Ruth loves to bake cakes. She sees it as an outward manifestation of an inner need to nurture her family-- which is a good thing, because all of a sudden that family is rapidly expanding. First her mother, and then her father, moves in-- they just happen to hate each other with a deep and poisonous emotion reserved only for life-long enemies. Add to ths mix two teenagers, a suddenly unemployed husband, and a physical therapist with the instincts...

Avery Montgomery's life changed forever in the checkout line at Food-4-Less when she discovered her long-lost daughter, Fiona, working at the next register. Though Avery yearns to reestablish contact, Fiona has secrets and failures she can't bring herself to share with her mother--and especially with her father.

The misadventures of a dysfunctional Rhode Island family when they come together for their family patriarch's funeral.

Olive is a little girl who dreams of winning the Little Miss Sunshine contest. Her family wants her dream to come true, but they are so dysfunctional that they can barely make it through a day without some disaster befalling them. Olive's father, Richard, is unsuccessful as a motivational speaker. He is barely on speaking terms with Olive's mother. Her uncle Frank has attempted suicide following an unsuccessful romance with a male graduate student....

When her sixteen-year-old sister is hospitalized for depression and her parents want to keep it a secret, fourteen-year-old Elena tries to cope with her own anxiety and feelings of guilt that she is determined to conceal from outsiders.

The complicated lives and relationships of the Fisher family, owners and operators of an independent funeral home.

Follows a family's emotional crises in the suburbs of the '70s during an ice storm.

In The Glass Castle, Walls chronicles her upbringing at the hands of eccentric, nomadic parents--Rose Mary, her frustrated-artist mother, and Rex, her brilliant, alcoholic father.

Connor Sullivan, All-Star third baseman on his Babe Ruth League team, has a terrible temper and problems at home, but when the sports editor of the school paper threatens to publish an embarrassing story about his tantrums, Connor must make a change.

Seventeen-year-old Pattyn, the eldest daughter in a large Mormon family, is sent to her aunt's Nevada ranch for the summer, where she temporarily escapes her alcoholic, abusive father and finds love and acceptance, only to lose everything when she returns home.