Not A Happy Family, by Shari Lapena

Somebody in this family is hiding a secret, but who? That’s what we aim to find out in Shari Lapena’s latest thriller offering, Not a Happy Family.

What is Not a Happy Family about?

In this family, everyone is keeping secrets–especially the dead. Brecken Hill in upstate New York is an expensive place to live. You have to be rich to have a house there. And they don’t come much richer than Fred and Sheila Mercer. But even all their money can’t protect them when a killer comes to call. The Mercers are brutally murdered the night after an Easter Dinner with their three adult kids. Who, of course, are devastated.

Or are they? They each stand to inherit millions. They were never a happy family, thanks to their capricious father and neglectful mother, but perhaps one of them is more disturbed than anyone knew. Did one of them snap after that dreadful evening? Or was it someone else that night who crept in with the worst of intentions? It must be. After all, if one of your siblings was a psychopath, you’d know.

My Thoughts

The plot for Shari’s books are always so intriguing and I find myself wanting to read everything she’s ever written! This is the second book that I’ve read from this author, the first being, The End of Her, that I reviewed over HERE.

Let’s start with what I enjoyed. The chapters are short, so I really flew through this one.  Not a Happy Family was a really great ‘whodunnit’, because there were quite a few characters to choose from, all with a motive! I kept going back and forth, thinking I’d solved the case.

What I didn’t enjoy….all the characters were really unlikeable. I just didn’t find myself drawn to any of them. I also really felt like the writing style was terribly overly descriptive. Do authors get more money if the book is longer? This really felt like a word count chase at times.

My Rating

Not a Happy Family has a 3.91 star rating on Goodreads, so that says that a lot of people really enjoyed this book. For me, personally, this was around a 3 star read. I need my thrillers a little darker, but if you are a fan of thrillers that lean more towards domestic dramas, I definitely think you’d enjoy this one. Great plot, good ending that I did not see coming, just a bit on the repetitive and drawn out side.

Thank you Penguin Random House for this review copy.