Family and Other Catastrophes

By: Alexandra Borowitz

Narrated by: Amanda Ronconi

A delightfully quirky debut about family bonds and the chaos that ensues when nature and lack of nurture collide.

Emily Glass knows she’s neurotic. But she’s got it under control. Sort of. She dons compression socks when she flies (because, you know, deep vein thrombosis) and responds to people routinely overestimating her age with more Lifespin classes and less gluten. Thankfully, she also has David, the wonderful man she’ll soon call husband—assuming they can survive wedding week with her wildly dysfunctional family.

Emily’s therapist mother, Marla, who’s been diagnosing her children since they were in diapers, sees their homecoming as the perfect opportunity for long-overdue family therapy sessions. Less enthused are Emily and her two siblings: ardently feminist older sister Lauren, who doesn’t think the wedding party should have defined gender roles, and recently divorced brother Jason, whose overzealous return to singlehood is only tempered by his puzzling friendship with David’s Renaissance Faire—enthusiast brother.

As the week comes to a tumultuous head, Emily wants nothing more than to get married and get as far away from her crazy relatives as possible. But that’s easier said than done when Marla’s meddling breathes new life into old secrets. After all, the ties that bind family together may bend, but they aren’t so easily broken.

Laugh-out-loud funny and endearingly raw, Family and Other Catastrophes is as entertaining as your favorite sitcom and introduces Alexandra Borowitz as an outstanding new voice in humorous fiction.

Disappointing

The premise was good, but this crosses a line from funny family dysfunction to exaggerated, pathetic story that’s really hard to listen to.

Gross exaggeration of stereotypes

Everyone portrayed in this book has been exaggerated past the point of anything believable. There wasn't a single character with any redeeming qualities and I couldn't get myself to care about what happened to any of them.

Funny yet sweet!

A sweet, funny and just-satirical-enough novel read by one of my favorite performers. I can't wait to "read" it again!