The Trouble with Family

by Heather Hobbs

Molly Anderson just found out her dad is getting married to a woman she’s only met once.

Fourteen-year-old Molly had planned to spend the summer before high school reading books, eating junk food, and napping. Instead, she’s forced to spend her days juggling four new family members, a grumpy older brother, a crazy grandmother, and Max, the new boy next door. Having lost her mother in a car accident a year before, she’s not sure how many more changes she can take before she hits her breaking point.

The Trouble with Family tells the tale of a girl trying to make the most of her summer, not just survive it.

163 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 3, 2016

About the author

Heather was born and raised in Michigan and currently lives in Colorado with her husband and two sweet but poorly-trained dogs. She has a BA in English Literature and a MA in Library Science.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Trouble With Family

Heather Hobbs



ARC received from the author and For Love of a Book for an honest review.


Molly Anderson can not believe it! Her mom just died in a car accident a year ago and her dad is getting remarried. She has only met Susan once and isn't thrilled with getting three step siblings as well. Can her life get any more messed up? THE TROUBLE WITH FAMILY is written by a 14 year olds point of view. Molly tries to make the best of her situation and as you will learn, that isn't always easy to do.


Molly is now forced to share her room with Clara, who steels her debit card and wipes out her account. Her excuse is "well it's not like you had a lot of money in there anyway!" What? I would have knocked her into the wall if that was me, but Molly tries to handle it on her own and not tell on Clara. THE TROUBLE WITH FAMILY is all about making the best of the hand you are dealt and Molly really does try. Even though I am not a child of a divorced family I could totally believe the situations this family found themselves in.


THE TROUBLE WITH FAMILY has some laugh out loud moments and my heart really went out to Molly. She is only fourteen years old and shouldn't have to deal with some of the situations she was in. I just wanted her to be a normal teenager and enjoy life and have fun but that didn't seem to happen. She misses her mom so much and Heather Hobbs really shows that throughout the story. I'm hoping and praying this will be the beginning of a new series because I just wasn't ready to let go of this family.

[Brittany McCann · Rating 4 out of 5]

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Heather brilliantly choose her narrator to tell this story. Without the eyes and mind of a teenager, this difficult experience would never have come across in the same way.

Molly exemplified the strength and intelligence that can only show through the pure heart of a teenager. *Secretly loved that she's a bookie like me :) I can't imagine losing my mother now at 32, let alone in the delicate stages of adolescent years....

Definitely wanted to punch Clara in the face... and also sometimes Molly's dad for dealing so horribly with the situation

** I received a copy of this book for free with For Love of a Book's Read & Review Program

[Carole P. Roman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written from a young teen's point of view, The Trouble with Family is the start of a series about Molly and her determination to make lemonade from the sour situation in her life. Upbeat and sunny, both she and her brother appear like a couple of misfits when compared to their shallow and insensitive father. Their mother dead from a car accident barely a year before, he marries the receptionist where he works, bringing home the added bargain of three angry step-children who wreak havoc in their home.
The book reads more like a movie of the week than a real drama. Heather Hobbs seesaws from drawing a picture of neglect (no food in the filthy house, knife-fights, and Molly's debit card being hijacked by her step-sister) to warm and fuzzy moments where they are expected to bond over games designed by someone like Dr. Phil. This made no sense to me. The dynamics did not seem real. Molly's acceptance of her new family felt forced. That being said, it was well-written and if the goal was to teach that despite vast differences, people can come together with understanding to appreciate that everyone is struggling with something, the book was successful in a Lifetime Movie kind of way.

I was given a copy of this book for an honest review.

[Melody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even with this book being written for young teens, I have to say I really enjoyed Molly's story. It was perfectly told, and I loved the characters. Well, I really didn't like some of the characters, but enjoyed that they were so unlikable, if that makes any sense. ;)

Molly's family is going through some big changes, and each member handles it their own way, not always making the best choices... Both the story and characters are very realistic and believable and I love that in a book.
I think teenagers could easily relate to Molly or at least one of her siblings, as even I could identify to Molly, although she was much more patient with Clara than I would have been...

I also loved the ending, and the good moral was the icing on the cake. I highly recommend this summer read.

I have received a free electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Maureen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In reading this book it showed that Molly had a hard time believing that her mother has died and then a year later her father decided to marry another women in the process. Plus there is also an extend family there also.

Molly tries hard to get along with her step brother and sister and it does not help. When Molly has to share her room with her step sister and she finds out that her step sister stole her bank card and took her money out of her bank account and that is not right at all. Molly tries to handle everything on her own and explains to her that it was wrong to steal and that she would like the money back.

Molly tries hard to deal with the different situations that have risen through the year that her mother has pass away. All she wished for was to have her mother through her teen years but that was not going to happened at all. Molly just wanted a normal life in the end. In which Molly had plans for the summer to just take it easy and read and eat junk food and prepare to get ready for her freshman year at high school.
Over all great book to read and will be waiting for the next book to read in the series.

[Fajriy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book from the author through For Love of a Book's Advance Reader Opportunity program.
After about one year of her mother's death, Molly's father marries to someone she barely knows. Spending the first summer with her stepmother, stepbrothers, and stepsister is not easy.
Written from a fourteen-year-old girl's point of view makes this story sounds interesting. What happens to Molly is something the readers can relate to. Her struggle to fit in her new family is written in a way a teenage girl feels. The world building is great with sufficient description of people's behaviours that makes the story's atmosphere livelier. Also, the readers will find it difficult not to care for Molly, love to hate her stepsister, laugh at the her stepmother's ridiculousness, the crazy things the siblings do, and Molly's grandmother's gangs ideas. In the end, the family learns an important lesson that most families often forget.
I recommend this highly enjoyable book to everyone.

[Georgina Warren · Rating 3 out of 5]

adjusting to a new blended family

This is a standard teen story of a girl adjusting to her newly blended family after her father remarried to a woman with three children. She is still mourning the loss of her mother and experiencing growing pains with her step siblings. The conclusion implies that the family will continue to grow up together but nothing will happen as anybody expects.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
I enjoyed this book though it was written for a much younger audience. A sweet book about family and friendship.

[Olga · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received the ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I read this book in a day, but simply because it was short. This book is really boring. Short summary: Molly's - she is a main character and a narrator - father re-marries a year after her mother dies, and new weird stepmother brings her three comparably weird children to live with them.

The idea behind the book is that Molly spends summer trying to solve problems caused by her new stepsister and stepbrothers, instead of reading books and napping outside. The book consists of four main parts (June, July, August and September) and of thirty-three chapters. In my opinion, it would be more logical if it was written in a form of a diary, not in chapters. I was sometimes confused when the narrator jumped from the present to past tense, all within just one paragraph. The writing could also benefit from some editing: the author uses the the word "un/enthusiastically" just a bit too... enthusiastically. In one particular case, the character says/nods unenthusiastically/enthusiastically within one single page.

But the main reason I didn't like this book is not, of course, its stylistic devices. The author appears not able to choose one main topic and stick to it. There simply is too much:
- mother dies and Molly struggles to accept what happened;
- her distant father chooses to marry some flashy woman just one year after the mother's death;
- crazy stepbrothers/sisters make Molly's life miserable;
- new family with cute boy moves just across the street;
- new stepsister Clara is pure evil, but stepmother always takes her side.
But with all this mashed up together, there is not a single conflict, that could arouse a reader's interest. Simply saying, the plot lacks structure. Tedious descriptions were unnecessary and mostly didn't add anything to the text.

The book description says it was based on a short story, and that makes sense. I guess as a short story it would be much more enjoyable, whereas as a book it simply made me yawn.

[Rachelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Trouble with Family allows readers the glimpse of a blended family’s first summer together, told in first-person POV by 14-year-old Molly.
Molly and Ben, her brother, father marries Susan, a divorced mother of three, less than a year after his wife/Molly’s mother died. Not only that, Molly had only met Susan once or twice before the wedding, and her step-siblings are equally unhappy about the arrangement. Molly is forced to share a room with her kleptomaniac stepsister Clara. Susan’s character outraged me at times, especially when she insisted on Molly and Ben calling her “Mom” only a few weeks after the wedding, and when she confiscated Molly’s pen pal letters, insisting that Molly was unknowingly writing to sociopaths. Molly’s father basically sits back and does nothing to intervene, most likely because Susan is prone to tantrums.
As a teen, I might have enjoyed this book more. Had I been a child of a divorced family, I may have found this book more relatable. Overall, it was a good book, but the epilogue was a bit of a let-down. After the climatic last chapter, I had hoped for more of a follow up in the epilogue; however, it was just a few paragraphs about what happened immediately following the climactic scene.
There was some laugh-out-loud dialogue in this book, my favorite being: “I’ve never driven a car and Ben insists it’s harder than it looks. But if you almost run over an old man, you probably should call it a day.”

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was asked to review this book by Librarything.com.

I read this in one sitting and really enjoyed this book which is the first in the series. The author has written this young fiction book based on a real life story and concerns a fourteen year old girl trying to survive the long summer holidays. Molly is the main character and narrator at the same time.

Molly instead of doing the usual things a teenager would do on that endless period of time is to try to help solve the problems of her new step siblings since her mother had died in a road accident a year ago. Just how much more can Molly take?

The story is kind of mad with these strange step kids, a horrid step mother and a father who takes up with this woman so soon after the mother’s death.

All this madness is told in the eyes of a fourteen year old and this is her story. Change as we all know can be really traumatic and Molly appears to be dealing with one thing after another and the message is you can move forward and gain from change.

Well written and I will be looking out for the second book by this new author.

http://browniebookworld.blogspot.co.uk/

[Kit Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is targeted for teenagers ( Definitely not me). I received this book from library thing.com. The main character is Molly and the book describes the trials and tribulations of Molly after the death of her mother and the remarriage of her father bringing to the home three step siblings. The book does not have a lot of depth to the characters but ultimately explores the feelings of others and the acceptance of differences within families/friendships.

[Tracy Herman · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look into how a teen's world can be turned upside down by a sudden new step-mother and step-siblings. Humorous and insightful. It definitely could be cathartic for teens who have experienced something similar. Recommended for those teen readers.
Some obvious typographical errors.