Families That Will Make You Feel Better About Yours This Thanksgiving

Who’s counting down the days until Thanksgiving (for better or worse)? Family can be loving and wonderful, and family can also be messy and complicated — and sometimes it’s just more fun to read about other people’s families, especially those with lots of secrets, more than a few lies to pass around and bad behavior from all sides (even if they didn’t really mean it). We’ve put together an entertaining collection of books for adults and teens that will just make you feel a bit better about your own…
The Lambert family of Jonathan Franzen’s 2001 hit The Corrections have seen plenty of readers through Thanksgivings and other family events, but just wait until your step back into the 1970s with the Hildebrandt family of his latest novel Crossroads, the first installment of a new trilogy. You’ll never forget the Alvarado family of María Amparo Escandón’s L.A. Weather, a sparkling story of family and dreams, or the titular character and his brood (including his son Jake, the writer, and more than one ex-wife) in Joshua Ferris’ A Calling for Charlie Barnes. Have you met Ray Carney’s in-laws in Colson Whitehead’s caper-flick-of-a-novel, Harlem Shuffle? Appearances matter to them more than anything, but what they don’t know … four siblings, one inheritance. What could possibly go wrong? Ask the Plumbs, the family at the heart of Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s smart, sharp novel, The Nest. What happens when you think your parents have a perfect marriage, one that you and your siblings just can’t live up to? Hoo-boy, mistakes are made in The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo, and when you’re finished with that one, take the siblings of Commonwealth or The Dutch House, both by Ann Patchett, out for a spin — while you think about who really owns the stories we tell ourselves.
If #booktok hasn’t convinced you to pick up We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, well, why would you want to miss out on a twisted tale of deception and money, money, money? Readers can’t get enough of the riddles and puzzles that pack Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ thriller about a mysterious benefactor, his disinherited family and the girl at the center of The Inheritance Games. That Weekend by Kara Thomas is an unpredictable thriller (we’re not kidding) that will leave your jaw on the floor, wondering which is worse: bad friends or bad families? Romeo and Juliet set in 1920s Shanghai. Need we say more? Chloe Gong’s These Violent Delights gives new meaning to the phrase bad family. And saving the scariest for last: House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig is a fairytale reimagining of 12 cursed sisters that is best read with the lights on.
 
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. –Leo Tolstoy
It could always be a little worse, but at least it’s not boring.