Family Trust

I really wanted to love this book, but now I find myself struggling to review it.

I'll start with the pros: The writing style itself was fantastic; visually descriptive with exceptional character development, pacing, and scene-setting. It was easy to get a true sense of the characters and locations. And because the story is told in the first person, from every main character's POV, it was easy to know exactly what everyone's inner thoughts and motivations were.

Now the cons: the Huang family, around whom this story centers, can best be described as a bunch of assholes, solely interested in whatever inheritance will be gained upon the passing of family patriarch, Stanley Huang. But before you start feeling sorry for Stanley, let me assure you there's no need. He's the #1 prime asshole of this clan. Entitled, self-important, and abusive to his children and current wife, Mary. I find it difficult to get invested in this type of story when there are no characters to root for. (Maybe that was the point? To borrow a term from Reddit, “ESH” - everyone sucks here.) The only character with any semi-redeeming qualities is Kate, the adult daughter of Stanley and his ex-wife Linda, who is dealing with some marriage drama of her own.

At the end of this book, I found myself with no real sense of what the story was trying to accomplish. I probably should have DNF'd it, but I kept hoping that it would turn around. Unfortunately, that was not my experience. I would definitely be interested in reading something from this author again, as I did enjoy the writing style itself, but it would depend on the storyline/plot development.