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sabireads84's review against another edition
4.0
Thank you NetGalley, Bookouture and Karen King for letting me read “The Family Reunion” in exchange for an honest review.
This is my second book by Karen King. The first one left me with mixed feelings. The description of this sounded too good to pass it.
Mary lost her mother at a young age and grew up with her strict father. She was longing for love and a feeling of belonging. 15 year-old Mary meets Robbie who is 18 and part of a motorcycle gang. He is everything she is not, free, wild, rebellious… Mary falls pregnant and Robbie ended up in jail.
She kept the pregnancy a secret and gave birth at 16, all alone, too. Baby girl, Hope. She gives her up, leaving her T a phone booth, waiting for someone to pick up the newborn. More than forty years later, Mary still struggles with her past. After her husband dies, she decides to set h for Hope, who is Cathy now. She has high hopes of including her into the family. But that’s where things go terribly wrong.
Mary has gone through so much. Could she have made different choices? Yes. Would they have been better? Probably not. She did what she thought she had to do. She tried her best.
Cathy seemed off right away. Like giving a super weird vibe, probably natural at first, being abandoned by her mother after all. I guess it depends from which perspective you look at it. Strange things start to happen, small accidents with the kids, windows being opened at night… is Mary bullied into believing she has alzheimer?
Is Cathy who she says she is?
What’s up with the stuck up siblings?
Who speaks the truth and who is lying?
Who has the right motives?
Is Mary being used?
It’s a very interesting tale and you have absolute no idea who is up to what until the very end.
After I got into the story, it was easy to follow and super interesting.
One star away from being a five star read and that’s why:
Some of the writing was a tad repetitive. At least for the first third of the book. I get that Mary feels guilty, but it just got hard to get past at some point. Mary was portrayed as super naive. Everyone is super extreme. Super naive, super greedy, extremely shady… sometimes the characters feel very over the top, they should maybe be toned down a bit?! But that might be just me.
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