Mini Review: Go Ask Fannie by Elisabeth Hyde

Go Ask Fannie by Elisabeth Hyde

Published: April 10, 2018

Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Format: via audiobook

Rating: 3/5

Synopsis

Everyone has baggage. The Blaire siblings are just taking theirs home for the long weekend.

When Murray Blaire invites his three grown children to his New Hampshire farm for a few days, he makes it clear he expects them to keep things pleasant. The rest of his agenda–using Ruth and George to convince their younger sister, Lizzie, to break up with her much older boyfriend–that he chooses to keep private. But Ruth and George arrive bickering, with old scores to settle. And, in a classic Blaire move, Lizzie derails everything when she turns up late, cradling a damaged family cookbook, and talking about possible criminal charges against her.

This is not the first time the Blaire family has been thrown into chaos. In fact, that cookbook, an old edition of Fannie Farmer, is the last remaining artifact from a time when they were a family of six, not four, with a father running for Congress and a mother building a private life of her own. The now-obscured notes written in its pages provide tantalizing clues to their mother’s ambitions and the mysterious choices she once made, choices her children have always sought without success to understand. Until this weekend.

As the Blaire siblings piece together their mother’s story, they come to realize not just what they’ve lost, but how they can find their way back to each other. In this way, celebrated author Elisabeth Hyde reminds readers that family survival isn’t about simply setting aside old rivalries, but preserving the love that’s written between the lines. 

My Thoughts

In Go Ask Fannie we have the Blaire siblings who all come home to help deal with their father. This is well written family drama that showcases the dynamics between each sibling and how no matter how long you can be apart when family comes together it can be a beautiful but also hectic thing. I enjoyed the family dynamics between the characters and how each while flawed in the end do love and care for one another. There is nothing I love more than a good family novel and this one was pretty good.