Sadly, DNF @ 84 pages. I wanted to love this and really enjoyed the author’s last book. Unfortunately, I was just bored, for lack of a better explanation. I found myself not wanting to pick it up and avoiding reading because I just didn't care enough. Normally I don’t need a lot of plot, but then I do need the characters to be interesting - and these ones just, weren’t. Thank you for the opportunity to review.

2.5 ⭐️. This one wasn’t my cup of tea.
I hate Covid books, too soon.
And I really struggled to connect to any of the characters.

Thank you to Netgalley and Mariner Books for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I did like this book even though I thought it was a strange one. I liked the characters and the storyline. I would definitely recommend this book.

Slow but compelling family drama. I always leave Strong’s novels a little unsatisfied, but in a way that feels like a testament to their veracity.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy.

The Float Test is an entertaining story of an American family, their dysfunction, and journey to reclaim a sense of home. I most enjoyed the Florida setting and layered inter-sibling relationships. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a family-centered story.

I really wanted to like this book. I love sibling stories set around a family secret or betrayal. However, this one started off confusing, and if I have to continually tap back pages to reread what I read or to clarify something (especially difficult on an eBook) I begin to get frustrated and lose interest quickly. I know that Lynn Steger Strong has been praised for her book, Flight, and it has been on my to-read list. However, this book seemed very disjointed. It is told from the perspective of Jude, one of the siblings but even when the perspective changes to a different sibling, Jude is still there using the "I" pronoun which becomes confusing. Also, one of the sisters is named Fred and a brother is named George. Again, every I read the name Fred, I thought of a man and then had to quickly remember, that she was one of the sisters. I think the author could have chosen different names for the characters. Overall, I gave this the "old college try" and got to 25% before deciding this was taking too much thought and not enough enjoyment to keep reading.

I've loved Steger Strong's books in the past but I just couldn't get into this newest one that felt like.a stream of consciousness diatribe without a clear plot. I did enjoy the Florida setting and many of the characters but the story itself didn't flow well despite having relatable characters trying to cope with life during and after the COVID pandemic. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital copy and @librofm for a complimentary ALC narrated by one of my fav voice actors - however even Andi Ardnt's skills couldn't keep me invested until the end of the book. :(

Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins | Mariner Books for gifting me a digital ARC of the latest novel by Lynn Steger Strong. All opinions expressed in this review are my own - 4.5 stars!

The Kenner siblings are all at crisis points in their own lives, when they head back to Florida after the death of their mom. Jenn is the oldest, and struggling with her own family as well as feeling the responsibility of her parents as well. Jude is a corporate lawyer, single mom, and estranged from her once favorite sister, Fred. Fred is struggling with life and love and still finding her way. The baby, George, is estranged from his wife and having issues at work. They have never needed each other more or trusted each other less.

I love a well-written family drama! This story is told from Jude's POV, but we get all of the siblings' backstories as well, except for the reason that Jude and Fred are estranged. That reveal doesn't come until the book is almost over, which brought out an underlying tension through the entire book. The story felt real, with siblings taking their roles from childhood and feeling the pressure of maintaining those, as well as childhood resentments that we all hold on to. Everyone has secrets, including the parents. The hot Florida sun felt like another character as well. Another fabulous book from this author - and Luli had the perfect ending!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital review copy of this title. I stopped reading thoroughly at 43%, but I skimmed through to the end to make sure I didn’t miss any major shifts and could feel confident about giving it feedback.

My main struggles were that I didn’t feel connected to the characters or like them much. Past memories were shared in a way that felt jarring. The sentence structure and style was awkward at times. I had to reread sentences to understand them, and it wasn’t something I got used to over time. The pacing felt very slow and I couldn’t sense any momentum building. This definitely had potential to be a powerful story about grief and family, but there were too many style barriers for me personally.

I enjoy a good family drama and this was chaotic and dramatic in a lot of ways with a lot of Florida and climate change in the backdrop. I liked the sibling dynamics in this one and thought Strong did a decent job of establishing the why behind the tensions. This is definitely a very slow burn though and I thought about throwing in the towel multiple times, things come together in the end, and even though it wasn’t my favorite ending, I’m still glad I stuck with it. What Strong does differently is that all of the characters and events seem appropriately messy and mostly not very likable.The relationships are complicated, there are no neat resolutions or big character growths. All of this combined to feel very realistic, there are families and people like this. The omniscient narrator being one of the family members did throw me off a bit.

I didn't quite know what to expect from this book, and I enjoyed it a lot. The plot is definitely not the point of this book: four siblings deal with their mom's death, but really it's about their relationships and interactions. Jenn is the eldest sister who stayed in Florida with their parents and seemingly has it all together. Fred is the second-oldest sister who everyone thinks is "flighty" and "difficult." Fred and the third-youngest, Jude, were always close until an unknown betrayal meant they're no longer on speaking terms. George is the baby, and they treat him as such. After their mom's death, the siblings come home among personal turmoil.

This book made me think and feel a lot. It's a simultaneously beautiful and scathing portrayal of a dysfunctional family that deeply loves each other but doesn't understand each other. We get narratives from most of the siblings, which gives us insight into how they view themselves and each other. This book also explores what it's like leaving your hometown and coming back; how sometimes we only know our parents as parents and can't see them as real people; and how people don't always love us in the way we want them to. None of the characters are particularly likable, but they're not unlikable either - they're just flawed, scarred individuals. Florida is also its own character here, and I appreciated how the author wove in the oppressive effects of the heat and humidity, as well as the changing and deteriorating climate. This book also has some critique of white neoliberalism, which I always enjoy. But above all else, this is a moving family portrait.
 
Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review!

I love her work, but this book was very disappointing. I found it very difficult to stay engaged- it was a struggle to finish.

The matriarch of the Kenner clan, a driven litigator, dies of a stroke while running in the Florida heat. Her death is the catalyst which causes the four middle-aged Kenner children to return to their childhood home in an upscale enclave to commemorate their mother and to tend to their accountant father, a functioning alcoholic. The eldest, Jenn, the “meanest and also sweetest,” a married mother of six. Winifred, “Fred,” is separated from her husband, David, and is a published author of four novels that feature her family and her best friend, Maeve, but when we meet her she is no longer writing and feels too worn down and out of control to teach. Jude, the omniscient narrator, is a divorced attorney in New York who arrives with her teenage daughter Cass who connects with her aunt Fred despite her estrangement from Jude who finds Fred “petulant, performative, and absurd.” Lastly, is their brother George, who owns a $2 million home in Houston which is insufficient to keep his wife from walking out on him. He putters around his childhood home with his Lhaso apso, Libby, named for leveraged buyouts, in tow, and has a crush on Maeve.

The float test refers to the test that each of the siblings failed when they attended private swim classes. In Jude’s reckoning, “All of us were too obsessed with forward movement, with beating one another to some random destination. None of us had the patience, the ability, to lie back and be still like that.” Steger brings lots of swirling interpersonal drama to her novel, plus a Chekhovian suggestion of danger when Fred finds a gun in their mother’s closet and pockets it. Steger constructs vivid scenes and pitch perfect dialog in this engrossing family drama. The Kenner’s are an unusual family, and perhaps David sums it up best when he tells Fred, “It is so totally your family’s MO that you got a brand new car when you turned sixteen, but no one ever taught you how to drive the . . . thing.”
Thank you Mariner Books and Net Galley for a novel that reflects the complexity of the ties that bind families.

The Float Test is a complicated family saga of 4 adult siblings in the Kenner family, in the aftermath of the death of their mother. Filled with messy family dynamics, long standing grudges and hurt feelings, and an underlying current of family loyalty, fans of family dramas may enjoy this story. It took me a bit to feel invested in this tale, but I'm glad I stuck with it because I did enjoy it. Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the advanced copy, all opinions are my own.

Atmospheric and haunting, Lynn Steger Strong's The Float Test is a story of complicated families and the way that our obligations shape us. Brought back together to a sweltering Florida summer by the death of their mother, the Kenners must sort through their past to find a way to the future. A character driven story that will leave you thinking for many days after you have finished it.

The Float Test features the Kenner family in the midst of their grief after losing their mother. Four siblings, each with their own stories, struggles, and interpersonal difficulties are explored in this novel.

While I love family dramas and there was some interesting dynamics at play, this wasn't very compelling to me. I'm not sure if I didn't connect with the characters, but I failed to find any of them really sympathetic. Sometime a slow, almost lack of plot works, but in this case, it was too slow and I kept reading waiting for *something* to happen.

I think that the writer certainly has skill, maybe this just wasn't the story for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books.

Thank you firsthand foremost to NetGalley and Lynn steger strong for allowing me to read this book early exchange for an honest review! I gave it 3.25 stars

Thank you Mariner for the review copy! I loved Strong's writing style but I loved the idea and promise of this book more than the book itself. What worked for me along with the writing and the immersive intense engagement with characters, which I tend to love, are the themes on climate and siblings and family. What did not make this work for me overall was a pace that was a little too slow and characters who perhaps not unlikable but were hard to be immersed with through the writing and plot development... I didn't feel like I wanted to get back to the plot and see what happened and felt a little alienated, disengaged as times despite being invested in the promise of the book.
4 star writing and plot/character ideas, 3 star execution (so it's good but not really liked/loved it level).

The Float Test is the first book by Lynn Steger Strong that I've read. I was intrigued this title because I love family dramas. Centered around a group of four siblings who reconvene in their Florida hometown following the death of their mother, the book explores complex sibling relationships, grief, and personal struggles. This was a slow burn, and felt unstructured at times, but it still held my interest. However, there is a scene at the end that I found deeply unsettling and completely unnecessary which negatively impacted my overall feelings of the book.

I dreaded reading this book because it was so boring. It’s fighting to be The Family Stone or This is Where I Leave You but doesn’t measure up. I would not recommend.