We start out with a guy named Elliot. He’s got a nice house, a nice job, and a small fortune from doing science experiments on a TV show. He’s graciously opened his garden up to visitors during the annual garden show in his town. He seems like a good guy.
Unfortunately a woman named Gemma shows up to the garden show and wanders around his yard. Elliot gets stung by a bee while she’s there, and she drives him to the hospital, which is basically what any decent human would do. They fall in love after that and get married quickly.
Gemma moves into his house, and they’re happy for like fourteen seconds. Gemma springs on him that her parents need a place to stay “for a short time” while they find a new house in the area. Elliot somehow can’t really say no, even though he’s only known her for like a month, and he’s never met her parents.
They show up like a bunch of assholes. I obviously didn’t like them from the beginning. They’re clearly awful houseguests, they take advantage of everything, they don’t even introduce their youngest to Elliot whose HOUSE THEY’RE LIVING IN. She just stays up in “her” room, which was formerly Elliot’s office. The parents move into Elliot and Gemma’s master bedroom and the lovebirds move upstairs.
They show literally zero signs of looking for a new house, and they show zero signs of ever being taught human manners. They trash Elliot’s house, they’re jerks to him, they make fun of him, they belittle Gemma, and a host of other bullshit. I was just so mad reading this book.
It reminded me of the movie Meet the Parents. I felt the same sense of outrage and frustration reading this book as I did watching the movie. There’s only so much a sane human would or should put up with. The line was crossed waaaay early in both the book and that movie.
There’s also some murder plots and a twist, but it’s not even worth reading to get to that part. I recommend this book for people who have no sense of self worth and want to be tortured while reading!