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We Are the Brennans

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We Are the Brennans

By: Tracey Lange
Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
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About this listen

Some secrets you keep from your family. Some secrets you keep for your family.

When 29-year-old Sunday Brennan wakes up in a Los Angeles hospital, bruised and battered after a drunk driving When twenty-nine-year-old Sunday Brennan wakes up in a Los Angeles hospital, bruised and battered after a drunk-driving accident she caused, she swallows her pride and goes home to her family in New York. But it’s not easy. She deserted them all – and her high school sweetheart – five years before, with little explanation, and they’ve got questions.

Sunday is determined to rebuild her life back on the East Coast, even if it does mean tiptoeing around resentful brothers and an ex-fiancé. The longer she stays, however, the more she realizes they need her just as much as she needs them. When a dangerous man from her past brings her family’s pub business to the brink of financial ruin, Sunday realizes that the only way to protect her family is to reveal deeply buried secrets that will threaten everything they know about their lives. In the aftermath, the Brennan family is forced to confront painful mistakes - and find a way forward, together.

In the vein of Maggie O'Farrell and John Boyne, Tracey Lange’s critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller, We Are the Brennans, explores the staying power of shame - and the redemptive power of love - in an Irish Catholic family torn apart by secrets.

Family Life Genre Fiction

Critic Reviews

Beautifully observed portrait of dysfunctional family life. (Hannah Beckerman)
confident, polished debut novel…a book about secrets
The Brennans are a great complex fictional family…
Lange's engaging family drama is fuelled by secrets and full of heart.
Lange's sizzling debut novel, which is an instant New York Times Bestseller, explores the staying power of shame - and the redemptive power of love - in an Irish Catholic family torn apart by secrets.
Tracey Lange expertly captures the way one harrowing night can forever change a family. I devoured every page of this confident, accomplished debut. (Amy Meyerson, internationally bestselling author of The Bookshop of Yesterdays and The Imperfects )
Reading this novel is like getting a view through a lighted window on a family sitting around a table after dark. All families have their own story and the ways they tell it to themselves, and untangling the many strands of this one was deep and richly satisfying. Once I started, I couldn't stop. I read it in one long delicious slide. (Sarah Blake, New York Times bestselling author of The Guest Book)
Lange skilfully contrasts the solace of family ties with the paralyzing burden of carrying secrets for too long. Her flawed but big-hearted Brennans will sneak under your skin.
In the vein of Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's The Nest, We Are the Brennans explores the redemptive power of love in an Irish Catholic family torn apart by secrets.
Lange's richly layered debut...deftly examines the long shadow of family history and the bonds that cannot be broken
In Lange's accomplished debut... she keeps all of the Brennans sizzling with humanity while they grapple with familial loyalty. Fans of intense family dramas are in for a treat
All stars
Most relevant
This book kept my interest from start to finish. It wasn’t too dramatic but held back pieces of the story to good affect. Generally I’m not keen on stories where the narrator jumps from person to person but it was done well, and once I got all the Brennan’s straight in my head I followed it easily.
I recommend this book and I’m about to look up what else the author has written.

Easy read family drama

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Obviously not a book for me. I just couldn’t get past the stereotypes. Narrator was very good.

Disappointing

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