From the Bookshelf of Turn of a Page…

Not a Happy Family

Shari Lapena

Start date: April 18, 2022

Finish date: May 18, 2022

Discussion: Buddy Reads 2022

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Buddy Reads 2022

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What Members Thought

Dec 18, 2022 Trisha rated it liked it

This is an interesting murder mystery. A very wealthy couple is murdered and their kids are all suspected. There is a lot of drama - each kid has a horror story to tell about their parents and, even though their dad was awful, he didn't deserve to be murdered.

I did like that there are a lot of perspectives. It lent itself to greater spectulation as you are drawn in to each person's secrets and their own personal assumption of who done it. But ultimately, I felt a bit let down by the final wrap u ...more

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Aug 23, 2022 Caitlin rated it liked it · review of another edition

I read this in the space of a day. It was addicting, yet all along I didn't really like the story.
It was certainly one to keep you guessing - well, until I reached a point where I was certain who did it.

I highly recommend staying away from the audiobook on this one. I started with audio but ended up borrowing it on my Kobo instead. The narrator's voice seemed almost robotic - like the voiceover you hear on so many Facebook/Instagram reels that's computer-generated.

I wrote the review that remains I read this in the space of a day. It was addicting, yet all along I didn't really like the story.
It was certainly one to keep you guessing - well, until I reached a point where I was certain who did it.

I highly recommend staying away from the audiobook on this one. I started with audio but ended up borrowing it on my Kobo instead. The narrator's voice seemed almost robotic - like the voiceover you hear on so many Facebook/Instagram reels that's computer-generated.

I wrote the review that remains under the spoiler tags before reading any of the Goodreads Q&A. One in particular stood out for me: was this inspired by the deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman? That definitely occurred to me as well, especially knowing Lapena is from Toronto.

The remainder is a reading journal with spoilers.

(view spoiler)[
In a family of psychopaths, who is psychopathic enough to have committed the murder?

For the first half of the book, I suspected Rose Cutter. I think you're meant to. All this talk about how she's done something wrong, how she was impatient and greedy. But that all turned out to be related to fraud, and between that and her knowing in advance that she was on the will, she certainly wasn't spared the psychopathic genes, regardless of her upbringing.

For the latter half the book, I was utterly convinced it was Audrey's daughter - to the point that when we began to see inside the actual killer's head and know who it was, I couldn't believe it and was waiting for the twist. Why Audrey's daughter? Why this non-character? It had struck me during the funeral scene how she remained nameless - that was odd. And then Audrey says something about all Fred's children being psychopathic and thank goodness she didn't need to worry about her own daughter. It being her daughter would make so much sense, too: she found out her mother was going to inherit half the estate (and didn't realize that hadn't gone through yet) and then attempted to murder her mother to get that inheritance. Was this a deliberate red herring?

Dan turned out to be the least psychopathic of the bunch, didn't he. He lied to the police about his whereabouts to cover up the fact that he didn't have an alibi and was in the area - he's hardly the first person to do that, fiction or real. He made a very unwise financial decision. And he was the most overtly unhinged - but did he do anything that would make him "psychopathic"?

Catherine - how could she see her parents dead and not say anything. I don't have any siblings, perhaps I don't understand sibling loyalties even in this family where they're known to turn on each other, but for her to not call 911 and do such a fantastic job hiding it - definitely something going on there.

And Jenna - oh, there were times I suspected her, especially as I realized that we weren't seeing as much of her perspective as Catherine and Dan's. But I was so fixated on Audrey's daughter that I had trouble with this.
(hide spoiler)] ...more

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Mar 31, 2024 Shruti morethanmylupus rated it it was ok

This was an unimpressive family dynamics-focused thriller for me. I didn't think the family was particularly dysfunctional and they didn't stand out as notably problematic overall. The answer was pretty predictable early on, so the mystery wasn't too thrilling. I didn't forsee all of the twists, but I did figure out who the murderer was in the first few chapters.
...more

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Sep 23, 2021 Jillian rated it liked it

3.5 stars. This is like if a British detective show (but set in upstate NY) met Succession and then became a book. Rich family, murder, a bunch of sociopaths, who did it? While I enjoyed watching it play out, I don’t feel that I got to know any character well enough to feel attached to them. There was a lack of scene building for me, and when everyone kept meeting in each other’s houses, I kept picturing the same house. There wasn’t enough atmosphere, depth, or relationship exploration. There wa ...more

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Dec 04, 2021 Meera rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

I really have to stop reading this author because this is the third one in a row that I did not care for. I thought maybe this one would be like the earlier books because of the positive reviews but not for me. Once again, because the characters were so two-dimensional and mostly unlikable, I didn’t really care who was responsible. The author is very good with pacing though so while I didn’t enjoy this, I wasn’t bored.

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