I’ve been excited to read this book for a while now, based solely on the cover design. I had no idea what it was about. In the end, I gave it two stars, which based on my rating scale, means it was not for me, but you might like it. It was a quick read.

I think the main reason I didn’t give the book a higher rating is because I really didn’t enjoy any of the characters. They were all, with maybe the exception of Bea, selfish and self-centered. That’s not to say that selfish, terrible people can’t be well-written and enjoyable, but these just weren’t. None of them had anything special going on, or any really defining characteristics. (And this is just a personal pet peeve of mine, but OMG, the bland, boring character names made it impossible to remember who was who. Jack, Paul, Walker, Walter [yes, really], Nora, Louisa, Maggie, Melody… even when I was three-quarters of the way through the book, I had to keep reminding myself who each person was.

The plot itself was fine, but it felt like a lot of fuss over nothing. So Leo blew the money. Oh no! Now Melody’s kids might have to go to a state school. Jack was irresponsible with the money he does have, and now he and Walter (Walker? I don’t remember which one he was married to) might lose their summer house.

Seriously, these were the MAJOR PROBLEMS that the family faced. And then those problems were solved in about two sentences when Bea offered to share her money with her siblings, and they both immediately accepted. Problems solved!

Jack is an addict, which is an actual problem and could have really been explored more, but it wasn’t. He got Stephanie pregnant then disappeared, but it was cool because she makes tons of money and really prefers to be a single mom anyway, so NBD. Like, that would be an actual major problem for the majority of people in the US, but nah, it’s played out and wrapped up in a couple of pages, and life goes on!

There was nothing wrong with the writing. It was a quick read and I only considered abandoning it once or twice, but decided to stick it out because overall it had good reviews.