If fractious family-drama tales make you cringe, then Life in Seven Mistakes is not the book for you. However, if you revel in the minutiae of dialogue and relationships, read on. Susan Johnson (not the US erotic literature author!) introduces us to the Barton family. Elizabeth Barton, elder daughter of Bob and Nancy, is our narrator and mother of three children by different fathers. It becomes evident very quickly that she has a difficult and strained relationship with her family. Her father is an overbearing, opinionated man and her mother, too submissive. Her brothers are equally testing and the bond with her third husband, Neil, is tenuous. The story switches from the past-Bob and Nancy’s meeting and courtship-to the present, the family gathered in the Barton’s Gold Coast apartment for Christmas and Bob and Nancy’s wedding anniversary. Johnson has captured the ‘still feeling like a child’ situation around parents very well and the conversations between family members are excruciatingly well executed. As the title suggests, Life in Seven Mistakes does not set out to be a feelgood novel, nonetheless, it is thought-provoking and leaves you feeling like you should probably call your parents, just to say hello.

Katie Horner is assistant editor of Bookseller+Publisher

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

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