When Ken and Abby’s unknown half sister, Steph, appears on the scene, thorny truths come to light, upending the Gardner family story and detonating long-suppressed emotions. Through the lens of one New England patriarch and his descendants, she asks readers to consider what constitutes a secret and why families keep them.

The writing is confident with sharp narrative tension and sharply observed episodes that lead to growth and understanding as the book proceeds. The culturally specific language in Little Monsters is lively, au courant, and at times delightfully salty, giving insight to the times and nuance to all personalities in a tightly crafted story of a family that would like to connect, but is in denial of its individual and collective wounds. Brodeur is a brilliant dissector of family relationships, a lyricist of the natural world, and an astute observer of our inner turmoils.Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published. Obviously, there are some truly evil people in the world but for the most part, I think humans are like any other animal—at their most aggressive when they’re wounded. Written with a palpable love for this family and their Cape Cod home, Little Monsters tackles family trauma, forgiveness, and toxic masculinity.

In dozens of small moments in the novel, the Gardners brush against our anxious American political situation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Les Petites Crapules]]; see its history for attribution. Ken’s wife, who is also Abby’s best college friend, self-medicates with Sancerre to manage the responsibilities of her children, her husband’s political aspirations and the award-winning azaleas in her perfectly kept garden. In a wonderful scene where the passionate Adam shares his love of all things aquatic, it is incidental that he steers his boat out to Stellwagen while off his meds, so sincerely enthusiastic is he to tell his passenger, “You’ve just entered one of the most important ocean sanctuaries in the world, where whale watching rivals California and Hawaii.But drill down a little and there are unresolved traumas that must be healed and secrets that must come out. Also set on Cape Cod and also about a dysfunctional family’s reckoning, “Wild Game” is a nonstop parade of I can’t believe this moments whose power is partly derived from the fact that those moments really happened. Overall, this is a very good, enjoyable, entertaining summer read and one to become absorbed in as it’s a genuine page turner. I also love the subversive idea that the readers know more about what will happen next than the characters. Little Monsters started with a persistent curiosity about the often-fraught nature of sibling relationships, which led me to reflect upon the biblical story of Cain and Abel.

Sometimes that's how families are, disjointed, dysfunctional, and working with what they have and keeping it together as best they can. The men are less likeable than the women as some are certainly narcissistic although whilst Adam is judgy, he is also amusing in his non pc world and is also charismatic. While the story comes down clearly on the side of all-encompassing love, Mallery has struck a careful balance: There is just enough sex to be spicy, just enough swearing to be naughty, and just enough heartbreak to avoid being cloying. This family is so good at keeping secrets from one another and pretending they know each other so well that as the cracks continue to widen between them, a surprise none of them anticipates is lurking right around the corner.It's incredible how Brodeur manages to get so viscerally inside the bodies and hearts of so many different characters with such wide ranging professions (visual artist, real estate developer, whale expert, cop.