Heather Hobbs

The Trouble with Family allows readers the glimpse of a blended family’s first summer together, told in first-person POV by 14-year-old Molly.
Molly and Ben, her brother, father marries Susan, a divorced mother of three, less than a year after his wife/Molly’s mother died. Not only that, Molly had only met Susan once or twice before the wedding, and her step-siblings are equally unhappy about the arrangement. Molly is forced to share a room with her kleptomaniac stepsister Clara. Susan’s character outraged me at times, especially when she insisted on Molly and Ben calling her “Mom” only a few weeks after the wedding, and when she confiscated Molly’s pen pal letters, insisting that Molly was unknowingly writing to sociopaths. Molly’s father basically sits back and does nothing to intervene, most likely because Susan is prone to tantrums.
As a teen, I might have enjoyed this book more. Had I been a child of a divorced family, I may have found this book more relatable. Overall, it was a good book, but the epilogue was a bit of a let-down. After the climatic last chapter, I had hoped for more of a follow up in the epilogue; however, it was just a few paragraphs about what happened immediately following the climactic scene.
There was some laugh-out-loud dialogue in this book, my favorite being: “I’ve never driven a car and Ben insists it’s harder than it looks. But if you almost run over an old man, you probably should call it a day.”… (mais)

I was asked to review this book by Librarything.com.

I read this in one sitting and really enjoyed this book which is the first in the series. The author has written this young fiction book based on a real life story and concerns a fourteen year old girl trying to survive the long summer holidays. Molly is the main character and narrator at the same time.

Molly instead of doing the usual things a teenager would do on that endless period of time is to try to help solve the problems of her new step siblings since her mother had died in a road accident a year ago. Just how much more can Molly take?

The story is kind of mad with these strange step kids, a horrid step mother and a father who takes up with this woman so soon after the mother’s death.

All this madness is told in the eyes of a fourteen year old and this is her story. Change as we all know can be really traumatic and Molly appears to be dealing with one thing after another and the message is you can move forward and gain from change.

Well written and I will be looking out for the second book by this new author.… (mais)

The Trouble with Family is narrated by 14 year old Molly in the summer before she starts high school. Her father remarried to a woman her brother Ben and her had only met a couple times. In addition to getting a new mother just a year after her own mother died, Molly gains 3 new siblings, Joseph, Sam and Clara. Molly struggles to come to terms with all these changes.

It is a quick read and I like the characters. The story does jump around to past and present tense and occasionally ends topics very abruptly.… (mais)

I received the ARC of this book from the publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers in exchange for an honest review.

I read this book in a day, but simply because it was short. This book is really boring. Short summary: Molly's - she is a main character and a narrator - father re-marries a year after her mother dies, and new weird stepmother brings her three comparably weird children to live with them.

The idea behind the book is that Molly spends summer trying to solve problems caused by her new stepsister and stepbrothers, instead of reading books and napping outside. The book consists of four main parts (June, July, August and September) and of thirty-three chapters. In my opinion, it would be more logical if it was written in a form of a diary, not in chapters. I was sometimes confused when the narrator jumped from the present to past tense, all within just one paragraph. The writing could also benefit from some editing: the author uses the the word "un/enthusiastically" just a bit too... enthusiastically. In one particular case, the character says/nods unenthusiastically/enthusiastically within one single page.

But the main reason I didn't like this book is not, of course, its stylistic devices. The author appears not able to choose one main topic and stick to it. There simply is too much:
- mother dies and Molly struggles to accept what happened;
- her distant father chooses to marry some flashy woman just one year after the mother's death;
- crazy stepbrothers/sisters make Molly's life miserable;
- new family with cute boy moves just across the street;
- new stepsister Clara is pure evil, but stepmother always takes her side.
But with all this mashed up together, there is not a single conflict, that could arouse a reader's interest. Simply saying, the plot lacks structure. Tedious descriptions were unnecessary and mostly didn't add anything to the text.

The book description says it was based on a short story, and that makes sense. I guess as a short story it would be much more enjoyable, whereas as a book it simply made me yawn.… (mais)