Title:- We Are The Brennans
Author:- Tracey Lange
Date published:- February 3rd 2022
No. of pages:- 289 pages
Genre:- Literary Fiction/Family Saga
Rating:-
Plot:- 4/5
Writing:- 4/5
Overall:- 4/5
Some secrets you keep from your family. And some secrets you keep for your family.
When twenty-nine-year-old Sunday Brennan wakes up in a Los Angeles hospital, bruised and battered after a drunk-driving accident she caused, she swallows her pride and goes home to her family in New York. But it’s not easy. She deserted them all – and her high school sweetheart – five years before, with little explanation, and they’ve got questions.
Sunday is determined to rebuild her life back on the East Coast, even if it does mean tiptoeing around resentful brothers and an ex-fiancé. The longer she stays, however, the more she realizes they need her just as much as she needs them. When a dangerous man from her past brings her family’s pub business to the brink of financial ruin, Sunday realizes that the only way to protect her family is to reveal deeply buried secrets that will threaten everything they know about their lives. In the aftermath, the Brennan family is forced to confront painful mistakes – and find a way forward, together.
In the vein of Maggie O’Farrell and John Boyne, Tracey Lange’s critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller We Are the Brennans explores the staying power of shame-and the redemptive power of love, in an Irish Catholic family torn apart by secrets.
Sunday Brennan who lives in LA gets into a car accident while drunk driving. Her brother, Danny flies over to LA to take her back to New York. In New York, she meets her ex- fiance Cale, who is now married and has a son. Danny meanwhile is under bankrupt. No one knows the reason why Sunday left New York five years ago by breaking off her engagement to Cale. But there’s a secret that Sunday has been hiding that might ruin her family…
This story was well written–the story is based on Irish descendent Catholic family with many characters having Irish roots. It is also realistic and this book is more about the family drama particularly the story between Sunday and Cale, and Danny’s relationship with his wife Teresa. The first part of the story was slightly boring but then soon by the middle of the book, the story got interesting. I think the author did a great job of telling the dynamics and complexity of family relationships and Sunday’s relationship with the siblings particularly with Jackie.
The characters in the story are all complex in a way and since I listened to the story through audiobook, the narrator did a great job. Overall, I actually enjoyed reading this book. Worth four stars in my opinion.
Born in the Bronx and raised in Manhattan, Tracey Lange comes from a large Irish family with a few secrets of its own. She headed west and graduated from the University of New Mexico before owning and operating a behavioral healthcare company with her husband for fifteen years. While writing her debut novel, We Are the Brennans, she completed the Stanford University online novel writing program. Tracey currently lives in Bend, Oregon, with her husband, two sons and their German Shepherd.
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