This is a wonderfully written family/sibling saga with the language at times being almost lyrical and poetic. The book has multiple themes such as family, sibling rivalry and ambition and family dynamics and dysfunction. I also love the art we get via the character of Abby. All the characters are well portrayed and feel authentic.

The unfolding drama contains wit and humour, it’s smart, a little bit dark on occasions and the different perspectives flow smoothly and keep the focus. As the party draws near so the drama escalates, the tension builds and erupts at the celebrations.

This book was overwhelming but entertaining! Includes family drama, dysfunctional relationships - a lot that I can relate to.

Fans of Elin Hildebrand will adore Little Monsters. Adrienne Brodeur does family drama just as well. This story is a fantastic read - the characters were so knowable and likable - from the grandpa dealing with his mental health to estranged siblings and an unknown sibling. An excellent read.

I know so many people raved about this book, but for me, it just wasn't for me. I loved Cap May, but for whatever reason, I just couldn't get into this book.

Thank you Netgalley. I struggled with this book. The multiple POVs were well done but the story was very slow.

This one unfortunately just didn't hit for me the way that I had intended on it. It ended up taking me an incredibly long time to get through, I think because I just wasn't as invested in the characters or the story as I wanted to be.

I was a big fan of the author's prior book and couldn't wait to get my hands on this one. It's a "quiet" sort of book and writing style, but one that I enjoyed. I will be looking out for more of her writing in the future!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur.

I found this book a very moving account of a family's history. All families have some skeleton in the closet or hide something that happened in the past and this create very complex relationships and ties that are not easily understood, Little Monsters is exactly this, told by different point of views, each with their unique experiences and ways of perceiving the reality (which makes everything more complex and interesting for the reader). I also really enjoyed the description of the landscapes in the Boston area and the info about whales.

Little Monsters is a intricate family story of three siblings, now adults, who were left to fend for themselves after their mother passed away in a tragic accident. While they were close as children, adulthood has caused a tense separation between them in this complex family drama. I feel when it comes to this kind of story its easy to relate to the problems and emotions of at least one character which help make the story feel more real. This was a good read. I enjoyed the character development and all the little details and backstory that made up each of their lives

This dysfunctional family drama set on Cape Cod and is told from the perspective of 5 characters. Adam is a bipolar marine scientist on the verge of turning 70, who raised his kids alone after his wife died in childbirth. His daughter Abby is an artist, while his son Ken is an aspiring politician. Jenny is Ken’s wife and has the image of the perfect political wife but was also Abby’s college best friend and an artist herself. And Steph has just found out that Adam is her biological father and Abby and Ken are her half-siblings. And each character has their own secrets and problems, and their own issues with their relationships with each other. The book takes place over the course of the spring and summer, culminating in Adam’s birthday party.

The writing of this one was excellent. Sometimes 5 points of view is too much, but I thought this book did a good job with it - I felt like all five characters - and even the side characters - really came to life. And of course I love books set on Cape Cod! I will say that I thought everything was going to come to a head at the end - and some things did - but there definitely were a few things that I felt weren’t quite resolved. But I thought this was a really good one.

A family story on Cape Cod, i was hooked. I enjoyed this story immensely and loved the setting. Highly recommend!

Adrienne Brodeur has created a dysfunctional family that truly takes the cake. Filled with secrets, guilt, and mental illness, the Gardner family is one you won’t soon forget.
Abby Gardner has always known she’s the reason her father, Adam, is a widower and her brother, Ken, lost his mother at the age of 3 and because of that she excuses their bad decisions. Between her father’s untreated bipolar disorder and her brother’s foray into politics Abby has learned to toe the line when it comes to dealing with them. During the summer of 2016, things begin to change as they make preparations for Adam’s 70th birthday celebration and a stranger enters their lives, making Abby question everything she’s ever believed.
Told in 3rd person from 5 different characters the story unfolds in such a spectacular way. I know multiple character viewpoints can be a lot, but I feel like this book would have been lacking without them. Each of the 5 characters brings a certain depth to the story and seeing the same scene from different vantage points helps to immerse us into the world that is the Gardners.

A familial drama with alternating POV’s that traverses their lives but doesn’t really seem to go anywhere.

This story is slow and steady the whole way through. We get a slow unraveling of the two children/ adults and their father that shares glimpses of who they are and how their relationships became so disconnected yet strongly gnarled together.

I wasn’t a fan of how slow the story was and nothing really riveting happens in this story. This very much just feels like we follow the MC’s back and forth until the very end of the story which just didn’t resonate with me.

Little Monsters tackles the big topics of power, control, entitlement, and privilege as seen through the lens of one white, wealthy Cape Cod family during the 2016 election.

As you can imagine given the topic, the book contains unsavory men who have no awareness of their awfulness contrasted by the women (wives, sisters, daughters) who disagree with them, but also benefit from the privilege of being attached to white men in power-a concept I wish Adrienne Brodeur had gotten more into versus writing the men as all bad and the women as all good/victims of the men’s behaviors.

I listened to this one on audio and enjoyed each of the main characters having their own chapters/narrators, but overall left the book feeling like the topic has been done a million times over and better elsewhere (Succession, anyone?).

All of that being said, I was recently chatting with a friend and something that we both agreed upon that Brodeur does uniquely well is that she gives insight into the mind of someone diagnosed with Bipolar in a way that in not generalized and that adds layers to who the character is versus making the diagnosis his entire personality or the reason for his actions.

Family dynamics, secrets, insecurity, mental health, and trust all set against the backdrop of the 2016 election. Adrienne Brodeur writes with a talent and understanding of her characters that is unmatched. I wanted to throttle Ken, talk sense in to Jenny, take Adam to the ED, hug Abby, and have a heart to heart with Steph. Overall, the story of this family and their past drew me in and propelled me to the pinnacle event of Adam’s 70th birthday party.

Family drama and secrets is my kind of book. I loved the writing and the author paints the story well.
Many thanks to Avid Reader Press and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Little Monsters is a great family drama and also deals with mental health issues with compassion and understanding.
I loved the Cape Cod setting. this book could be read year-round, but it would be best in summer.

Ken and Abbey are the children of Adam Gardner. Their mother died when they were young and their father was preoccupied with his career as a distinguished oceanographer. The children were left to their own devices and relied on each other. Years later, the adult siblings are no longer close but they are getting together to celebrate their father’s 70th birthday. Adam is bipolar and wants a big bash.

As his career is coming to an end, Adam is determined to have one more spectacular scientific contribution. He has stopped taking his medication and has freed his brain from medical constraints that prevent his soaring thoughts. Ken and Abbey are on their own trajectories. He has a master business plan that includes directing his father’s future. Abbey’s artistic talent is getting national recognition and she has a gift for her father that reveals part of her childhood story. Another person enters the picture; one who is anxious to learn just who these Gardners are. But as the family’s dysfunction becomes apparent, the best course of action may be to run the other way.

Brodeur explores the dynamics of a troubled family. There is a difficult history between the siblings that soured their relationship. The root of their troubles is only hinted at, leaving readers with even more questions. With so much initial potential, the plot wanes from not fulfilling its promise of a fully realized tale.

I’m not ready to say farewell to summer! (Although it is starting to feel a tiny bit like Fall here in south Florida) A book that had been on my summer TBR is the dramatic yet poignant LITTLE MONSTERS by the brilliant Adrienne Brodeur. I had loved her memoir Wild Game and her latest is her first work of fiction. I couldn’t put it down!

The glittering Gardner family might look like they have it all from the outside. The patriarch Adam is a brilliant marine biologist who is also bipolar. The book takes place in the summer of 2016 leading up to Adam’s 70th birthday.

Siblings Abby and Ken were once inseparable but have grown distant as adults. Abby is an artist and very different from her brother Ken, who has grand political aspirations. The arrival of another person into their fragile family ecosystem adds to the dramatic tension in this splendid story.

The author knows Cape Cod intimately and it provides a very rich backdrop for the book. All of the characters are flawed yet I cared deeply about each one of them.

As the lovely Cape Cod summer comes to a close, the tension builds as Adam’s 70th birthday celebration approaches, and the characters’ insecurities, jealousies and secrets are revealed. I thought Adam’s mental health was handled sensitively and with great insight. As well the author describes the political climate leading up to the 2016 election in a balanced way.

I also absolutely love the cover of this book and it really evokes the beach-y atmosphere of the story. Highly recommend this very engaging novel.