The Family Upstairs

by Lisa Jewell

First published in 2019

Date read: 28 Jan 2024

Disclaimer: These are notes on books. None of the notes on this website contain spoilers. I repeat, no spoilers. All the posts are safe for consumption. The idea of all these notes is to get you excited enough to read.

Disclaimer 2: What follows is not a very flattering post. Which is au contraire to the amount of flattery cramped into the book. Jump to the other sections in this post for some value add.

Some thoughts

This book is a classic example of don't judge a book by it's cover.

The synopsis aka the blurb made me expect a wonderful murder mystery.

[Did you sense a 'but' here? Well, there is. I am (re)writing my true thoughts in the last section of this post, much like this book.]

Parallel timelines, multiple narratives.

A few things that that were on my mind as I read the book:

• brownstone houses in New York, specifically like the house Sherlock stays in in the show Elementary.

• how awesome Agatha Christie is and how it's been a long time since I read her books.

• everything other than what I was reading.

• they have Chupa Chups in Europe?! [I feel dumb for thinking this, a quick Google search shows me that it's a Spanish brand].

• people valuing superficiality, material things, and beauty over substance [this was reinforced in each page of the book; each page].

• how does homeschooling work exactly?

• what's with all the fancy names?

• everything seems "shocking".

• not enough bathrooms in their house.

• how long can plants be dead for?

• how to not get distracted?

• when is this book going to end?

• this book has a sequel.

You'll like this book if

• you like large, decrepit, decaying houses

• you like fancy, celebrity names and are fascinated by the celebrity lifestyle

• you are a fan of Dora the Explorer

• you like fantasizing about houses and cars and a materialistic life, superficial things; you take joy wallowing in wishful thinking

• you thrive in the feeling of eternal doomsday overhanging in the horizon but nothing actually ever happening

• you like fat wads of cash

• you like cheap horror

• you play the violin (a very small fraction of the book)

• you enjoy jumping between timelines

• you have unhealthy spending habits and need a reality check

• you are a magnet for toxic relationships in the worst possible way

Time investment & optics (for whomsoever it may concern)

446 pages, paperback, 2022 edition. Generous font size, margins and line spacing. I liked the paper used for printing.

Quick vocab booster (by no means comprehensive or exhaustive, simply adjusted for context)

• Damson: a small fruit (purple-black coloured), similar to a plum

• Fiddle: a violin

• Parquet: (flooring) wooden blocks arranged in a geometric pattern

• Newel: the central/ supporting pillar of a winding staircase

• Proscriptive: forbidding or restricting something

• Supercilious: appearing or acting as though [the person is] superior to others (snooty, perhaps?)

• Prognosis: opinion or forecast of the likely trajectory or outcome of a particular situation or condition

• Chamois: a type of soft, pliable leather

• Prescience: knowing something beforehand

• Leitmotif: a recurrent theme

• Itinerant: a person who travels from place to place

• Ursine: relating to/ resembling bears

• Promontory: land that juts out into the sea or a large lake

• Pinion: restrain or immobilize by holding down arms/ legs

• Warren: densely populated building or district

• Unctuous: excessively flattering, in an oily manner

• Despot: a person who holds absolute power [and exercises that power in a bad way]

• Untenable: when you can't defend your view or stance against objection, the view is called untenable

• Transmogrified: transform in a surprising or magical manner

• Busking: performing music or other entertainment in a public place for money, to collect donations

Possible recipes (for those with the stomach to explore)

• Tomato relish

• Cheese scones

• Buttered potatoes

• Quinoa & avocado salad

• Chocolate brioche fingers

• Panzanella

A few remotely memorable lines from the book (in order of appearance)

"It was far from normal, but it felt normal because it was all I'd known."

"He knows there's more to life than five major events. That life is made of all the moments in between."

"I was one of those children, my emotions made themselves felt in my gut."

"A small act of rebellion that would have made me feel better in the short term but way, way worse in the long."

"But there is silence, an immediate, deliberate silence."

"I'm not sure, anymore, I'm not sure about anything. But I'd happily try it. Try anything really, just to get myself back to myself."

"But this had raised more questions than it had answered."

"This was the point where the plan usually fell apart. The moment it became clear that it was in fact a stupid plan."

"And by the way - I've read every single Agatha Christie novel ever published. Twice. So I might even be quite useful."

"I couldn't tell if he meant that he knew what was going on and was in control of it, or that he knew what was going on but could do nothing to stop it."

"All men are weak. That's the whole bloody trouble with this world. Too weak to love properly. Too weak to be wrong."

"But in this realm, everything feels warped and vaguely threatening."

"I should have stopped there are then, I really should [have]. I should have taken a deep breath and evaluated the situation and made a different decision."

"She'd buy a lined notepad and a pen and she'd sit somewhere, anywhere, and she'd write it and she'd write it and she'd write it, streams of consciousness."

"Kitchens are important. Kitchens make people happy. People need kitchens."

"It was a fork in the road, really... looking back on it there were so many other ways to have got through the trauma of it all, but with all the people I loved most in the world facing away from me, I chose the worst possible option."

Real Thoughts

This book is a classic example of don't judge a book by it's cover.

The synopsis aka the blurb made me expect a wonderful murder mystery.

But this was not a wonderful murder mystery. It was agony to get through this book. I was plagued by sheer irritation and repeatedly hit by disappointment as I turned page after page in search of one redeeming paragraph.

Parallel timelines, multiple narratives could have made for an interesting and challenging read, but this was just choppy, uninspiring, vague, unnecessarily difficult. The chapters ended before anything of substance was revealed. And there were a LOT of chapters.

As a reader, I felt like I was being forced to see things a certain way. It was all too literal. I was repeatedly told that things were "shocking" which left no room for interpretation or discovery since I was being directly told how I was supposed to feel. And. And. I didn't even feel "shocked", because the chapters ended with typical vague doomsday it's-about-to-get-worse endings without actually revealing what was it that I was supposed to get "shocked" about. And so, by the time the "shocking" details were shared, I had imagined much more "shocking" things, due to which, I was quite obviously disappointed and irritated that what had actually happened was not so "shocking" after all.

Were you "shocked" reading the previous paragraph? Or were you just irritated?

Join the club.