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bethreadsandnaps 's review for:
The Accidental Favorite
by Fran Littlewood
I'm an only child who has an only child. That means I have completely missed out on sibling dynamics in my immediate life. Of course, I have loved ones with siblings and friends with siblings, and I sure know it is a complicated tangle of feelings, but I'm not PERSONALLY affected by sibling dynamics. Perhaps that's why I do gravitate towards these types of sibling stories.
When this novel starts, Patrick and Vivienne are attending their granddaughter Dolly's naming ceremony. A tree suddenly falls while Patrick is taking a picture of the family - their three daughters with their partners and then their children - and he drops his cherished camera and runs to save one of his daughters.
This novel has the three daughters (Alex, Nancy, and Eva) as narrators as well as the mother Vivienne. Aside from the inciting incident, the father Patrick falls into the scenery with the women gaining prominence, which I did like. However, none of this men in this novel are given anything noteworthy to do other than Nik. Most of the men seem like doofuses.
There's a glass house metaphor that might be too spot-on.
Each of the sisters as well as the mother Vivienne in this family has her own problems. While I found this novel interesting to read and enjoyed this "case study" into a harrowing family vacation with flashbacks to the past, I could see it not landing for all readers. Why? 1. The sisters aren't the most sympathetic characters. 2. The writing seemed a little dense for what this story was. 3. The sheer number of characters. 4. With so many characters and the dense writing style, it was difficult to really know the characters.
Why did the author name one of the sister's husband's Luc and a different sister had a daughter named Lucy? At first I thought there would end up being a connection, but there never was. So why unnecessarily confuse the reader?
I thought there was some good here, but the whole package didn't come together in a cohesive way, and for that reason I don't recommend this novel unless you're good with the caveats going in.
When this novel starts, Patrick and Vivienne are attending their granddaughter Dolly's naming ceremony. A tree suddenly falls while Patrick is taking a picture of the family - their three daughters with their partners and then their children - and he drops his cherished camera and runs to save one of his daughters.
This novel has the three daughters (Alex, Nancy, and Eva) as narrators as well as the mother Vivienne. Aside from the inciting incident, the father Patrick falls into the scenery with the women gaining prominence, which I did like. However, none of this men in this novel are given anything noteworthy to do other than Nik. Most of the men seem like doofuses.
There's a glass house metaphor that might be too spot-on.
Each of the sisters as well as the mother Vivienne in this family has her own problems. While I found this novel interesting to read and enjoyed this "case study" into a harrowing family vacation with flashbacks to the past, I could see it not landing for all readers. Why? 1. The sisters aren't the most sympathetic characters. 2. The writing seemed a little dense for what this story was. 3. The sheer number of characters. 4. With so many characters and the dense writing style, it was difficult to really know the characters.
Why did the author name one of the sister's husband's Luc and a different sister had a daughter named Lucy? At first I thought there would end up being a connection, but there never was. So why unnecessarily confuse the reader?
I thought there was some good here, but the whole package didn't come together in a cohesive way, and for that reason I don't recommend this novel unless you're good with the caveats going in.