276°
Posted 20 hours ago

The Happy Family: The gripping new psychological crime thriller from the No.1 Kindle bestselling author of The Perfect Couple

£4.495£8.99Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

Happy Family is a sensitive and occasionally sexy portrait of a woman who always believed her life was more together than it actually is. If you've ever wondered whether why you are the way you are has more to do with your upbringing than your own choices, this is definitely a book you'll enjoy. Barone's writing ability is definitely worth taking notice of.

The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler | Waterstones

While I may not have fully connected with the characters, I definitely connected to the message it gave. By the end, I did enjoy the book when things all came together. I was able to see and feel the characters where as in the beginning I could not.Within a couple of months, her life has gone from happy contentment to a complete humiliating mess. And the only one who remains in her corner is her mum. Thank goodness she is there to support her. Or is she? My favorite character was of course Suhani. She’s the epitome of who I want to be. Up until recently I had actually not read or seen a lot of Indian women going into the field of medicine because they actually wanted to rather than their parents just telling them they should. Anyways, I felt like Suhani was a reflection of myself and her relationship with Natasha, her sister, definitely had some similarities to my sister and I’s relationship. Besides the wonderful cast of characters, I thought the writing style was easy to read without being juvenile which is an aspect that I was looking for in a South Asian adult fiction book. I found that many SA adult fiction books had characters or contained writing that came across as juvenile which is just difficult for me to relate to because of how I was raised and the independence I’ve had from an early age. But Cheri is used to chaos in her life, as she has reinvented herself more times than she can count, from the suburban adolescent to the multiple-pierced, blue-haired teenager, from the slightly radical Yale student to the tough-as-nails cop entangled in a relationship with her partner. Part of her restlessness seems innate to her, but she'll admit some of her transformations have simply been ways of angering her adoptive parents—her well-meaning but emotionally distant father and her smothering, insecure mother. She's never really understood why her parents treated her the way they always have, but while she's tried to shrug it off for most of her life, they've affected her more than she cares to admit. In Chapter 3 she shares her dread that “something that happened a long, long time ago, something I thought I’d managed to bury forever, might not be buried at all.” Another hint comes in Chapter 4: “The thing I’ve tried to bury so deep it can never escape. Now I’m starting to think I’m not being paranoid after all. I’m coming convinced that finally, after all these years, someone’s coming for me.”

The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler | Goodreads

Almost instantly, strange things begin to happen. Beth loses her keys, not once, but several times. The central heating develops bipolar heating the place up like a sauna despite the thermostat set at the usual temperature. Things go missing or are moved about and Beth begins to wonder if she is losing her grip on reality. Then it seems she is alienating her friends, losing her appetite and drinking far too much. Everyone around her seems to notice the change in her behaviour and become worried, but it's when her children start to suffer that Jacob steps in and tells her to get her act together. And their vindictive, extremely irritating auntie Audrey knows their secret, already pissed off to be excluded from half share of the wealth, smelling blood, coming after them. She thinks one of them killed her brother. Is she right? The Happy Family was published in the UK by One More Chapter in June 2021. I received an advance copy via NetGalley in return for an honest review. But Beth has a secret. A deep dark secret which haunts her still. In her thoughts and in her nightmares. And Beth believes it is only a matter of time before her past catches up to her and her secret shame is revealed for all to see. Alternating between everyone, you get a full picture of what being a part of the Merton family was actually like. It wasn't pretty.

Become a Member

I have now read all six of Shari Lapena’s novels, and have found them all to be entertaining! If you enjoy domestic suspense and haven’t yet read this author-it’s time to change that! Congratulations for being nominated as one of the best thrillers for Goodreads Choice Awards! This book was definitely one of the best reads of the year! Great on audio narrated by Soneela Nankani and highly recommended for fans of Sonali Dev, Sara Desai, Annika Sharma or Sajni Patel. This book also has excellent mental health rep, focusing on the stigma of seeking therapy or admitting to any kind of mental illness among members of South Asian families, and in particular medical professionals. When your family agrees on its core values — and consistently lives by those standards — you'll build a stronger family identity and reduce conflict.

Happy Family: the instant Sunday Times bestseller, from Not a Happy Family: the instant Sunday Times bestseller, from

A well developed cast of characters were delightfully malcontent and rotten to the core which meant that I was on board with any one of them being held culpable for the misdeeds happening here. The theme of gaslighting is handled well and we see how seemingly insignificant remarks and incidents snowball so that the victim ends up questioning their own judgment and grasp on reality. Even though I didn’t care that much for Beth as a character it was still sad to see how much her life spins out of control, particularly when intimate film footage of her is posted on social media. The pace is fast, the plotline was a bit predictable and the characters are well developed and believable. I really enjoyed this book even though I had already guessed the ending. It's full of twists but some parts are uncomfortable to read. I liked the authors writing style, it makes the book easy to read. Eldest daughter Catherine and her husband, leave in a huff, followed closely behind by beleaguered middle child, Dan and his wife, Lisa. Even the former nanny/now part time housekeeper Irena is angry! Shortly after, their youngest daughter, Jenna and her current boy toy Jake say their goodbyes.

But whilst this may seem like that happy family that Beth has longed for, she cannot ignore the problems that start occurring in her life. Frequent forgetfulness, disintegrating relationships with close friends and a belief that someone is watching her, Beth feels like this part of her life is falling apart. Although she is playing happy families with her mum, everything else is crumbling. In addition, her relationship with her ex-husband becomes more strained and Beth feels desperate, concerned that a secret from her past is the cause of these problems. No family thrives in a bubble — your extended relatives, friends, neighbors, and other networks are crucial to your happiness. "Other families expose kids to new ideas and lifestyles and give them a broader view of their roles in their own family as well as in their community," Haltzman says. Dave's follow-up to her first novel, Well-Behaved Indian Women is an absorbing drama that examines the dynamics of the Joshi family, mental health, and what it means to truly belong. Beth has a secret from her past that still haunts her. When strange things start to happen, Beth questions everything. Good thing is that it was easy to read, but a bad thing is that it was too repetitive, so many things that were already said were mentioned again and again...

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment