What do You think about The Hazards Of Good Breeding: A Novel (2004)?
The Dunlaps, a wealthy Boston family, confronts old secrets when a stranger starts shooting a documentary in their town. Not a memorable book. Enjoyable while reading it, but I had to read the back of the book's blurb to remember the characters' names. The book switches between perspectives so none of the characters appear fully fleshed out, I didn't buy any of them. The precocious child, the rule-following patriarch, the fragile divorcee, the aimless daughter, the doped up childhood friend--I feel like I've read this book before.
—Kayla
Family struggles, characters collide, plot eventually moves forward. This book was slow to start, but once it did, swept along in directions I didn't think it would go. It takes a while for Shattuck to build her characters enough to set them in motion - and her multiple perspectives don't help - but once we learn them, they do start moving along unexpected paths. It was an entertaining book once I got through the first part - and until I got to the end. Shattuck can't be a mother, but she has done a wonderful job encapsulating the hearts and minds of all the other non-mother characters.
—jillian
This story took a while to crescendo, but boy once it got going, it was super well-orchestrated. Dysfunctional Boston Brahmins the Dunlops are headed by introverted father Jack who has alienated the rest of the family - ex-wife Faith is a quivering puddle of recovery in NYC, daughter Caroline is home after college but rather than tending to lost little brother Eliot she is distracted by a dashing cinematographer (who is not what he seems). I enjoyed how very sordid this puritanical story ended up becoming, and how the culture of "nobility" was found lacking when compared to such noble savages as Colombian nanny Rosita or Parisian one night stand Jean Pierre.
—Emi Bevacqua
