We Are the Brennans

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A wonderfully written account of what family truly means. How you see yourself within that family, versus how those on the outside view you and yours. Such a conflicting intro. Ask Again, Yes was an absolute slog to get through, but I loved The Nest, so I was a bit guarded going in to this one.

Although, when I finally found out why Sunday left everyone behind, I thought it was an overreaction to the event that precipitated it, I was rooting for the family to pull together and save the Pub! My thanks to the author and Macmillan Audio for the gifted advance listeners copy to review via NetGalley. We Are The Brennans is now available! In the vein of Mary Beth Keane’s Ask Again, Yes and Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's The Nest, Tracey Lange’s We Are the Brennans explores the staying power of shame—and the redemptive power of love—in an Irish Catholic family torn apart by secrets. I really enjoyed seeing how each individual storyline connected and made up the life of the Brennan family. I could see how each person justified their choices, too. This shady loan is only for a little while, just to tide us over until the business gets going. Or, a man who provides well for his wife and children is still a good father, even with an affair on the side. We need to keep a gun in the bar for protection. So every family secret in We Are The Brennans felt like a believable mistake. (I think this is what suggested the comparison to The Nest, where every character was flawed, but in ways that felt like read humans screwing up, and not high drama.)I had the pleasure of listening to the audiobook narrated by Barrie Kreinik, who once again delivers a stellar performance. I have listened to this narrator on three previous occasions, each one resulting in a unique experience from her range of voicing and accents. In the vein of Mary Beth Keane’s Ask Again, Yes and Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's The Nest , Tracey Lange’s We Are the Brennans explores the staying power of shame—and the redemptive power of love—in an Irish Catholic family torn apart by secrets. I enjoyed how the chapters flowed - each chapter switching characters and continuing on with the same dialogue from another’s perspective. Told from multiple perspectives, each chapter flowed seamlessly into the next. I never had any issues figuring out who was narrating at that moment.

I was desperate to find out how it all would end! (Reminded me a bit of the Ryan's Hope soap that I used to watch as a teen - yup, I know, that really dates me!) It's the story of a big Irish family of which Sunday is the only girl. Their mother passed away just a couple of years previously, and five years before, Sunday moved away from all of them in New York to head to LA. She left behind a confused boyfriend, Kale, and a fairly dysfunctional, yet close-knit family. Fast forward five years and Sunday is in the hospital after a drunk driving accident, the police call her brother Denny who is listed as her next of kin. She comes home with him to heal and has to deal with the aftermath of what she left behind and finally needs to give an explanation for what happened. Denny pictured her waking up. Alone. “Do you have any idea how long she’s going to be in the hospital?” he asked. Normally I would have been rolling my eyes at the decisions made by these flawed people. I can take only so much bad decision making, especially when the bad decisions can be or could have been minimized by the people talking to each other, just asking questions and getting the other person to answer and by not taking advice by the last person qualified to give it. But the way this story was written, I just loved it and the people in it. This is a flawed family, the flaws started with the parents, and we see some of the grown children continuing dysfunctional ways that are going to cause this family to implode. There are so many times when reading a book I kind of roll my eyes when a "big secret" is revealed. It is typically either revealed too late to make a difference in the book or the secret isn't much of a big deal overall. However, this book defies the norm and actually has a decent secret revealed at the exact right time. How it affects each of the family members and reaches into the present from the past in different ways is well composed and engaging.

Nice. Another sibling facing charges. And how did anyone live and work in LA without a car? Denny wasn’t even sure exactly what she was doing for a job, just that she had a position with some media company. Or maybe it was an ad agency. Sunday deeply loves her large family and yet she abruptly left them five years ago. Under the guise of a fictitious job offer in L.A., she also left her fiancé in the middle of finalizing their upcoming wedding plans. Sunday Brennan wakes up in an LA hospital after having hit a median in the highway while driving while intoxicated. She recalls only a bit of the accident and is already feeling the shame when she finds her older brother Denny at her bedside. After seeing Sunday’s condition, a broken arm, cuts and bruises on her head and other places, Denny knows that he has to persuade his sister to come home. She had fled New York 5 years previously with little in the way of explanation to her family and her long time boyfriend Kale. When we leave the Brennans, they are perhaps more flawed than they were at the start. But that, to my mind, is what makes them feel human, and what makes the book feel real......[A] confident, polished debut novel...” We Are the Brennans” is literary domestic fiction at it’s finest. This is author Tracey Lange’s debut novel, and selfishly, I hope she writes more of the same quality fiction.

I enjoyed the family dynamic: how all the siblings pulled together to support and protect one another. However, I didn't know what to make of the "pseudo-adopted" son, Kale Collins (who was so aptly named!) His indecisive nature often reminded me of a limp vegetable. He drove me up a wall and down the other with his conciliatory, noncommittal ways. His was one of the weakest characters in the novel. Did Kale deserve to be part of that protected circle? I certainly wasn't impressed with him, but the majority of the Brennans and the author seemed to think he was, so I'm staying out of that one. This was a completely engaging DEBUT by author, Tracey Lange, and I am so happy that I received a gifted copy by mail from Celadon…It was truly my pleasure to offer a candid review! A] confident, polished debut novel…When we leave the Brennans, they are perhaps more flawed than they were at the start. But that, to my mind, is what makes them feel human, and what makes the book feel real.” –THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWWhile she works to build a new career and hold her family together, Tara finds a chance at love in a most unlikely place. But when the Connellys’ secrets start to unravel and threaten her future, they all must face their worst fears and come clean, or risk losing each other forever.