What is it about families that makes them hotbeds of secrets, rivalries, and trauma for some, yet networks of support and springboards to success for others? Tolstoy said, "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," but we'll let you be the judge once you've perused this week's reading recommendations. The Family Dynamic by Susan Dominus, for instance, examines motivational trends between siblings who have logged some astronomical achievements. And Sarah Damoff's novel, The Bright Years, weighs how "love measures up against the twin burdens of anger and disappointment" within a family forged by pain. Meanwhile, for teen readers, Nikki Van De Car captures a "dazzling blend of myth and magic" in her debut, The Invisible Wild, about a teen trying to stop the destructive path of bulldozers on the Big Island of Hawai'i.
Plus, in The Writer's Life, novelist Katy Hays talks about the atmospheric adventure books that were formative in her understanding of what storytelling could look like and the author she turns to when she's working on something new.