you can read the premise of the book in other reviews so i won't reiterate here. It is not the best book I've ever read but definitely entertaining. I agree with most of the positive AND constructive comments. I do think the family dynamics are interesting and like the fact that the dynamics change from beginning to end, Having said that, the characters mostly drove me crazy and I wanted to slap all of them at some point throughout the story. But feeling so strongly about characters in a story must be a sign of a good read I think. Yes they are shallow and yes they are insufferable - as are many people in real life. Worth the read

An engaging and fun "beach read". Familiar characters and issues from substance abuse to family inheritances to birth order impact; lots to discuss!

The Nest was interesting but parts of the book seem contrived. I am glad I read it.

I enjoyed reading this book. The characters were interesting.

Though off to a somewhat slow start to introduce the characters,the author weaves interesting story of family relationships, expectations, friendships, and ties with one another. A bit of history, and settings in New York add to the story interest.

The Nest, Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, author; Mia Barrow, narrator?
Each member of the Plumb family is preoccupied with their own greed, secrets, lies and devious behavior. Their interactions with each other are on the surface as they are all fairly egocentric. As relationships are broken and their lives are turned upside down because of highly dysfunctional Leo Plumb, one has to wonder whether or not his siblings and parents have actually created the monster by enabling him to become the villain. His irresponsible behavior and his car accident that caused grievous injuries to his passenger and could have caused a major scandal, has placed his brothers and sisters in various chaotic situations. Francie Plumb, the rather self-centered mother of all the Plumb children, and her current husband, want to contain the story at all costs. Therefore, since she is in charge of the small bit of money that her first husband had put aside for their four children in order to afford them a safety net when they were older, and it had grown considerably, she unilaterally, without consulting any of them, decided to disperse an exorbitant amount of their “Nest” to place Leo, the bad seed, in a fancy rehab and to pay off the victim in his car. She did not use any of her own vast fortune, and instead claimed she needed to protect herself since the downturn in the economy had taken a toll on her. The children had been eagerly awaiting their payout which was fast approaching with the youngest daughter’s 40th birthday, at which time it could be doled out. Now, only 10% of their expected fortunes awaited them.
Because each of the siblings had been expecting a large sum of money, they had overextended themselves in one way or another and were deep in debt. Leo’s accident and their mother’s need to keep it quiet turned their lives upside down. They were all, with the exception of daughter Bea, deep in arrears with bills they could now, not pay. Without the windfall, many of the families were suddenly in desperate need of cash, and their reactions varied from sympathy toward their brother to anger at him and their mother. When a contrite Leo asked for their trust and promised that he would try and repay them in 90 days, what could they do? Could he be trusted or would he revert to his former reckless life and behavior? Would he burn all his bridges? What choices would he make? Would he be responsible or revert to his past behavior, drinking, doing drugs, womanizing and lying? They were between a rock and a hard place.
Will the family be able to put themselves back together again? Will adversity destroy them or bring them closer? From my own personal experience, I know that it is difficult to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. What would have probably been a perfect analysis of the Plumb family, in crisis, seemed to turn into a book that had a PC agenda demanding that every controversial issue on G-d’s earth have an audience. There is Stephanie, the pregnant former girlfriend of Leo Plumb who becomes a single mother. There is an illegal, under aged immigrant, in the person of a promiscuous girl who was performing a sex act when the car accident, the catalyst causing the ultimate family crisis, actually occurred. Leo is a sociopath in his early 40’s. He is married, but childless, addicted to drugs and his own pleasure, and is in the throes of a disastrous divorce from his spendthrift, money hungry, high-flying and very angry, vindictive wife, Victoria. He thinks nothing of lying and serving his own needs first, without considering anyone else. There is Vinnie who lost his arm in an IED explosion and is an angry young man. He loves Matilda and believes that she has been taken advantage of by the wealthy Plumb family and their high end attorney. They make an odd couple, one footless and one armless, like the Rodin sculpture of The Kiss that was damaged in the terrorist attack that took down the Towers. We have a retired security guard, Tommy, who finds what he thought was a message from his wife, in the wreckage of the Twin Towers after 9/11, and in a moment of indiscretion, he steals it. This damaged relic, “The Kiss”, remains hidden in his house, as he mourns his loss, and he has been tortured by its theft ever since. We have a homosexual brother, Jack, who is childless, in a relationship with Walker that is coming apart at the seams because of Jack’s questionable ethics, secrets, and lies. We have a sister, Bea, who is unmarried and childless, an author who used her brother as a character in a series of successful novels, but has had no recently published successful books. She is still mourning the loss of her married lover, Tucker, whom she nursed after his stroke until his death. She works for Paul who is a shy man who observes, supports and loves her in silence. The final sibling is sister Melody, who feels neglected and unloved by her mother. She believes she is kind of the outsider in the family. She over compensates for her mother’s neglect, now that she is the mother of twins, by being a somewhat overzealous parent. She spends far more than her pocket can afford as do most of the siblings. Her twins, who are high school students, are struggling with their own sexuality. One, Louisa, believes she is a lesbian and the other, Nora, wonders if she, therefore, is also gay, since they are twins. There is also Simone, Walter, Nathan and more. Graphic sex, too, seems to unnecessarily often pop its head on the pages of this book.

The narrator did a good job of capturing the attitudes and personalities of the characters, portraying them fairly authentically so that the listener can actually see a picture of the character in their mind’s eye. However, there were so many issues and so many characters that it is sometimes difficult to keep everything straight. For that reason, it is better to select the print version. The book is written with levity, although it is not the laugh out loud kind, and much of the subject matter made the funny lines fall flat for me.

The book was interesting but the characters were hard to like. However, the book made a for a great disscussion.

I found myself relating to each of the four siblings during different parts of the story. You grow to love and hate all of them at the same time. Fun book to discuss with your group- especially over wine!

Enjoyed reading. Very interesting the way the various family members interacted and reacted to the disbursement of "the nest".

What a DELICIOUS read!! From the car crash at the beginning of the book to the family meeting where all the siblings are sitting in neighboring bars having a fortifying drink, this book is delightful. (They can't have those drinks at their family meeting because the sibling who is the object of the meeting is just out of rehab.)

It's been a long time since I've read a book about a dysfunctional family that is hilarious and very deep at the same time. I read this book several months ago, and I still smile when I think of several of the scenes painted in this glorious book.

This is a family you could easily know. Try it. You'll like it.

This story demonstrates how money can ruin lives. Four siblings live their lives based on the assumption that a great deal of money would be coming their way. When things don't happen as planned, each person has to figure out what is really important to them.
Great read with great message.

This book offered a lot to talk about--from characters to motives, to family dynamics.

Several of us found this book a bit hard to get in to in the beginning. The premise was a bit unsettling and the rawness of the character disturbing. Nonetheless, as the story unfolds and you learn about each member of the family and how "the nest" plays into their lives,you quickly become trapped. Our club had a lively discussion on what the role of inheritance is, what we feel it should be ( in fact, should there be?), which character we most related to and which we found completely disturbing. All in all, a fund read and worthy of a good discussion.

Great story! But beware, not only is this family tightly woven, but so is the way it is written. The chapters so not follow sequentially, but rather winder the reader in and out of the lives of its characters. Some sentences were so long, you have to search for the period on the page.

This book was frustrating but addictive.

This was a great read about a dysfunctional family. Sadly too many of us could probably relate to many of the characters. Each character had their own backstory, which created many layers and facets to the story.

The characters are completely unlikable. I don't regret reading the book, but I would recommend it carefully to my friends. We did not read it in our book club. I like to recommend books to friends, but I am selective and know my audience.

We had a difference of opinion on this one. Several members felt the characters too awful and irredeemable to read about and the sheer number of characters hard to sort out. Others felt the ending was uplifting enough and hopeful enough to make this a meaningful read.

Good character development
Interesting family plot
Well written

I really enjoyed this book. The family dynamics were interesting to me. More than half of our club did not like the book at all though - they found it shallow with too many characters, not enough development, and all agreed that is was a poor ending.

A lot of people who I simply did not care about. Each sibling seems simply greedy.

This is a page turner. It was believable. Great story.

What happens to a Family when all the siblings are to received a mid-life trust fund? Seems that is the premise for the adult Plumb Family siblings who are counting on it. Ms. Sweeney certainly does paint a vivid picture of 4 siblings who never quite started "adulting." However, after our lively book club discussion, a few thought the book was well worth their time.

The format used by the author resulted in the difficulty of following the storyline...the jumping from one character to anther in each chapter. The Last three or four chapters finally brought the story together.

Interesting characters, siblings all different from one another & how they face challenges. Explores how money may be root of all evil & anticipating it will solve all problems just isn't true. Each must deal with own life & not depend on money to fix it.

Follows a dysfunctional family that includes siblings and a parent that have very little depth or interesting qualities fighting over money.

Four siblings, four life paths all looking for their anticipated inheritance. The oldest and most irresponsible makes an ill conceived decision that leads to tragic consequences draining the inheritance. What ensues is the unraveling of lives and lies. Lies people tell to themselves, their spouses, their siblings. A well written flowing read. One step above a beach read.

Great book to read and happy to review it

A cast of immature, self-involved siblings interacting might have been interesting however this meandering story was not.

Pretty great

I found this book maddening to read, but I did enjoy some of the humor it presented. The characters were so shallow and the entire family was truly dysfunctional. I wanted to just shake every one of them. It made me so thankful to have the stable family that I do.

Great book to read and happy to review it

It read like a soap opera. I even had my characters in place.

I'm sure there are families as dysfunctional as the one in this story, but I don't enjoy reading about them.

Our discussion didn't last long

It's an easy read, but I really don't want to read about a bunch of spoiled rich kids fighting over their inheritance.

Well written. I enjoyed the characters and the distinction in the family. Everyone has a family with issues and regrets.

Have you ever noticed how many quotable sayings refer to a nest or some type of bird? Don't count your chickens until they've hatched. Keep all your ducks in a row. Leaving the nest. Building a nest egg. Suffering from an empty nest.

This story by Author Sweeney, gives great insight into a family wherein the children spent much of their adult lives anticipating their share of the nest egg set aside by their father for each of them as soon as the youngest sibling turns 40. The problem was that in setting such high hopes on what would be "given" to them, they seemed to have forgotten how to "make" anything for and of themselves. It is the age old story of greed and entitlement that often breeds laziness and little productivity.

The story unfolds with four siblings, three deeply in debt, and mere weeks before their big pay day. The anticipation of being able to pay off debts, pay for children's college or pay off loans for which your spouse is unaware even exist, has been weighing down the very air they all breathe. But with only a few days to the finish line, the unthinkable happens -- the dam breaks and so does the egg.

The cold hard truth is this -- once you have flown the nest, the nest egg is really no longer yours -- it now belongs to those who sat it aside in the first place. You can't cut the apron strings and lead a productive and fruitful life with one toe still in the nest. Everyone is capable of building a nest and they can pop up in the most unlikely places. Some are elaborate, some are pretty flimsy but still get the job done and some just use a nest created by others who have moved on -- but the principle theme in life is to build something -- don't set around waiting for someone to build it for you.

This book didn't have an "aha" moment, no earth-shattering surprises, but it did give hope to a narcissistic society that when we act like compassionate, caring and hard-working people, we can not only find a host of interesting people but self-worth and self-fulfillment.

It can be a scary thing leaving the nest - leaving the "nest egg" behind, but I'm reminded of the story of the young bird, unsure of himself sitting on the rim of the home nest as he says, "What if I fall?" And the mother bird replies, "But, oh darling, what if you fly?"

No one in our group particularly enjoyed this book. We chose it as an easy, light December read.