A Beautiful Family

April 1, 2025

DEBUT Ten-year old New Zealander Alix and her family always go to remote, secluded places for their long holiday, but this year her mother wants to go somewhere "with people," so they rent a vacation house at the beach about two hours from their home. Next door is a creepy older man who always seems to be watching from his balcony. Locals warn that a little girl went missing from the beach two years ago and is presumed to have drowned, so Alix's mother won't let her near the water without a chaperone. Alix's 16-year-old sister declines to look out for her, as does her father, leaving Alix under the watch of her mother, who keeps disappearing. Alix makes friends with a child named Kahu, who suggests they should search for the body of the missing girl. Alix's eventual discoveries, and those of her family, will shock her to her core. Trevelyan captures the naivete and confusion of Alix, who can sense when something is wrong but doesn't always understand why, as big problems make cracks in the facade of her beautiful family. VERDICT Written from Alix's point of view, this suspenseful coming-of-age debut is hard to put down. Readers will sympathize with the young protagonist.--Joanna M. Burkhardt

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April 22, 2025
The narrator of Jennifer Trevelyan’s debut, A Beautiful Family, is 10-year-old Alix, a likeable and perceptive child. When her family arrive at their summer holiday house, she and her new friend Kahu decide to investigate the murder of a young girl. This taut tale of mystery and suspense follows Alix as she begins to understand that some actions can have dire consequences. She quickly perceives the tensions in her family: her sister is rebellious, hostile and hypercritical; her mother takes long, solitary walks; and her father seems disinterested in everything around him. Alix’s childhood innocence is gradually punctured by the realisation that her beautiful family is far more vulnerable and fragile than she imagined. The novel’s power lies in its slow reveal. As Alix begins to understand the dark forces pulling her family apart, the reader is tethered to her limited perspective, heightening the sense of unease as we perceive risks that she cannot yet fully comprehend. The ending is both satisfying and unsettling. While all the questions are answered, Alix lacks the maturity and opportunity to share the truth with her disconnected family, so it remains hers alone. Like Sophie Laguna’s child narrator in the equally powerful The Choke, Trevelyan convincingly portrays how a perceptive yet lonely child can make sense of and come to terms with painful and threatening experiences that remain invisible to the adults around them.

May 15, 2025
Summer vacation is not what it seems. Ten-year-old Alix, her 15-year-old sister, Vanessa, and their parents are in a New Zealand beach town for the summer. Vanessa, just old enough to find her family embarrassing, is pining over a school friend's boyfriend. Alix's parents are fighting constantly about things she only partly understands. Meanwhile, Alix has made a new friend, Kahu, a Māori boy also in town for the summer. The beach, with its rough waves and many secrets, is the setting of much of their burgeoning friendship; Alix and Kahu are searching for the remains of a young girl, Charlotte, who went missing a few summers before, presumably drowned. But when they discover a different body, Alix's family risks coming apart entirely. This novel, part mystery and part Bildungsroman, is gripping; every chapter brings an unexpected twist, further complicating and deepening each storyline. Alix is a compelling narrator, though her 10-year-old na�vet� can be grating--we understand, through her eyes, that her sister is sneaking out and getting drunk and that her mother is having an affair, but she's not quite able to put the pieces together. And the plot occasionally veers a little toward the predictable (the creepy older man Alix sees watching her does, indeed, turn out to be creepy), without tying up all its loose ends. A compelling--if not fully realized--debut.

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May 1, 2025
It's 1985, and the Owen family holiday has begun. They're at a popular beach destination two hours away from their home in Wellington, New Zealand, and nothing is quite right. The parents are tense, arguing over who will chaperone their two daughters by the water, and their daughters are not cooperating. Teenager Vanessa wants to hang out with her friends, which leaves her 10-year-old sister, the book's unnamed narrator, free to explore. Our narrator observes much but doesn't always understand--Vanessa's sneaking out at night is dubious, as are her mother's wanderings. She's uncomfortable encountering her friend Lucy and troubled by xenophobic comments her parents make about Lucy's Chinese family. Worse, a creepy old neighbor is always watching. The girl befriends 12-year-old Kahu, who is Māori. He whispers that he's searching for Charlotte, a girl who disappeared two years earlier, and invites the narrator to join him. When another person goes missing, all the secrets converge, threatening the family's solidarity. Trevelyan's taut thriller debut hauntingly captures the end of innocence through a child's eyes.

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