This one I stopped and started a few times. I just could not get into it. This is the second Brodesser-Akner book I have read and at this point I just need to hard pass. I think this could have worked if I cared about any of the characters. But I ended up despising Ruth and Beemer. And I found Nathan and Jenny exhausting. The book just felt so long and I got tired of reading about the Fletchers. I know that Brodesser-Akner was going for high satire but I just didn’t find anything amusing. Everyone in this book needed therapy.
The flow didn’t help. The book starts with Carl Fletcher’s kidnapping and then jumps to his son Beeme, then Nathan, and finally Jenny. Entwined with that is that we occasionally get Ruth’s POV too. The dueling POVs with shifting timelines didn’t help. Brodesser-Akner at times will talk about something in the present tense but then a sentence or two letter gives you a hint about what will befall the family, person, etc.
The setting of this being on Long Island didn’t come alive to me really. Maybe because the first part of the book is dealing with Beemer and her proclivities in L.A.
The ending was a cheat I think. I don’t know what I expected, but the book I guess was again high satire looking at a rich family that doesn’t seem to ever pay its dues.
I read this for CBR17 bingo square “Family.” This book deals with the Fletcher family. This is in the fourth row, third square.