A review by jdukuray
A Family Daughter by Maile Meloy

2.0

I actually gave up on this half way through. I thought that it was a sequel to Meloy’s previous novel, Liars and Saints, which I enjoyed. But I was disappointed to discover that, rather than a normal sequel, A Family Daughter takes some of the same characters, adds some new ones, some of whom have the same names as characters from the earlier novel, shuffles them, keeping some details and relations, completely changing others, and retells the story. I will grant that Meloy is clever and a good writer, but this manœuvre does not pass the « what for? » test and actually ruined the first book for me. It had the effect of invalidating the earlier story and my attachment to the first-version characters. As another reviewer wrote, the second story is very « meta » (I think it may be that one character turns out to have written the first book about her family), but I lost the will to follow this convoluted path. Neither the writing nor the story seem hefty enough or deep enough to support the authorial shenanigans.