The Family Compound – ARC Book Review

A compassionate and insightful novel about family, broken dreams, and holding on to everything in life that matters.

Five cousins must band together to decide the future of their shared inheritance—the family’s sprawling property in Stowe, Vermont—but with each at a different place in life, reaching a unanimous decision seems unlikely.

Penny struggles with depression and craves stability in an unstable world. Halsey is divorced, raising her child, and contending with an unexpected realization about herself. Irresponsible William can be counted on only to fall in love as capriciously as he falls out of it. And both Laurie and Chris are floundering after betrayals—hers professional, his personal. With little in common except childhood memories, the five face impossible choices. It’s going to take sacrifice, compromise, and a plan for moving forward they can all agree to. Until then, the fate of the Nolan family compound is as uncertain as their paths in life.

As five lives in flux converge and tensions run high, the cousins will have to rely on each other if they’re to have any hope of preserving the past. From the author of All Are Welcome comes a novel about a family legacy worth fighting for.

If you like a novel based on family saga, then this book might be great one for you.

This is a story of five cousins, Laurie, Penny, Chris, Halsey and William coming into terms with land and two homes left for them after their parents died. Each of these characters have their own personalities–Laurie had been fired from her position as a lawyer in a law firm, Halsey is newly divorced and discovers something about herself, and Penny is seem to be suffering from depression. The story is maily told in Laurie’s, Penny’s and Halsey’s perspectives.

At first, the book did not really get into me and at a point, I was kind of bored with the book. But by 30%, the book suddenly grew into me and soon, I want to know what is going to happen to the land and also to the cousins. The book also mainly talked about the relationships between the cousins, how estranged they were with each other. The pacing grew by the 50% of the book to the point when suddenly I was interested in the ending and wanting to know what is going to happen next.

So if you are into family sagas and family dramas, then this book might be one for you. Worth four stars.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.