The Wrong Family: Tarryn Fisher
Reviewed by Jessica, gr. 9
Rating: 4/5
Content Warning: Murder, adult activity
Plot Summary: Juno's an old, dying woman, who wanted nothing more than to just live her last few moments in comfort. What would be a better place to do so than in the Crouch family's enormous house, alongside their picture-perfect lifestyle? Finally relaxed after spending so much time being homeless, Juno was living in bliss—until she overheard a conversation and realized that everything positive she'd thought about the Crouch family may have been false. Juno had her fair share of a dark past filled with regrets, so she'd be a hypocrite to comment on what she'd discovered. But she can't let it go. If Juno could just redeem herself and do something about the situation. . .maybe she could die in peace like she wanted.
It took me a little longer to finish this novel than the majority of novels I've read. The beginning seemed to be moving very slowly, and I went a while just completely uninterested in even bothering to open this book again. But then I told myself to keep reading it because why not, and I'm so glad that I did. There were tons of misdirections and plot twists to keep me reeled in to the story once things actually started to get intense, and it kept me hooked all the way to the very end. I don't know what I was expecting when I started the book, but I definitely wasn't expecting it to turn out the way it did. As far as I'm concerned, each detail that was introduced to the plot was a new concept that hadn't been written about before (or at least, hadn't been written about much), so it was basically the complete opposite of a cliché. And while clichés aren't necessarily bad, I really liked how this story was different and kept curving around my predictions on what would happen next. There were certain parts in the writing that did seem a little unnecessary and I would probably change if I were to have written the book instead, because they were just weird things to add and didn't really affect anything in the story. But on the other hand, I guess it added more of a realistic element to counteract against all the unbelievable events thrown into the whole thing.
This novel was a great read, and I can't believe that I almost gave up on it towards the beginning before actually giving it much of a chance. Once I opened it back up and kept reading, I genuinely could not stop. But just like many other psychological thrillers, this book goes into some explicit details in terms of murder and violence, so only read this if you're sure that's something you know you can handle well.