Book Review: Family Ties (Corporeal Daughters)

The problem is that the book never establishes an identity.  One moment the flow of the narrative reads like a paranormal romance.  The next it takes an abrupt turn into the realm of horror, only to shift just as abruptly into light urban fantasy.  The problem is compounded by Kat’s first person narrative, which far too often comes across as a high strung teenager texting her girlfriends.  She is not a good narrator.  She tends to wander along when telling the story, arbitrarily stopping a description to share some inconsequential personal observation or random fact that adds nothing to what is actually going on.  Her tone is casual and free-spirited, which seems completely out of place with the plotline.  Scenes that should possess a dramatic sense of urgency feel unimportant because Kat just doesn’t convey desperation well.  Her response to her laptop dying is almost identical to how she responds to an actual physical attack on her life.

 Family Ties is a book I wanted to like, and in truth with a stronger focus on the narrator’s voice would be an amazing story.  Douillard does a fine job of pacing the narrative and rolling out the plot in a way that is engaging and believable.  But all that effort at plot, pacing, and world-building is lost because Kat is not the storyteller she needs to be in order to carry the book.