If We’re Being Honest

This was a deeply relatable, laugh-out-loud, busy and buoyant delight. Debut novelist Shook has a lot of plates spinning: the vast character count and rapidly shifting narrative perspective made me a little dizzy in the early chapters, but once I figured out who was who, I was hooked. (Tip: the print copy has a family tree!) The story opens with a shocking revelation at the patriarch’s funeral and unfolds over the course of one chaotic week in fictional Eulalia, Georgia. Every member of this large family has been keeping big secrets from each other, and by week’s end they all come spilling out. I don’t like to say “should,” but I’m strongly tempted to call this a must-read for fans of contemporary family dramas. For fans of Jonathan Tropper's This Is Where I Leave You and Emma Straub's All Adults Here.