Like Family by Erin O. White
It was too much to ask. But sometimes too much is what we ask of the people we love most.
Radclyffe, New York, is an idyllic upstate town, nestled in the hills and complete with artisanal bakeries, pottery studios, and hidden swimming holes. Ruth and her wife, Wyn, are living the dream (or Wyn’s dream, at least) with their four children on their small farm, which is also the bucolic gathering place for their circle of friends. It’s a sweet life, but there’s a secret at its center, one that not even Ruth’s best friend, Caroline, knows.
What Caroline does know is that she loves and depends on Ruth, and on the bond between their families. More than anything, she wants her tender-hearted son not to grow up lonely the way she did. Unfortunately, no one can assure her of that, especially not her husband. He just wants things to be easy, drama-free—which is impossible, as he has donated his sperm to his cousin Tobi and her wife so that they could have kids of their own. Now those children are asking unanswerable questions.
After an unexpected death in their community, all three couples are forced to confront the tensions that have long been buried beneath the surfaces of their lives. Richly textured and big-hearted, this exhilarating debut is an unforgettable story of the alchemy of love and loyalty that makes friends Like Family.
Review: A huge thank you to Goodreads giveaways and The Dial Press for an ARC of this book, which publishes on November 4th!
This was an engrossing family drama that looks at the joys and complications of chosen family. In this book, readers get to know three overlapping families. A death in their small-town forces tensions that have long been buried beneath the surface of their lives to come to the surface. This is a largely character driven novel that homes in on relationships and the dynamics within the household and extended family/friend unit and is not hugely plot driven. I live for these types of novels and love the introspective look at how relationships evolve, and how characters build off of each other.
The author's editor was not wrong in her comparisons with this novel; White's writing style reminded me greatly of Ann Patchett, but with a queer spin. I loved the lovely descriptions that the author uses to bring the reader into this story, such as Ruth describing her love for teaching: "She loved the children and their rowdiness, their tender absurdities" (13). Or when Ruth describes why she and her wife ended up with four children: "She began to see siblings as a seawall against the ocean of life's hardships, and she decided to take up the task of completing theirs" (46).
Each of the families in this book are non-traditional in their own way (adoptive family, two mother households, etc.) but they all beautifully illustrate that no matter what, all families are complicated in different ways. This book is also largely about what happens when you finally achieve and obtain everything you set out to, but you still feel unsatisfied or unsure if you're living the life you should.
In addition to the beautiful writing, I loved the LGBTQ+ representation, the fact that the main characters were middle aged and in largely happy relationships, and the focus on friends and the anxieties of parenting. I absolutely loved Marcia Glassie-Greene's character. What a lady! The therapist we all need. Marcia said it best when she said, "It was too much to ask. But sometimes, 'too much' is what we ask of the people we love most" (234).
With three interconnected families and seven children between them, I did feel like there were a lot of characters to keep up with. And while really the focus was on one adult from each of the couples, I still felt like there wasn't adequate time to fully dive deep on any of them.
Stars: 4
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