Keep It in the Family – John Marrs
The title and synopsis gave me a feel of Lisa Jewell’s ‘The Family Upstairs’. The prologue is captivating and the last sentence of it gives you chills, drawing you in with the promise of a good read.
From the start, you get a feeling that something is ‘off’ with Finn’s parents. Mia describes his mum as the monster-in-law and they seem to have a controlling nature. They say they wanted to flip the house as they need the money, but surely if they have the cash to buy a derelict house, do it up and wait for it to sell, they can’t be that hard up? Secondly, huge red flag with Mia and Finn. Who plunges all of their savings into a house they haven’t even viewed? From the start, I found all of the characters to be unlikeable and rude. It was a hyperbolic, dysfunctional family – I get why Marrs wrote them in this way as they’re usually the characters that make fantastic stories (Gone Girl, Girl on a train, The Stranger to name a few) but they were exaggerated and bordering on absurd.
Despite these gripes, the absurdness and hyperbole were the things that made it a great read! It’s a perfect vacation read, although some of the twists are predictable. It keeps you feeling confounded and in spite of the characters being unlikable, the characterisation is something that actually makes the book tantalising as you almost want all of them to face some sort of consequence (other than the baby of course). Without giving anything away, it’s of no surprise that Debbie is the leader and manipulator, and when you read it, there is a real nature vs nurture argument. Something I think Marrs did really well was the portrayal of Finn and Mia and how he flips their character arc and the reader’s view of them changes throughout. This arc flip causes a shift in how we view their relationship together and what we would like the outcome to be.
The ending is the star of the show in my opinion. I was left with one of those mouth-open type expressions. It’s chilling and evil but it is so cleverly written, one of those endings that will stay with me and I hope there will be a sequel as I want to know more!