The Summer We Fell Apart by Robin Antalek

The children of a once-brilliant playwright and a struggling actress, the four Haas siblings grew up in chaos—raised in an environment composed of neglect and glamour in equal measure. When their father dies, they must depend on their intense but fragile bond to remember what it means to be family despite years of anger and hurt. These brothers and sisters are painfully human, sometimes selfish, and almost always making the wrong decisions, but their endearing struggles provide laughter through tears—something anyone who's ever had a sibling can relate to. [via GoodReads]

I enjoyed the way this story was told - five characters (four siblings and their mother) and their five points of view. It almost gave it a feel as if they were five loosely related stories - but in the end I think the stories were so well-blended and ran so fluidly from one to the next that I couldn't classify it as a compilation of short stories.

The characters Ms. Antalek riddles these pages with will become your friends. You will laugh and shed tears with them. Their stories will make you fall in love, they will cause you heart break, but mostly they will make you feel as if you are a part of this dysfunctional family.

This is an emotionally riveting book which covers a range of family issues — a wrecked marriage, substance abuse, sibling rivalries, adults coming to terms with their upbringing and how all these issues affect their relationships.

I picked this book up and devoured it within a couple of hours and was actually saddened that my time with it was over much too quickly. For fans of character driven novels, with loads of family drama, this is definitely one you won't want to miss out on.

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