The Wrong Family: A Thriller

I can't get beyond the first chapter. The author looks to be a young woman. The first chapter depicts a 67-year-old woman as the picture of decrepitude, her life so miserable from her declining body that she wants to die. I do not want to pay to read this. I am 66 and may in fact be in better physical shape than the author. The first chapter never states what medical condition is responsible for Juno's constant pain, nor under what circumstances a sick person moves in with a family of strangers. I feel as if I am owed what I paid for this book. The blurb stating "The Wrong Family is your new obsession" is simply obnoxious. I shouldn't have fallen for it. Perhaps I'm descending into dementia because of my extreme age? Would an author use such a stale stereotype for a Black or Jewish person? I have to wonder.

C'mon.... (insert palm face emoji here) the variety of potential plots for a domestic/psych (whatever you want to call this 'compilation') thrillers is seriously REACHING with this one.

The pandemic has made me desperate for a good read, but goodness not this desperate. I'll watch (yawn) the latest season of the (stuffy) Crown before wasting my time (and money) with this one.

The characters are all over the place, oddly named with no context as to meaning or signficance. Complex relationships between spouses and parent/child are poorly navigated through trite dialogue. The plot jumps between a total random (who the author weakly embeds as 'not random') and a family, with problems. No surprise there, we all have them!

Hard pass.

I made 110 pages and not going to finish. I want a book to hook me in at least in the first chapter, and this one unfortunately isn't doing that at all. I just keep wanting something exciting to happen and so far, nothing.

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW: The Wrong Family was written by author Tarryn Fisher, whose recent novel The Wives was a NYT bestseller and a Book of the Month pick for December 2019. The Wrong Family was published on December 29th, 2020 by Graydon House (in trade paperback format), with this glowing endorsement from NYT bestselling romance/thriller author Colleen Hoover: “The Wrong Family is your new obsession...you’ve never read anything like this.” The tagline of the novel reads, “A lifetime of deadly secrets, all under one roof.” (8/10 stars)

PLOT RUNDOWN/BASICS: Everyone in this novel has secrets: Winnie, the high-strung wife whose money came from her father’s untimely death, and who bought her dream house without bothering to seek her husband’s input or approval. Nigel, who seems to stay with Winnie more out of obligation than affection, even as he cleans up after their fights and comes home to her every day. Their teenage son Sam, who writes secret blog entries musing about whether he was adopted, and researches living on the street. And Juno, who recently moved in with the Crouch family after living on the streets for years, and has a secret past of her own.

Juno can’t help but overhear Winnie and Nigel’s arguments, and as she learns more about their pasts, she falls back into an old bad habit of her own: snooping with the intention of interfering in someone else’s life. At the same time, Winnie starts receiving messages and finding clues that someone in her own life has discovered her darkest secret - and is going to use it against her, even as everything else around her starts to fall apart.

Juno’s and Winnie’s lives are on a collision course, as unexpected secrets are revealed and dangerous threats are overlooked in their attempts to right the ship. Will the truths all come to light, or will more secrets be the answer to preserving everything they thought they wanted? And who will live to tell the tale when all is said and done?

MY THOUGHTS: This was my second book by Tarryn Fisher; I read The Wives in 2019 and enjoyed it, but the premise of this one was much more intriguing to me. I finished it in one day, so it’s safe to say that I found it to be an easy read. This is a dark story with a realistic ending, which is right up my alley - but if you’re on the fence, I’ll go into more detail below.

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that the situation/secret of Juno’s - I can't say more without possibly spoiling it for readers - is supposed to be a surprise until the end of part one (page 91 of 302), but to me it was very clear from page one what was actually happening. Nevertheless, I made myself promise to read the first 100 pages to see if there was more to this story than the eventual “reveal” - and I was NOT disappointed. If you know this truth from the start, don’t worry - you haven’t figured out the plot itself. You’re still in for a very layered and dynamic mystery story that doesn’t follow an “easy” contemporary thriller formula.

Fisher refers to herself as a writer “of villains,” and while I can't argue with her own self-assessment, I think she’s just very in-touch with the darker side of humanity. Everyone in this novel has a “villainous” side, as it were, just as we all have the capability of hurting those closest to us. Whether it’s keeping your own deadly secrets (or someone else’s), or actively manipulating another person’s life - not to mention the cheating, or alcoholism, or stealing - each character grapples with their own demons and finds ways (sometimes neutral, sometimes terrible) of dealing with them.

Some of us may connect a little too deeply with Fisher’s depiction of the reality of having someone who grapples with mental illness in our families. She unabashedly explores how family can, at its worst, enable and overlook the dangers of a family member battling a very real and serious mental illness. In fact, many of the situations in the novel could be rectified if the person going through it would stop seeking to find a quick-fix that gives peace and satisfaction immediately, versus confronting the reality of the situation head-on and working through it - even with pain and discomfort and loss - to find an actual long-term solution. Instead, we slap a band-aid on it and move on...and in certain cases, this has deadly consequences.

Lest I point out only the “heaviness” of the novel’s dark themes, I would like to emphasize how easy-to-read I found this book. It has twists and turns I wasn’t expecting, which always makes me incredibly happy (especially after thinking I’d guessed the major plot point on page one). It also bounces back and forth between the perspectives of Juno and Winnie, as we learn their past struggles and what led them to the spiraling situations they currently find themselves in.

Fisher doesn’t give us a neat thriller with a happy ending for everyone; in fact, I’m not convinced she believes in happy endings (at least for her thrillers). She writes a much more realistic, brutal, confrontational-yet-satisfying ending that provides the reader with a clear idea of the consequences of each character’s actions...whether they be equal to, or greater than, the choices that led each person to their reckoning. I am 100% for this type of story and its ending, and I will absolutely be reaching for the next Fisher novel. But if happy endings are your thing…….maybe skip this one.

This book is horrible I couldn’t care less what happens had 60 stinking pages left and refusing to finshined it just don’t care not even worth reading he ending I wish I could have given it zero stars

I read this as part of a book club choice for the month of February. I did not like it. I’m sorry, but it was boring, overdrawn, info and side stories that played no part in the bigger picture whatsoever. The ending made no sense and I was upset because I could’ve put the book down after 50pages but I kept on because I had hope it’ll get somewhere. But it didn’t and that’s why I’m giving this a 1 star.

I couldn't even get into this one. From the start the characters aren't likeable and the plot is just bleh. I rarely stop a book, and this one is done.

Too much time is spent on Juno's past life which really only distracts from what is happening in the present. The story seems inconsistent to me, going off into too many directions and the relationships of the characters don't make much sense to me. In fact, while I love good suspense stories, this book makes me feel that I need to get into some other genres again. Still looking for the new Ruth Rendell but so far rather disappointed in most. It's time for a change! This is the worst book that I've read in a very long time. I could barely finish it, not even really caring how it ended, but then it would have been a complete waste of my money.

This is a thriller that will keep readers entertained. There weren't any big surprises or twists in this one, it's more of a cat-and-mouse tale that will keep you at the edge of your seat with tension rather than blindsided.

I pretty much knew what was going on from the beginning, it wasn't difficult to figure out honestly. And there's not much character development--it's thrown in throughout the narrative, nuggets of backstory and motivation thrown in here and there. For me, the way the story is told is very uneven and it jolts forward in fits and starts rather than taking on an even exposition that made me want to know more. The first part is quite drawn out and slow, and then the end is so quick that you might miss it if you blink.

The conclusion to the messy tale was quite exciting and that was what made me appreciate the book more, because Fisher isn't afraid to take the tale off in an unbelievable, shocking way. Yet for all of that drama, there just wasn't enough leading up to it to make the payoff as good as it could have been.

And as for the very end: Not going to spoil it but gigantic plot hole.

All in all this is classic Fisher storytelling. Some will love it and some will not, I think I'm leaning towards thinking this author is just not for me. It was an interesting thriller but its shortcomings definitely detract.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book, all opinions are my own.

This book is terrible. It’s a slow build and also all over the place. I’m over half way in and trying to figure out the point. There is no real direction.I liked The Wives by this author and was hoping for the same thrill. This is not it. Reading this for a bookclub so I am going to try and power through. But lord it is terrible.