Review: The Family Plot

The Family Plot by Megan Collins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I've heard a lot about this book and was eager to read it. The premise of a reclusive family living in an isolated house, homeschooling their children with true crime "curriculum" and research projects based on serial killers was intriguing and definitely piqued my interest. The execution of the story, however, left me a bit confused, disappointed, and underwhelmed.
To begin with, the way that the children in the family (Dahlia, Andy, Tate, and Charlie--all named after murder victims) were raised was just a bit over the top. I wasn't sure if the author was intentionally going for that--emphasizing their "quirkiness"--to make them truly bizarre or if it was just accidental. Either way, it was just a bit too unbelievable for me. Having children light candles almost every night of the year and recite the names of murder victims to "honor" them was weird. Anyone at all should recognize that. That no one in this family really thought much of it until the children had grown and left home did not feel at all realistic to me. And at this point I wasn't sure if I was supposed to take anything else in the book seriously... Were these people supposed to be caricatures or real? And because I wasn't sure (and also because I was being TOLD more about the characters feelings and actions than being SHOWN) I just had a very hard time identifying with them. The whole book evolved into some kind of strange fable or fairy tale to me, and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be taking the events of the book at face value, or if everything was some kind of strange metaphor. By the end, when all the "twists" were revealed, I kept waiting to feel some emotional impact--the characters were all showing gobs and gobs of emotion--but none of it resonated with me. I will try not to reveal any spoilers, but the last couple of pages were extremely disappointing in my opinion.
I really don't think I would recommend this book. I think it tried too hard to emphasize the "unnaturalness" of this family and just ended up being underwhelming.

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