We meet Adam Gardner, a brilliant oceanographer with an almost obsessive fascination with whales, counting down the summer months to his 70th birthday in September. Adult siblings Ken and Abby Gardner hold fast to the only family narrative they know: their parents had a happy life together until their mother’s untimely death, when Adam, their heroic father, stepped into the role of single parent and gave them an idyllic childhood in the Wellfleet Woods. When Ken and Abby’s unknown half sister, Steph, appears on the scene, thorny truths come to light, upending the Gardner family story and detonating long-suppressed emotions. Abby and Ken were close when they were growing up until something happened that changed their relationship and it had remained somewhat distant ever since.

His sister Abby is a teacher and an artist, so perhaps some art for her father’s birthday will suffice. We’re aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including SDG 4 which aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” by 2030. To his credit, at the onset of this latest bout of insomnia, Adam followed protocol and made an appointment at the clinic in Hyannis knowing full well what to expect: a blood draw, a barrage of questions, an adjustment of medication. After the untimely death of his wife, he raised two children – Ken and Abby – by himself, and even though he was a remote father, both of them have displayed great promise in their fields. The new doctor acknowledged Adam only cursorily, opting to study his electronic patient chart first—mistake number one.In the places where Adam or Ken does or says something shitty about women, it is clear that neither Brodeur nor Little Monsters agrees with the statement, but neither are these statements made to frame the men as unambiguously villainous. Afghanistan, Algeria, American Samoa, Angola, Anguilla, Armenia, Azerbaijan Republic, Bangladesh, Belarus, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Gabon Republic, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iraq, Ireland, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, New Caledonia, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Republic of the Congo, Reunion, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Helena, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Korea, Suriname, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Swaziland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Virgin Islands (U.

As a group, come up with a list of other pieces of media that deal with entangled family bonds, gender politics, women’s friendships, and childhood trauma, and discuss how these selections differ from or are similar to Little Monsters. for the love of writing, not everyone is butt-hurt about the planet, the elections, and the patriarchy.

I was also a bit frustrated by the fact that all the women in the book are defined in large part by their motherhood. A gentle breeze stirred the budding leaves in the topmost branches of the trees, but the air was still at ground level, the pond water glassy. Steph, a Boston police officer whose biological father has just been revealed to her after years of her mother’s lies. Building a solid backstory and diverse characters takes time so if you're expecting a whip fast pace, you won't find it here. Adam was born in England, grew up in Switzerland and has loved drawing ever since he was old enough to hold a crayon.