A delightfully quirky debut about family bonds and the chaos that ensues when nature and lack of nurture collide.
Emily Glass knows sheâs neurotic. But sheâs got it under control. Sort of. She dons compression socks when she flies (because, you know, deep vein thrombosis) and responds to people routinely overestimating her age with more Lifespin classes and less gluten. Thankfully, she also has David, the wonderful man sheâll soon call husbandâassuming they can survive wedding week with her wildly dysfunctional family.
Emilyâs therapist mother, Marla, whoâs been diagnosing her children since they were in diapers, sees their homecoming as the perfect opportunity for long-overdue family therapy sessions. Less enthused are Emily and her two siblings: ardently feminist older sister Lauren, who doesnât think the wedding party should have defined gender roles, and recently divorced brother Jason, whose overzealous return to singlehood is only tempered by his puzzling friendship with Davidâs Renaissance Faireâenthusiast brother.
As the week comes to a tumultuous head, Emily wants nothing more than to get married and get as far away from her crazy relatives as possible. But thatâs easier said than done when Marlaâs meddling breathes new life into old secrets. After all, the ties that bind family together may bend, but they arenât so easily broken.
Laugh-out-loud funny and endearingly raw, Family and Other Catastrophes is as entertaining as your favorite sitcom and introduces Alexandra Borowitz as an outstanding new voice in humorous fiction.
Family and Other Catastrophes
Alexandra Borowitz
Copyright
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018
Copyright © Alexandra Borowitz 2018
Alexandra Borowitz asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © April 2018 ISBN: 9781474077088
Praise for Family and Other Catastrophes
âThe perfect book for anyone with a calamity of a family who wants to laugh along in knowing hilarity. Alexandra Borowitz has written characters who we hate to love but yet we do (love them) because we know these people intimately, they are our own family.â
âAnn Garvin, USA TODAY bestselling author of I Like You Just Fine When Youâre Not Around
âFamily and Other Catastrophes is, hands down, one of the funniest novels Iâve read this year. The members of the Glass clan are as hilarious as they are cringe-worthy, and Alexandra Borowitzâs rendering of family dysfunction is charming, insightful, and wickedly smart. Honestly, the only real catastrophe here is that this wonderful book had to end.â
âGrant Ginder, author of The People We Hate at the Wedding
NIGHT 0
David
âDOES THIS DRESS make my nose look big?â
Emily Glass stood at the mirror brushing her hair. Her pink sundress was tight around the torso and flared out at the hips.
âHow could a dress make your nose look big?â
âYouâd be surprised,â she said. âWith my nose, you have to be careful. I read on PopSugar that I shouldnât wear black, for example. Itâs harsh against my skin and itâll accentuate my nose.â
Emilyâs nose wasnât small, but it wasnât enormous eitherâlong, prominent, but nothing anyone would point out unless she pointed it out first. She had brought her nose up on one of their first dates, when she self-effacingly said that she was tired of her parentsâ friends telling her that she looked like a young Barbra Streisand. David hadnât thought to give the correct response: an incredulous look and a shocked âWhy would anyone ever say that? Youâre far more beautiful!â Instead, he only nodded. She had never let him forget it.
As she turned around, her hair whipped over her shoulder and revealed the candy-pink straps of her sundress. David wasnât sure what this type of dress was called. He had recently heard the term