Leo Tolstoy said, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Jonathan Tropper writes excellent novels about unhappy families. They might never join the annals of great literature, but they are highly entertaining reads and full of insights into both the family dynamic and the individual human nature. I won't spend too long discussing this book because Blythe has already done so.
The book is about a man whose father has just died and whose wife has just left him. Not the happiest time in Judd's life. Judd, along with his three siblings, travels to his hometown to sit shiva for his father. Throughout the week, the family works through some of their problems, yet at the end they still have basically the same relationships they started out with. Have some grievances been aired and dissected? Sure. Has some progress been made. Definitely. Are all relationships fully functional. Of course not. Which is what's nice about Tropper's books. He realizes that there is no magic cure relationships that have been screwed up for thirty years, yet he does offer hope for improvement.
This Is Where I Leave You ends somewhat ambiguously, but, as I said, with hope. What comes before is both highly entertaining and highly moving. It was a great follow-up to my last book: light and fun with fully developed characters. Short, too. Definitely a great read; definitely an author I will continue to read.
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