A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon

Another book club book. I picked it because this was written by the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Honestly, I didn't really remember what that book was about, but I remember liking it.

This book was another that flipped between characters, this one flipped between four people in a family. I am not a huge fan of this type of writing. Sometimes I just want to know what happens in the story, not get the same story in four different points of view.

The four characters are George, 61 and recently retired, Jean, his wife, Katie, their daughter, and Jamie, their son.

Katie announces she is going to marry Ray, a man that none of her family approves of. This announcement sets George off on a downward mental health spiral. Jean is left to plan the wedding, deal with George, and try to keep up the affair she's been having with George's old colleague. Jamie tells his partner Tony about the wedding and really doesn't want to bring him to the wedding, which he claims is because he doesn't want Tony to have to deal with his family. This leads to their break up. Katie, meanwhile, can't seem to be able to say why she loves Ray or if she loves him at all.

The whole book is a couple months in the life of this family with everyone going through some kind of crisis. While I wanted to find out what happened in the end, I wasn't really invested in the book and wanted to give them all a good talking to. I'm not sure I would recommend this one, though it wasn't a bad book.