book 23

Families and Other Nonreturnable Gifts by Claire LaZebnik
288 pages


Families and Other Nonreturnable Gifts is a great title. It kind of ends there. The premise is really good - Keats Sedlak is the only average member in her family of intellects and geniuses. She is in a regular relationship with a regular guy, and they've been together for 10 years. Her family is comprised of crazy people who lack social skills. This could have been really funny or really moving or really good. It was none of those things. The chapters were very formulaic - each one ended with a single sentence thought and progressed similarly. 

I cannot, cannot, CANNOT STAND when book characters have completely abnormal names. Who would name their kids after the LAST NAMES of their favorite authors? Hopkins, Keats, and Milton. The first two are girls. I found that really hard to get passed. Really hard to read and I'm not one of those people that can just sub in a normal name. I get that it was part of the family quirkiness and how Keats seems to lament her name but I don't go for it. Too weird and annoying. In fact I've had this book for months and I put off reading it because of the names of the characters. That's how much I knew it would bother me. AND when I went to restock and B&N the other day, I purposely avoided all strangely named character books, even if it looked like the story might be good. 

I read the whole book because it was tantamount to a train wreck for me. I wanted to see how the gore would unfold. I was not moved at all, I did not feel bad for any characters and I didn't particularly like any of them. Mostly I didn't find them respectable. I didn't see any of the characters as people I would like in life, not even the normal Keats. So i plowed through it with the goal of starting a new book as soon as possible. 

I would not recommend this book.