People Person by Candice Carty-Williams
If you could choose your family…you wouldn’t choose the Penningtons.
Dimple Pennington knows of her half siblings, but she doesn’t really know them. Five people who don’t have anything in common except for faint memories of being driven through Brixton in their dad’s gold jeep, and some pretty complex abandonment issues. Dimple has bigger things to think about.
She’s thirty, and her life isn’t really going anywhere. An aspiring lifestyle influencer with a terrible and wayward boyfriend, Dimple’s life has shrunk to the size of a phone screen. And despite a small but loyal following, she’s never felt more alone in her life. That is, until a dramatic event brings her half siblings Nikisha, Danny, Lizzie, and Prynce crashing back into her life. And when they’re all forced to reconnect with Cyril Pennington, the absent father they never really knew, things get even more complicated.
This read was darkly funny and uniquely touching.
This is a book about familial connections–the ones we have and the ones we don’t have, the ones we create and the ones we restrict, the ones that nuture and grow us and the ones that confuse and traumatize us.
This story focuses on a deadbeat dad and his five children–all except two from different mothers–and how they do not come to know each other until adulthood.
While we read, we get to know all five of the siblings (and the dad a bit as well), but the story mainly focuses on us getting to know Dimple, the most sensitive one of the entire bunch.
All of the siblings have dealt with their absent dad (and some of their moms) in very different ways over the course of their lives…some of them struggle a great deal outwardly, some of them keep their struggles hidden deep inside, and some of them don’t give an ounce of energy or recognition to the feelings their dad stirs in their hearts.
As the siblings suddenly come together and rally around Dimple in a time of need, they begin to truly get to know each other for the first time—at times very reluctantly for some–and they also get to know themselves a bit better in the process.
This story is a journey about love in many forms and how messy, screwed up and complicated families can be for everyone.
And that even when shitty things happen in life—sometimes MULTIPLE shitty things—there can be some very non shitty things that happen alongside as well.
This sibling story is about forgiveness, healing, and closure…and how most of the time none of it is linear or similar or easy to come by….for anyone.
There are many beginnings and endings in this book—with relationships, with connections, and with realizations.
The snappy dialogue is PERFECTION, moving along with such natural, conversational flow….and on audio is EVEN BETTER. The narrator embodies with her voice every single character’s distinct accent, diction and personality….she is SO FLIPPIN GOOD.
This story is hilarious and big hearted…and also tackles big issues head on too, like racial prejudices, microagressions, privilege, generational trauma, and toxic relationships.
I completely enjoyed this book….extremely well written, engaging characters, and educationally thought provoking while also entertaining.
She is an author not to be missed, yall….and I will definitely be a repeat reader of hers.