Review: Born Weird by Andrew Kaufman

Publisher: Random House Canada

Pages: 288

Received: Received from Random House of Canada in exchange for an honest review

Release Date: December 26, 2012
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Goodreads Synopsis:

The Weirds have always been a little off, but not one of them ever suspected that they'd been cursed by their grandmother.

At the moment of the births of her five grandchildren Annie Weird gave each one a special power. Richard, the oldest, always keeps safe; Abba always has hope; Lucy is never lost and Kent can beat anyone in a fight. As for Angie, she always forgives, instantly. But over the years these so-called blessings ended up ruining their lives.

Now Annie is dying and she has one last task for Angie: gather her far-flung brothers and sisters and assemble them in her grandmother's hospital room so that at the moment of her death, she can lift these blessings-turned-curses. And Angie has just two weeks to do it.

What follows is a quest like no other, tearing up highways and racing through airports, from a sketchy Winnipeg nursing home to the small island kingdom of Upliffta, from the family's crumbling ancestral Toronto mansion to a motel called Love. And there is also the search for the answer to the greatest family mystery of all: what really happened to their father, whose maroon Maserati was fished out of a lake so many years ago?

My Review:

This book was so much fun to read and absolutely adorable! I have a huge thing for books that are all about family and the troubles they have and the journey they take to get through things together. This book epitomizes all that in such a short amount of pages, I felt myself wanting more from Kaufman, yet at the same time finding that he ended everything perfectly!

I was really surprised when I got this book and saw how small it was. It was a short story that I flew through in a couple of hours, I was taken in by Kaufman's writing and the world of the Weird family. Everything about this story stuck with me after reading it, there was a great amount of humour and yet a lot of emotion as well, having these siblings come together after years of not seeing or talking to each other, there are a lot of issues they need to work through together.

I really loved the quest these siblings took together, slowly we meet each of the five Weird children as they travel to pick one another up and we see how the "blursings" (curse + blessing) have impacted each of their lives in such a significant way. In such a short time Kaufman is able to bring about the lives of each of these children while they travel on a quest to cure themselves.

Kaufman also adds in a great mystery in this book, that of what happened many years ago to the Weird father. It was really interesting to see this family come together and learn about one another again and become a family once more after everything that happened. Kaufman tells this story in an interesting manner, going back and forth from past to present to show readers how everyone got to where they are now.

Everything about this book was just so beautiful and I felt that I learned things alongside these characters because many of the "blursings" are found in normal people (just these were exaggerated quite a bit...), and Kaufman really teaches how certain things can affect our lives as well. When you read this book I do say prepare to laugh a lot but also prepare to shed a few tears (I definitely did!) But definitely check this book out, with how quick it is to read it will stay with you and this is one I plan to reread again in the future!