4.5 ★s
“This was the tribe for which she knew all the codes, the secret signals, the language. That you cannot chose your family is such a pathetically obvious statement, but it is often forgotten what else you can’t choose. You can’t choose to fully and wholly extract yourself - you can sometimes, if you’re lucky, choose to learn the language and signals of another group, but you’ll never be properly fluent. Not only does the language have to be learned from birth, but you have to help create it as well.”

The Way Things Should Be is the first novel by Australian journalist and author, Bridie Jabour. Claudia Carter has returned to the family home in Winton for her wedding, a wedding about which she’s having doubts. It’s a marriage she’s sort of fallen into: the next logical step in her relationship, and the wedding has morphed into something that her mother, Rachel believes it should be.

But first, a week with her siblings, to catch up. Although, given their history, perhaps not the wisest course of action. “Every member of the family secretly thought that – apart from themselves – nobody should change.” Fairly quickly, her brother, Phinn escapes because it gives him “time to think on things without the irritating volley of perceived offences constantly arcing between his sisters, his mum and his aunt back at the house.” (It’s likely every family has a witch like Claudia’s unmarried Aunt Mary, who delights in any discord between the siblings.)

“Nora would arrive in just a few days. Claudia worried that this would be the spark to quickly engulf the bone-dry kindling of the family dynamics. Everything a woman feels for her sister – protectiveness, envy, passion, competition - is magnified twenty-fold when her best friend is around.” Nora is grieving for her just-ended relationship, really needing a shoulder to cry on, and instead has to offer one to her best friend, whose emotional problems seem both manufactured and ungracious. Not to mention having to endure the stings and barbs from Claudia’s youngest sister, the irritating and irritable Poppy.

It is immediately apparent that Claudia’s fiancé, Dylan is a good man: his words and actions bear this out right through to the last page. But, with mere days until her wedding, Claudia’s behaviour will have the reader wondering if she deserves this white knight; sharing her doubts about this marriage with family and friends while acting no differently with Dylan is probably the least of her transgressions.

The tensions that have built throughout the week are bound to erupt: the boil-over happens in a big way at the pre-wedding family dinner, with fiancé, prospective in-laws, best friend, and shunned uncle also present, and way too much alcohol consumed.

As well as using straight narrative from various character perspectives, Jabour tells her tale with text messages, email, lists and a contract. Her plot is easily believable and her characters will strike a chord with both millennials and older readers. Jabour displays an acute insight into family relationships with the dialogue she gives her characters. Love, laughter, jealousy, loyalty, kindness, immaturity, sibling rivalry (of course), anger, insecurity, spite and heartbreak, they’re all here.

Jabour’s portrayal of sibling relationships is right on the money: phrases like “Are those my shoes/earrings/blouse/socks” and “Don’t tell anyone, but…” are stock standard between siblings. And “…trying to explain your sister to an only child… you might as well be trying to explain the concept of the ocean to a landlocked desert tribe” makes it clear that this could never have been written so well by an only child! Funny and thought-provoking, this is an outstanding debut novel.
This unbiased review from a copy provided by Echo Publishing.