Title: The Nest  

Author: Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney  

Genre: Contemporary Fiction     

Publisher: Ecco     

Format: Paperback

Pages: 368

Rating: 4/5 stars

Synopsis (Goodreads):

A warm, funny and acutely perceptive debut novel about four adult siblings and the fate of the shared inheritance that has shaped their choices and their lives.

Every family has its problems. But even among the most troubled, the Plumb family stands out as spectacularly dysfunctional. Years of simmering tensions finally reach a breaking point on an unseasonably cold afternoon in New York City as Melody, Beatrice, and Jack Plumb gather to confront their charismatic and reckless older brother, Leo, freshly released from rehab. Months earlier, an inebriated Leo got behind the wheel of a car with a nineteen-year-old waitress as his passenger. The ensuing accident has endangered the Plumbs’ joint trust fund, “The Nest,” which they are months away from finally receiving. Meant by their deceased father to be a modest mid-life supplement, the Plumb siblings have watched The Nest’s value soar along with the stock market and have been counting on the money to solve a number of self-inflicted problems.

Melody, a wife and mother in an upscale suburb, has an unwieldy mortgage and looming college tuition for her twin teenage daughters. Jack, an antiques dealer, has secretly borrowed against the beach cottage he shares with his husband, Walker, to keep his store open. And Bea, a once-promising short-story writer, just can’t seem to finish her overdue novel. Can Leo rescue his siblings and, by extension, the people they love? Or will everyone need to reimagine the future they’ve envisioned? Brought together as never before, Leo, Melody, Jack, and Beatrice must grapple with old resentments, present-day truths, and the significant emotional and financial toll of the accident, as well as finally acknowledge the choices they have made in their own lives.

This is a story about the power of family, the possibilities of friendship, the ways we depend upon one another and the ways we let one another down. In this tender, entertaining, and deftly written debut, Sweeney brings a remarkable cast of characters to life to illuminate what money does to relationships, what happens to our ambitions over the course of time, and the fraught yet unbreakable ties we share with those we love.

Review:

This book was a total cover buy for me. And I mean, how could you not love this cover? The book was pretty good too, but I have to admit that I didn’t love it as much as I hoped I would.

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The book follows the Plumb siblings who are hoping to receive their inheritance pretty soon, which they call the nest. The siblings have been living frivolously because they know they are getting money, so they are all shocked when the money is used for something else, and they won’t be getting as much as they expected. The story does a good job of showing how complicated families can be, and how money can totally have a negative impact on people’s relationships. Sometimes money can cloud peoples judgement, or make you think certain things are important when it’s not really. I liked that the book delved deep into other secondary characters, rather than focusing on the siblings! I think I was hoping for a bit more in the ending, but overall I really enjoyed this book! The themes of family struggles, love, loss, and how to overcome obstacles in life really engaged me!

Happy reading!