8 bookish dysfunctional families from my favorite books

Thanks to the holidays and festivities we have all started realizing (read as dreading) the kinda havoc that the dysfunctional families would be unleashing this year.

What are your favourite families with dysfunctional families? Let me know which fictional family would make me feel a lot better about mine. Click To Tweet

8 bookish dysfunctional families from my favorite books

To get you through the myriad of unwanted questions (Any wedding bells yet? Baby in the making?) and the offensive comments (No, you can not say that word anymore) arm yourself with one of these books with the worst of dysfunctional families. At least they will make you feel better about yours.

dysfunctional Family

Read some of other listicles here:

8) Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

dysfunctional families

What happens when you find your ‘favourite’ child’s body in the bottom of a lake?
Meet the Lee’s, a quintessential Chinese American family from the 1970s. Jason Lee is a US-bred guy of Chinese descent who would give anything to fit in. He puts in his focus and efforts on making his daughter Lydia popular and has friends, like a normal American teenager.

Marlyn Lee, his wife, an American woman who wants her daughter to achieve things that she couldn’t. Their oldest Nathan and youngest Hannah suffer their invisibility in silence. The siblings are set to determine the cause of the death of Lydia. How this broken family grieves her death in isolation and guilt under one roof forms the rest of Everything I Never Told You.

7) A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer

dysfunctional families

This real-life memoir of the author, talks about his childhood spent being abused by his mother. Dave as a child was beaten, starved and tortured by his emotionally unstable mother, who considered him a slave, even calling him ‘It’.

He pretended everything was fine at school coming up with excuses for his bruises and stealing food from his classmates. Having two brothers who got off easy and an alcoholic father who neglected the whole situation puts the Pelzer family on my dysfunctional family list. A Child Called “It” is no book for the weak hearted.

6) The God of small things by Arundhati Roy

dysfunctional families

Roy’s portrayal of the Ayemenem, Kerala in the 1970s left a nostalgic tinge when I first read years ago. But what stuck with me far deeper was their family. The main protagonists of the plot are Rahel and Estha fraternal twins who are parted by circumstances for years.

As kids, they had to live with their Uncle Chacko at their late grandfather’s family estate when her mother Ammu divorced their father. Ammu is a free spirit and was not someone who would follow the rules, even for her kids. While their childhood was far from peaceful, the twins had at least each other. But an incident changes everything in their lives and now Estha doesn’t speak anymore. The God of small things will work both as a compelling tale as well as a masterful social commentary. Read my review here.

5) The Grownup by Gillian Flynn

dysfunctional families

In about 50 pages Gillian Flynn makes the Burke family spooky enough to be listed on my most dysfunctional families list. Susan Burke requests our narrator to visit her house to heal their haunted house. Looking for some quick bucks she agrees, only to realize she has gotten involved in things far more than she bargained for.

She realizes Susan’s teenager son Miles is creepy and wile and her house has a darker and sinister past. And even Susan is not as dumb as the narrator assumed her out to be. Read The Grownup to know more about the unreliable Burkes and I promise you won’t be disappointed. Read my review here.

4) We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

dysfunctional families

A blinded father, a mother who did not want to be one, a sister who feared everything and a 15 years old psychopath who killed nine people in a high school massacre – how is that for a dysfunctional family?

We Need to Talk About Kevin is written in the form of letters from Eva, a writer to her estranged husband Franklin, narrating the incidents of their lives until the day before the fated Thursday. Their son Kevin killed seven students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher who tried to befriend him two days before his sixteenth birthday. This international bestseller set in the 2000s definitely should be on your to be read list.

3) Mummy’s Little Angel by JW Lawson

Speaking of bad mothers, Joanna could not love her twins Annie and Maggie any more than she already does, and as any good children do, they both compete to become their Mummy’s Little Angel. The Stokes family have faced a lot worse in the past – Joanna is mobility impaired, her husband is shot and is labelled a paedophile, one of her twins is disfigured and suffers from amnesia due to a fire accident and the other twin is blamed for it all and is imprisoned.

The timing could not be any worse for her schizophrenic mother, who had abandoned her twenty years ago, to come back to their lives. What more could her daughters be hiding from her? Find out with Joanna by reading Mummy’s Little Angel. Read my review here.

2) Dark places by Gillian Flynn

dysfunctional families.

7 years old Libby Day testified against 15 years old Ben, her brother in the case of the bloody massacre of her family. Their mother, Patty was shot in her head, both Patty and Debby had been slaughtered with an axe, and Michelle was strangled to death.

Libby herself has been affected mentally by the event and is on medicine to help her cope. Now after twenty-five years, she visits her ghosts and tries to remember the day of the horrific event and her equally dysfunctional family or whatever is remaining. Gillian Flynn is one of my favourite authors and this definitely is one of the most disturbing books I have read, by far. Read my review here.

1) The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

dysfunctional families

As far as dysfunctional families go, the Lisbon’s can easily be the toppers. With all of their five daughters committing suicides could there be a worse dysfunctional family? The strict and devout Christian mother who never let the girls out of their sight did not let them date or even attend dances except for one.

Their submissive father who could not live any duller life in their all woman house did not help their case either. Once the youngest one Cecilia succeeded her attempt in committing the rest of the family came tumbling like a house of dominoes, while the entire neighbourhood watched. The Virgin Suicides is one of my favourite books to read not just for the plot but also its beautiful prose. Read my review here.

elgeewrites 8 bookish dysfunctional families from my favorite books dysfunctional Family1

Let’s talk

What are your favourite families with dysfunctional families? Let me know which fictional family would make me feel a lot better about mine. And more importantly, share your secret excuses to get away from the family dinners quickly *wink wink*.

32 Comments

  1. Stephanie

    I’ve never read any of these, but I never thought about how dysfunctional families in the books can make us feel better.

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      I was just trying to be funny, which I wasn’t I guess.

      Reply
  2. Lauren @ Always Me

    Not sure why I haven’t tried The Grownup yet… I’ll have to get onto that!

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      It is one of my favorite books ever. Flynn has never disappointed me yet.

      Reply
  3. The Story Sponge

    Wow, those families sound scary! When I try to think of dysfunctional families one of the first that comes to mind is the Thenardiers from the book of Les Miserables. The parents abandon most of their kids and teach any of the ones that stay with them to be thieves and murderers. Gavroche knows that they are his parents but his father doesn’t even recognize him. Another really dysfunctional family is the Wiggins from Ender’s Game. You have the psychopath older brother and the parents who have no clue what is going on.

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      Thanks for the recommendation, I really have to take a look into them both.

      Reply
  4. phanniebeingginger

    Great post! I haven’t read any of these. Will probably add some of these on my TBR!

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      Oh, they are all kinda disturbing too, so watch out.

      Reply
  5. Katie @ Book Ink Reviews

    If my toddler starts acting up and the dinner is going south, whoops! Guess it’s bedtime 😉 A Child Called It will make any family look normal.

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      Ha ha, using your kid as the excuse – Smart move, mom!

      Reply
    • Gayathri

      Thanks Kitty

      Reply
  6. theabominablebookgirl

    I read this book called “Perfect Peace” omg! Talk about dysfunction! If you have never read it, please do! it will most definitely be at the top of this list.

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      If you haven’t guessed it already, I love dysfunctional families. So I will definitely check that book out.

      Reply
  7. Ash Williams

    Nice post, I’ve not heard of any of these before.

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      Thanks Ash, glad you like it.

      Reply
  8. The Book Recluse Review

    What a great disturbing list. Now I have more TBR added to my pile.

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      Do not blame if you have nightmares 🙂

      Reply
  9. empressdj

    Love your posts – they always make me think and smile

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      Thanks DJ. Your comment made my day!

      Reply
  10. Alexandria D.

    Yikes, these families are jacked up! Great book post btw. 😉

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      Yes they are and makes us feel so much better that they are just fictional.

      Reply
  11. Megan @ Ginger Mom

    I never could bring myself to read A Child Called It. Great list!

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      And it is a memoir, just to think that happened to someone in real life breaks my heart.

      Reply
  12. lindaslittlelibrary

    This is a great post! I haven’t read any of these books, but I’m interested in some of them now

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      They are all as amazing as they are messed are too.

      Reply
  13. cgwinter1981

    Yep, I agree the family in “The Virgin Suicides” was the height of dysfunction! Though I probably would have placed “A Child Called It” higher on the list simply because unlike others on the list, it isn’t a work of fiction.

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      As a book I liked ‘A child called IT’, but somehow the family didn’t leave me broken as much as others. I have no clue why.

      Reply
  14. bostonbookreader

    I’ve read a lot of these and enjoyed them all. I want to read we need to talk about kevin soon!! Great post!

    Reply
    • Gayathri

      I loved most of these books, even if they are too disturbing.

      Reply

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Gayathri

Gayathri

Gayathri has been reviewing books since 2010. When she is not reading books or creating online content, she works as a writer and a digital marketer. Head over to meet me!