A review by lanagailani
A Friend of the Family by Lauren Grodstein

2.0

I was just happy to end this book... I'm not entirely sure why, but the protagonist grated on my nerves as he never really seemed to learn anything, and without that arc the book seemed to lack a point aside from a simple character study- whose point could have been made much more briefly. I lost patience with him and then with the book. The antagonist was never properly fleshed out, so there was no sympathy for her either, and eventually I came to dislike every character for either tolerating what went on around them or for being their own selfish selves. Except Rosie, she was okay.

What Pete *does* isn't really what derails his family, not in the way the press for the book presents it. It's who he is that does the derailing, and I get the sense that in one way or another that would have found its expression.