Today is our first review for the newly rebranded The Marriage Plot (aka Literary Wives blogging club), in which we discuss the depiction of wives in fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs.
Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!
- Becky of Aidanvale
- Kate of booksaremyfavoriteandbest
- Marianne of Let’s Read!
- Rebecca of Bookish Beck
My Review
When I first started reading Family Family, I wasn’t sure how much I was going to like it. One of its main characters is a movie star, and it bothers me how often these days that novels are placed in a framework of wealth and privilege. I personally prefer reading about ordinary people.
However, Frankel can certainly tell a story, so I ended up reading the entire book almost continuously, ignoring some work that I planned to do instead. I have never read Frankel before, but I’ll be looking for more.
India Allwood is a popular actor starring in a fantasy series. She is also the mother of 10-year-old adopted twins, Fig and Jack. She is a private person who keeps her kids off limits to the paparazzi. Recently, she finished a movie about adoption that she thought treated the subject simplistically. Now she is personally being attacked online for the very things she criticized in the movie herself, as if it were her fault. When India gets stuck talking to a blogger, she makes some comments about it, and the internet blows up along with her producers.
India not only adopted Jack and Fig, but when she was 16, she became pregnant by her boyfriend Robbie and decided to place her daughter with adoptive parents. Her daughter Bex is now 16, and India is unaware that Bex is in contact with Fig. Trying to help out, because haters are saying that India knows nothing about adoption, Bex announces online that she is India’s daughter, placed with her mother Camile when India was a teenager. The fallout becomes worse. And Bex has hopped a plane to come to India’s home in L. A.
And that’s only the beginning, as the novel moves back and forth in time from the present to various significant times in India’s life.
The novel has a light tone, and Frankel is skilled at depicting characters you can relate to and like. I enjoyed this book so much.
Although concerned with some serious issues as a result of Frankel’s own experience as an adoptive parent, this is ultimately a warm fuzzy sort of book, without feeling manipulative but simply touching.
If I have any caveat, it’s that the novel takes place during Covid, but people are traveling all over the place and arriving at other people’s houses, often without warning. (Also, just a small point, but there are no cottages behind either bookstore in Seaside, Oregon.)
What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?
This novel is not really about marriage. Out of several groups of people who get dragged into India’s story, there are some gay couples, but the emphasis isn’t really on them. Instead, Frankel focuses on the subject of what constitutes a family. As India’s issue expands, more people concerned in her life arrive at the house. India eventually has to expand her definition of family from the tight group of herself, her two children, and her mother to a lot more people.
What? Me Read? 
I noticed that, although it was set in 2020 and there were a few mentions of masks, there was a lot more freedom of movement than you’d expect. I love your pedantic comment about the Oregon setting. (I’m a pedant, too!) Those are good readalikes that come up under your “Related Posts.”
I’m glad you liked it! I also think you are the first person to comment about my Related Posts.
I guess I thought those were automatically generated, by having the same tags or something, but do you choose them every time?
Yes. For a short while years ago WordPress did it, and I liked that idea, so when it stopped doing that, I started doing it myself. Sometimes, it’s hard, because I’ve read something that isn’t like anything else I’ve ever read. Sometimes I just do it by the setting of the story, but at times I read something that is set somewhere I haven’t read about before. The worst is when I can remember a book that is related, but I can’t remember the author or title!
Choosing readalikes is my favorite!!
!!!!
To your other point, I recently read a book that was partially set in my hometown. The author got so much wrong, and it could have almost all been cleared up by looking at a map! Drove me crazy!
I totally agree with you about the protagonist being an actress. Yes, I prefer reading about normal people, as well. Actress as a character is a red flag for me, indicates chick-lit. Though, would a normal person have behaved the way India did?
I also liked your remark about Oregon. I hate it when I find mistakes that could easily be avoided. If you write about a certain location, you should know it and/or research. It’s so easy nowadays with Google maps.
I didn’t really feel it was chick lit, though.
No, but often it is.
Agree that this was a ‘warm fuzzy’ book and like you, I found it an easy read… but, I wasn’t busting to pick it up! Nothing wrong with it, and although I will remember it because of the adoption theme, there was no wow-factor for me. Actually, I’m more thrilled by your insider-knowledge about bookshops and cottages in Seaside, Oregon! :-D
Ha ha ha!
I liked your note about Seaside, Oregon as well (and that there is somewhere called Seaside!). I also like your related posts, but I too thought these were generated – related posts come up on my posts automatically and I’m always surprised to see what they’ve chosen!
They don’t come up for my automatically. I have to pick them.
Too many kids in this one for me! My related posts are autogenerated too, but quite often they’re just a list of the author’s other books or the TBR posts where I mentioned the book – it’s not particularly useful. But I don’t have the energy to do it myself.
WordPress autogenerated mine years ago just for a little while. Then it went away. I upgraded, and I haven’t tried to see if they would do it for me. I liked the feature for the readers, so I just thought I would do it myself.
I think it’s great that you do it yourself, much more meaningful than the automated ones, the ones that come up on mine are often useless I think!
I can imagine that.