchie, is revealed to have dementia.

Leia quickly travels to Birchie’s small Alabama town, with Rachel’s teenage daughter in two, to assess the situation and move Birchie out. She finds Birchie and her lifelong friend Wattie harboring more than just the secret of Birchie’s illness, forcing Leia to reconsider what she knows about family, race, loyalty, and commitment.

Joshilyn Jackson has a way of weaving together serious issues with situations that always feel a little preposterous and funny, without losing the overall gravity of them. Her turns of phrase add levity to the most grim scenes, and her audiobook narration is excellent.

All My Puny Sorrows

Author: Miriam Toews

Elf and Yoli are two sisters who grew up in a Mennonite community in Winnipeg. Their family went against the grain, and as an adult, Elf is an acclaimed and glamorous pianist. Yoli is less successful–going through her second divorce and struggling to raise two teenagers–but it’s Elf’s struggles that dominate. Crippled by depression, she is determined to end her life.

Yoli grapples with what it means to approach her sister with love and compassion, without being complicit in her plans. This book is by turns witty, sharply observant, and heartbreaking.

The House We Grew Up In

Author: Lisa Jewell

The House We Grew Up In is a twisty family tale from one of my new favorite thriller authors, Lisa Jewell–except it’s not really a thriller, and I hadn’t even realized that Jewell was the author until I revisited this book. Her mastery of family and relationship intricacies is on point here, and as in her thrillers, there are secrets to untangle.

But this book is more about family–a seemingly perfect English family that is torn apart by tragedy one Easter weekend. Years later, the scattered children return and are forced to face their mother’s mental illness and the truth of what happened that long-ago holiday.

The Vanishing Half

Author: Brit Bennett

The story of two Black twin sisters, raised in a small town where light skin is valued and sought after when building families. The sisters run to New Orleans as teens and then take very different life paths, only to be reunited decades later and forced to reckon with their choices.

One of the best books of 2020, with intricately drawn, multi-generational characters exploring race, identity, and family.

The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters

Author: Balli Kaur Jaswal

When their Punjabi mother dies, British-born sisters Rajni, Jezmeen, and Shirina agree to carry out her last wish: a pilgrimage, carefully planned by their mother, to India. They are to visit places that were meaningful to her and to deliver her ashes to their final resting place.

The three sisters grapple with their grief, their strained relationships, and the stresses of their regular lives, while attempting to carry out their mother’s wishes and perhaps come together in a way they never have.

This was a fast, smart read, filled with vivid characters and places, as well as interesting reflections on India from a female generation raised outside of it.