A Nearly Normal Family examines the three members of the Sandell family when daughter Stella is accused of murder. In the aftermath of her arrest, Stella, along with her father, a pastor, and her mother, a defense attorney, must each dig deep down inside and examine what lengths they are willing to go to protect their family.
First, the good: I found the writing style to be engaging throughout, and felt compelled to keep turning the pages. I thought the subject of the story is interesting, and I was curious where the author would take it. For most thrillers, the focus is on what really happened, but I don't feel that's the crux of this story. What really happened is almost an afterthought. Instead, we spend the majority of time scrutinizing and exploring each of the three main characters, their thoughts, their morals and ethics, and how far they will go to protect each other.
Now for what I didn't like: The characters are all so unlikable, not just a little, but a lot. This was probably the biggest hindrance to my enjoyment of this story. The father is paranoid, has boundary issues, and suffers from my-child-is-perfect syndrome. Stella is extremely spoiled and bad-tempered. And as for her crime, her parents did not question or care as to their daughter's guilt. They wanted to save her regardless of whether she killed another person or not. The story is told from their three alternating perspectives, so it was really hard to hang in there while they complained, acted crazy, and supplied endless odd justifications for what they were doing.
It's also a really long story for the amount of substance that's in here. Each of the three members of the family gets to have their turn to tell their side. Except each person often tells an event multiple times, first with some facts obscured, then again as they reveal what they concealed. And since there are three points of view, it's not usual for the the same thing to be told four or five or even six times. How many different ways can you say the same thing? Many times, apparently.
In the end, I enjoyed the writing, but found the characters to be complete duds. With how dysfunctional they turned out to be, this is more of a family drama than anything else. The theme seems to be that parents will do anything for their children, including lying, scheming, obstructing justice, and harassing others, all to keep their precious baby out of jail, regardless of guilt. If everyone used that logic and got their way, the only people in jail would be orphans. So no, I really can't agree with that.
Readaroo Rating: 3 stars
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