Real happy home appliances
My Rating 4 Real HeartsFavorite Quotes Her father was often absent from their single wide trailer with its shoddy A C and faux wood paneling while her mother was overly present on the couch like some sort of land dwelling whale The dress s Asian style couldn t be less suited to Colleen s chemically blond hair and too tan skin and its whimsical curlicue patterns contrasted harshly with the severity of Colleen s form the sinewy arms and blade thin torso She was a human pair of scissors That she had actually been pregnant once nourished and birthed another human life was hard to believe My Review I love irony and this title is totally ironic There is only one honest word used in the title These people aren t real with or to each other and they are not at all happy They are a train wreck And similar to the disturbingly morbid habit of rubbernecking that we all seem to be guilty of at the scene of an accident I could not tear myself away from this hot mess of a family Every generation and their extended family members are offered up to us with their secrets slightly exposed bit by bit It was like reading your own true history on those little strips of paper inside a fortune cookie They are flawed tired resigned yearning cloying shallow vapid rigid selfish and uneducated though fiendishly clever And all slowly spiraling out of control and headed for disaster However I easily understand them and can see why things happened the way they did I can make sense of their rationalized behavior choices and even sympathize with their bone headed decisions idiotic displays and immature antics I was uncomfortable for them during their embarrassing scenes and cringed for them when the perfect storm finally crested Without hitting you over the head with it Ms Widger s writing is acutely insightful I want to know what happens to these people even though I don t really like them and have nothing in common with them The writing is absolutely stellar I was shocked to discover this work to be Ms Widger s first novel I certainly hope there will be although I don t want her turning her keen observational skills in MY direction for inspiration 1477851011 I received this book through the Kindle First program with PrimeThis book was truly an unexpected pleasure Women s Literature is usually not my first choice but the editor s review had me intrigued Very well written for a first book Each character is well drawn out and I always felt empathetic towards them while at the same time thinking how pathetic their lives were. Real happy family book online During the final third of the book as each character was being steered back towards Lorelei I felt myself being sucked into the world the pacing being spot on to ratchet the tension up perfectly These characters are ugly pretty they are Hollywood pretty and it pains me to know that all of what happens in this book is so very possible and in fact probably happening right now And I know I am part of the problem every time I watch TruTV or any of the umpteen reality shows out there now And as long as Honey Boo Boo or Full Throttle Saloon keep getting ratings there will be people willing to have their fatness sickness whateverness exploited so that they too can have their 15 minutes And for all of the successes there are probably exponentially Loreleis and Colleens out there This book does a wonderful job of portraying that and I look forward to this author s next work 1477851011 This book is just a fun entertaining read 1477851011 As I was reading this book two things came to mindthe first was Tolstoy s famous quote from Anna Karenina All happy families are alike each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way The second was how much it reminded me very much of the movie Requiem for a Dream in its entirety Very interesting because the author later references both the quote and the movie I wonder which came firstthe chicken or the egg Anyway I truly enjoyed this book even though it was like watching a slow motion trainwreck throughout the entire thing aside from the end Bad things keep happening Then things get worse And worse Nothing gets better You can see the terrible things coming down the road as the characters make bad decision after bad decision You want to look away but you can t Why can t you After all the paragraph above is hardly a ringing endorsement for any book Honestly the writing is excellent it pulled me along even if sometimes I wanted to peek through my fingers and scream Nooooooooo while reading The characters are so richly described I actually could picture them in my mind something I rarely do while reading Colleen for examplewhile she was busy being a hot mess I kept picturing her as Fairuza Balk s hot mess mother from The Craft The only reason I didn t give this book five stars was because of the endingafter the non stop ratcheting up of our nerves I personally felt the book ended with a fizzle rather than a climax and then satisfying resolution The death of a gross mess of a junkie is our game changing climax Oh man Then too in the epilogue it seems as though everyone has flipped their lives for the better and is living out a picture perfect happily ever after with no accountability for the terrible things they d done Everyone except for Carl quite arguably the most moral yet abused character in the whole book Poor Carl I absolutely would recommend this book just be ready to yell at the characters repeatedly I know I sure did 1477851011 Usually when I read stories about Hollywood I go for the Jackie Collins sexy glamorous stuff Real Happy Family is far from that. Real happy familyk karaoke Everyone in this book is messed up Ok not messed up f d up some in bigger ways than others I think that s why at first I thought I wasn t going to like the book so much but as I went on I found the pages flying one after another until I was finished. Real happy home appliances Of all the characters Robin is the most normal and most likable Colleen is probably the least likable yet you can t help but feel sorry for her The only one you really don t feel sorry for is Lorelei She s a brat Granted she was raised to be a brat but she s a brat nonetheless I have to admit I was rooting for them all to step away from the Hollywood lifestyle and become normal Not to worry though that couldn t happen. Happy families too I liked how the author wove together the three stories And the ending well I have to say it wasn t quite what I expected because not all the pieces were really picked up. Real happy familyj njz This was a fast paced fun read that you will really love especially or maybe in spite of it involving reality tv 1477851011 Aspiring starlet Lorelei Branch leads a typical Hollywood life full of sex drugs and reality TV But this part time actress full time drug addict sparks a national media frenzy when her mom makes a racist rant on television s most popular reality show Flo s Studio Like many other troubled young stars Lorelei attempts to flee the limelight and heads for Reno where she begins to self destruct Colleen Lorelei s pill popping mother who wants nothing than to be her daughter s BFF is desperate to make things right and hatches a plan to stage an intervention on the latest reality show Real Happy Family Soon the entire Branch family is embroiled in the saga to bring their prodigal daughter back into the fold Will Lorelei ever forgive Colleen Will Real Happy Family air their most sensational intervention yet All roads lead to a seedy Reno hotel room where a reality TV crew is waiting Real Happy FamilyReal Happy Family marks my second venture into fiction trying to capitalize on the reality TV idea the first one being the movie EdTV I find the idea interesting and quite a twist to the otherwise insipid reality TV EdTV wasn t a hit for me but I didn t let that stop me from reading this book Unfortunately this book also wasn t a hit for me making it two failed tries in my attempt to find a good reality TV driven concept The synopsis sounded interesting a behind the scenes look involving a family who or less have their feet in the door in terms of the entertainment industry There are three main stories at play here Lorelei s story as the daughter who almost made it but became the laughingstock instead because of her mother Colleen s story as the mother who dotes on Lorelei a little too much and ends up being an embarrassment instead and Robin s story as the wife sister in law daughter in law who owns a talent agency is technically Lorelei s agent and sister in law and is plagued with conception problems It really sounds as if their stories should be connected together but to me it felt like Robin s story was the odd one out Colleen and Lorelei s stories work side by side because of their relationship but Robin s conundrums aren t really worth the hassle other than the fact that she s Lorelei s sister in law and agent. Real happy home appliances The beginning of the book was also rather discombobulating it jumped from one time period to another quite unnecessarily in my opinion and it took a long while to establish our main characters As the chapters jumped from one character focus to another it wasn t long before the whole task of keeping up with people became tedious. Real happy family epub free download The ending was simply ho hum to me not really something that I was expecting Then again I wasn t really expecting anything considering how I got no impression of a common goal to be resolved among the characters Just like reality TV the whole thing droned on spewed useless drama and killed any attempt of establishing interest 1477851011 Once I started reading I could not put this book down I read it in a day only begrudgingly putting it down to make dinner The characters are well developed and immaculately interwoven I wish I were teaching a California Literature class so I could assign it The commentary about the friction between Los Angeles and outlying communities is spot on and Widger nails the strange allure of fame and its ultimate hollowness It s a remarkable debut novel and I can t wait to get my paws on her next book 1477851011 Danger Will Robinson I m about to get nostalgic on your asses and I really hope you ll indulge me for just a minute If you re looking for my review it ll begin in the next paragraph But I honestly can t think of another way to do this What I d like to do is take this opportunity to say thank you I started on Goodreads to improve my social media footprint and get my name out there via another avenue and maybe discover another book or two but it s become so much than that It s become a community A family My wife has said You re pretty lucky But I d go above and beyond that and say that I m damn lucky. Happy family real estate If you re looking for that other type of family you know the ones that snort drugs and bomb out on reality television and drift away from their respective husbands and wives and might not behave like true parents and veer off script often than they stay on it and just happen to come in all various shapes and sizes then REAL HAPPY FAMILY is for you This novel takes Speidi and Bennifer to the brink of extinction with the proverbial train wreck waiting on every corner and maybe twice on Reality Avenue. Epub real happy family download Sure it d be easy to call this novel a disaster and then hang my head in shame as I run for the nearest restroom to get a little bump to go along with my steak tartare and Pinot Grigio But I was proud to discover this find even if it reminded me of the rubberneckers on 95 or the 405 With characters that proved somewhat simple in nature and constantly choosing the wrong door I was happy that I only temporarily occupied the stark raving universe otherwise inhabited by Colleen Darren Carl Lorelei and Robin and a handful of other misfits and oddballs and eccentrics and cranks. Real happy familyj njp The story followed a non linear construct so if straight lines and moving in order from A to B to C are your modus operandi you might find yourself scratching your head a time or two But the pace moved along at a reasonable clip and I found myself a little sad to reach the end even if it took me a few pages to find myself fully immersed in this tale. Epub real happy family free download Cross posted at Robert s Reads 1477851011 It was both awful and fun Like some of the other early reviewers I got it from Kindle First mainly because it looked like the most interesting of the selections as I m not generally interested either in Thrillers or YA The initial good thing about it was the readability The prose slips by quickly the story moves along and I ve come to value books that pull you along regardless of their other qualities The awful is that almost every character feels like a complete list of stereotypes and cliches A poor woman living in a trailer is she obese does she watch soap operas does she only eat starchy fatty junk food does she have a semi neglected kid Oh yes yes yes and yes As the story progressed I still felt this to be true but was less certain as I don t actually know anyone who s even close to being in the situation of the main plot The other positive that wasn t clear until later was that the unreliable narrator device was used to good effect in a number of ways over a number of characters This would have gotten three stars from me if the ending hadn t been so pat I admire it for not turning into a morality tale but it s a fairly messy book with a ridiculously clean ending or at least one where any of the consequences of the story whether painful or getting off scot free don t seem to have any real weight on the characters which really rings false I say with not a trace of irony if you like reality TV even as a secret guilty pleasure maybe especially as a secret guilty pleasure you ll probably like this book 1477851011 So so so cliched and predictable 1477851011
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Epub real happy family free You get this story from 3 sides Lorelei who is on the run from her stage mom mother Colleen that crazy mom and her agent and aunt Robin.I received this book for free through NetGalley
