I just finished reading A Song for Issy Bradley and am absolutely awed by it. The author, Carys Bray, is British, and there is a great deal of modern-day British slang in it, At first, that was rather off-putting to me as I had no familiarity with the words and had no idea what they meant, but I quickly got beyond that and realized that an excellent story was unfolding.
This is not a happy book but it seems very true to life. The father in the family is a Mormon Bishop and tries to hold his wife and children to impossible standards of behavior. The author was born into a Mormon family, so she knows whereof she speaks.
The Mormon faith has so many strange attitudes and practices that it would be easy to hold up to ridicule. This book doesn't do that, but it makes one realize that extremism in any faith moves the practitioner away from the love and compassion that all faiths emphasize.
It is a mark of the author's talent that she made all the characters come alive and become ones we care about.
If you're looking for a good book to read, look no further.