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We’re All in This Together barrels along with surprises and humour
We’re All in This Together by Amy Jones is the kind of book that has so many aspects that it will satisfy all types of readers. It is fast-paced and constantly surprising, shockingly real and, at turns, both suspenseful and humorous, all delightful tools for an author to have.
The book begins when Kate Parker, the mother of the Parker family, plummets over Thunder Bay’s Kakabeka Falls in a barrel, astoundingly surviving, and becoming YouTube famous. Unfortunately, though, she is now in a coma. This catastrophe leaves the whole family wondering what would compel Kate to do such a thing, and forces them to come together and figure out where they have gone wrong.
What ensues is a hilariously real look into the messiness and depths of modern families and estranged relationships. This is a chaotic family full of characters worth getting to know: Nicki and Finn, twin girls who have violently grown apart, and Nicki’s 16-year-old daughter who wants out of Thunder Bay and thinks her older Internet boyfriend might be the way to escape. Trying to hold things together is adopted son and older brother, Sean, whose own marriage is falling apart.
Will Kate ever wake up? Will the family be able to get it together enough to be there if she does? We’re All in This Together won’t disentangle you from its grasp until the very last page.
We’re All in This Together
By Amy Jones
$24.95, paperback, 432 pp.
McClelland & Stewart, June 2016
Note: Reviewed from an Advance Reading Copy.
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