I Don't Believe I Do

I was very excited to read this book. I loved her Notes From a Scandal and this got great reviews. But I didn't like it. It was not unreadable even though the characters were all insanely unlikable. I actually thought the characters were well drawn but the plot was awkward. It's the story of a family of radicals, the father is in a coma with a stroke and his family of a British wife and two daughters plus an adopted son come together around him. The mother Audrey is so supremely unlikable that any sort of friends Heller gave her or any familial relationship would be impossible, this is the type of woman who says to a British 'friend' she runs into on the street going to the British market "I've never understood why people go to shops like that. If you all miss your crappy English food so much, why don't you go back home?" This woman later takes in her son, sticking around for more abuse. Very improbable. I don't need to like the characters, in Notes From a Scandal the narrator was terrible, vain and selfish...but in a delicious sort of way. I guess I like a little charm in the badness, like Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost for example, this badness though was just....bad. The daughters are alright. One is supposed to be 'good' though Zoe makes her fat to punish her for that and the other one is bent on becoming an orthodox Jew for no discernible reason other than to be difficult. All in all a disappointment of a book.