Main Characters
- The Father (Tom)
- The Mother (Ulrika)
- The Daughter (Stella)
- Amina
- The lawyer
Publisher’s Summary
New York Times Book Review recommends M.T. Edvardsson’s A Nearly Normal Family and lauds it as a “page-turner” that forces the reader to confront “the compromises we make with ourselves to be the people we believe our beloveds expect”. (NYTimes Book Review Summer Reading Issue)
M.T. Edvardsson’s A Nearly Normal Family is a gripping legal thriller that forces the listener to consider: How far would you go to protect the ones you love? In this twisted narrative of love and murder, a horrific crime makes a seemingly normal family question everything they thought they knew about their life – and one another.
Eighteen-year-old Stella Sandell stands accused of the brutal murder of a man almost 15 years her senior. She is an ordinary teenager from an upstanding local family. What reason could she have to know a shady businessman, let alone to kill him?
Stella’s father, a pastor, and mother, a criminal defense attorney, find their moral compasses tested as they defend their daughter, while struggling to understand why she is a suspect. Told in an unusual three-part structure, A Nearly Normal Family asks the questions: How well do you know your own children? How far would you go to protect them?
Recent Reviews
My Review
4/5 Stars
If you know me and know how i rate books you will probably know that multiple POV (point of view) are my favorites. Not just because you see a different story with each POV but at the end, you can put it all together, a completely different story takes place. PS. books like this help you with “there’s always multiple truths to a story.”
Father’s POV: The father’s pov is long, he seems to be the main character of this book. In this part of the book, the scene is set. A priest, father, husband of a lawyer and a daughter that seems like a sociopath. Trying to fit into the “priest” idea and what’s right and wrong we get to meet a troubled character and his before life can not be concealed by the priest status.
Daughter’s POV: In this part of the book, you’ll be surprised because you will think that the daughter’s story should be the last one to read, but it’s the second one. In Stella’s pov you meet a fragile and conflicting character. The father makes his own daughter seem like a sociopath but we get to meet a hurt character. This makes you doubt is she really did commit the murder.
Mother’s POV: The last pov makes the whole story come together. The mother, Ulrika is cold, calculated I mean how a lawyer should be but she’s the same way with her daughter but more loving with Amina (her daughter’s friend) In the mother’s part is where you read the real story.
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Quotes
“Being a control freak,or using coercive control, can be a compulsion, but it doesn’t have to be. Many people associate the need of control with a pedantic control of order, but I’d say it often has to do with the need to be able to predict the future.”
M.T. Edvardsson, A Nearly Normal Family
“Many people are frightened of the fact that the reality us changeable. People seek security in their lives. So, a person might feel that they’re in control when they have the chance to predict what will happen, when they can make a good decision based on solid knowledge.”
M.T. Edvardsson, A Nearly Normal Family
“I consider myself to be a good person. That sounds arrogant, of course, if not self-important or superior. But I don’t mean it like that. I’m a person with an abundance of failings, a person who has made innumerable mistakes and errors. I am acutely aware of this, and the first to admit it. What I mean is that I always act with good intentions, out of love and care. I have always wanted to do the right thing.”
M.T. Edvardsson, A Nearly Normal Family
ROMINA'S LIFE 