The Jetsetters

The cover would make you think..."OH! This looks kind of bright and shiny." It is so far from that. These people have PROBLEMS and there is literally nothing light-hearted about how they come to terms with those problems. It's not necessarily the book I have problems with though it didn't WOW me.

***TRIGGER WARNING & SPOILERS AHEAD***

I'm gonna keep it pretty simple. There's two different suicides (one only an attempt) featured and LOTS of characters that should be medicated for their depression. There is no introspection, they just kind of vomit out all of their problems (or bottle them up) and assume that everyone around them didn't grow up, too.

That part I understand so well -- I'm the youngest, I have always been treated like I'm a show more teenager because that's the age I was when my siblings became "adults". They've forgotten that eventually I became an adult, too. The interactions between the siblings and there mom are so relatable.

The suicidal dad and (later) sister though...not something I expected based on the description. Is suicide really a plot device now? Is that the trend novels are moving toward? Are authors (and their book marketers -- and I'm including Reese's Book Club as a marketer) consciously doing this? I'm an author, I'm gonna make this "unique" by including a suicide, but let's not include that in the blurb because it's gonna be a "surprise" for the reader. It's a plot twist, get it? Let's give this one a bright & shiny cover with umbrellas -- no one will ever see the dark & twisty suicide coming!

Well...you fooled me again publishers. Please stop.

Maybe I'm hyper-sensitive to this right now? Or maybe it's time I give up on contemporary novels for a bit. When they all start to become the same book, it becomes tedious and BORING. One successful dysfunctional family novel means that EVERY publisher wants to push THEIR dysfunctional family dramas to the front. Remember when Gone Girl came out and EVERYTHING WAS GONE GIRL AFTER THAT? Well, we're there with the dysfunctional family trend. It's DONE NOW. YOU'VE KILLED IT FOR ME.

I'm ready for something new. I feel like Buffy in the musical episode. Please give me something to sing about, ya'll!

If you're one of those that reads reviews before reading the book, read these instead:
Reunion by Hannah Pittard
The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo show less

This was the first book I read outdoors this year and it served that purpose well, this has a snappy pace, it entertains, and there’s a travel element to it. The middle-ground this found between beach read and more serious subject matter (suicide, mental health, etc), worked for me, but there were areas of this where I was left feeling like there should have been a bit more on the page.

Aside from Regan, and Cord’s fiance Giovanni, this is a pretty self-absorbed bunch, so if liking characters is a must for you, this might prove a bit challenging, but they are all at interesting crossroads in their lives as they embark on this cruise together so even if they didn’t really carve out a place in my heart, they did hold my attention. I show more kind of thought of them as akin to the kind of soap opera characters (I love soaps, that comparison is not an insult), where you might not love their behavior but you’re still engaged and curious about where they’re going to end up.

However, I wish my curiosity felt more thoroughly satisfied.

There were too many instances where it felt like important scenes were skipped over. You don’t even see the first time this sort of estranged family meets up to go on the cruise, and there are rifts in this family, secrets coming out, a life and death crisis, I could go on and on about moments where I was just like but wait, we’ve moved on to here now in the story and didn’t actually see what unfolded there, the reader isn’t getting any conversation about this? It’s not like I expected these people to get all warm and fuzzy with one another, that’s not who they are or where there relationships are at, Charlotte’s not suddenly going to be a perfect mother saying all the right things, but I still wanted to hear whatever she did say to a certain child after a certain situation, even if it wasn’t anything soothing. It felt odd to jump past things like that, it feels like chunks of story are missing when things aren’t really addressed and to me the novel ended up a little less than it could have been because of that. show less

I sat down to read this novel in the morning and didn't get up for anything until I was finished reading it in the afternoon. I love a family together, out of their element. All the characters have interesting back stories, and they're all trying to hide things from each other. I particularly love the author's powers of description. She's one of the best at picking out details that really bring me into the setting, like all the excesses of the cruise ship.

The only thing I hated were that two of the adult siblings were named Cord and Regan. I know it's because they were named after King Lear (like their older sister, whose middle name is Lear), but those names are terrible and it predisposed me to dislike them. But at least there was no show more Goneril. show less

Dysfunctional family takes a cruise to Athens, Rome and Barcelona. Sounded so much better than it was. Reading this novel was oppressive and I dreaded returning to its pages. I found all the characters in this family to be extremely sad, overwhelmingly preoccupied with sex, and so troubled. Even as adults, they never really grew up - overweight baby girl, gay middle brother who hasn't yet come out to his family, oldest daughter who, as a teenager, discovered her suicidal father's body. They joined their 70-year-old mother who won the cruise with a personally revealing essay she wrote and is hoping the trip will bring her family together. Instead, long-buried secrets are revealed and old wounds are reopened.

This book was just not for me. show more I can't recommend it and am so glad I gave myself permission to stop reading after 200 of its 334 pages. show less

The Jetsetters is a slim dysfunctional family book that mainly takes place on a cruise that the lead character Charlotte has won. Flipping between Charlotte’s back story and her three children is fun up to a point. There seems to be a disingenuous quality to the writing. Despite being Charlotte’s story, her character is the least developed. Plus there is a sameness to the dialogue between the children. Still it is entertaining fluff.

I had trouble reconciling this one - it seemed like it wanted to be frivolous and a bit of a send-up of family dynamics, but it included some really heavy issues: coming out, suicide, manic depression, addiction and it just didn't fit the tone. All these come to the surface on a family cruise on the Marveloso Splendido which mom, 70-year-old Charlotte wins by submitting a (really bad) revealing essay about losing her virginity. cringe. She invites her kids: Lee a washed up actress who has just lost a relationship and all her money, Cord, a closeted gay alcoholic living and working in NYC, and Regan, the child that stayed closest to home, married Lee's high school boyfriend, settled for conventional and is now facing a marriage that is show more falling apart. All are 'haunted' by the ghost of their father Winston who was a bully and brute and terrified them all until he died suddenly leaving Charlotte as a single mother to raise them all. Lots of scarring here, but the healing feels surface only as they each are brought to confrontation on this dysFUNctional Mediterranean cruise to Greece and Italy. The comic moments are funny - Charlotte is a piece of work, but also damaged by her rich, proper upbringing, so lots of shadows dim the comedy. Cord reflects: "her love was so heavy. As a child, he'd yearned for her to take care of him, and as an adult, he'd felt he had to deny who he was to keep from breaking her. He was fragile too!" (226) This pretty much sums up the relationship they all have with her and with each other - yearning for love, but erecting boundaries and facades to mask it. All resolves neatly at the end which also felt a little contrived. "We Are All Adults Here" balanced better. show less

I devoured this book, read it in under a day. I found the language the characters used to be a bit immature and stilted at times, but overall it was well done and fast paced. Most of it felt like a typical family drama, but there were a few surprises thrown in that I really enjoyed. The characters were all very unique and I wouldn’t say this book was predictable at all.