Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur is about two siblings who come together to celebrate their dad’s seventieth birthday. Ken and Abby Gardner lost their mother when she was giving birth to Abby. While their mother is gone, her presence still haunts the Gardner family. Their father, Adam, is a renowned oceanographer/whale expert who is bipolar. Since the death of his wife, he has raised both of them mostly on his own.
Ken and Abby were raised in a remote location in Cape Cod. They spend most of their time together until their relationship develops into something more complicated. As adults their relationship has become strained with neither of them not knowing exactly what went wrong and how to move forward.
Even though years later the siblings still spend a lot of time together, they still end up resenting or arguing with each other. Ken is a successful real estate developer who plans to run for political office. By all accounts, he has a successful life and a perfect family. He is married to Abby’s best friend, Jenny. Abby is a talented visual artist and works as a teacher to supplement her income. She depends on her brother’s goodwill for her survival because he owns the studio that she lives and works in.
In 2016, Adam is approaching his milestone birthday, and is faced with his fading relevance at work and his mortality. He has always managed his bipolar disorder with medication but he wants to leave a mark and make one last scientific breakthrough. He decides to stop taking his medication even though his kids would be upset by his decision in hopes to make one last discovery.
Adam isn’t the only one who is keeping secrets from his loved ones. Abby and Ken are keeping their own secrets from everyone and there is a mysterious person connected to the family, Steph, who keeps her presence a secret. She tries to get to know the family without telling them her true motives. As Adam's birthday approaches, each of his children plan on personal and elaborate gifts for their father in hopes that Adam knows how much he is loved, while Adam is more focused on the whales in the deep sea than his family.
The book is told from alternating viewpoints of each of the characters. Each of the characters is multi-faceted and flawed. The story takes time to develop as it goes into each character’s backstory and motivations along with how their daily life progresses. At times, I felt like the story developed too slowly for my liking.
The story doesn’t have any surprise twists that weren't easy to guess. It took a bit for me to get into the plot, especially Adam’s story, but once I read more, I was invested in each character’s journey. I was hoping that there would be a big reveal but the ending was predictable with a few things that weren't resolved in the end. I felt that there was a lot going on in the book and it could be narrowed down to give more closure at the end. If you like cozy beach reads about family drama, then you will enjoy this book.
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