The Nest is the story of four siblings who are expecting to come into their parents' substantial inheritance (which they refer to as The Nest) when the youngest of the four becomes 40 years old. When the time comes, they discover that their lawyer has given all the money to Leo, one of the siblings, to pay legal fees. The opening scene of the book is Leo leaving a wedding reception with a very young waitress in his very fast car. He's drunk, and as she's performing a sex act, they have an accident. She loses her foot and Leo is in hot water. So the amount of The Nest is severely reduced, and Leo's siblings want him to pay it back.
The other three siblings are understandably shocked and also in deep trouble. At least two of them are. Jack is in hock for he and his partner's summer house that they've wanted for so long. Jack's partner has no idea the house has been mortgaged again. Jack will lose the house if he doesn't get the money.
Melody has twin girls that are planning on going to very exclusive private schools. How can she take that away from them? But she and her husband won't be able to afford it if they don't get The Nest. Bea is the other sibling, who has problems other than financial.
We learn literally everything about these siblings and their families. Their pasts, their lovers, their business dealings, their thoughts and feelings. And then we learn details of all the side characters. And there are a lot of them. The author goes on huge tangents. It all makes for a very detailed story in which not much happens. I did find myself chuckling and enjoying all of the literary devices that Sweeney uses. It goes on and on, and there isn't a huge payoff at the end, although I felt satisfied. I guess the bottom line is that this isn't my kind of book.
I get most of my audiobooks through the library, and most of them have a waitlist. So I listened to The Nest in three different segments because there was no waitlist for it. So when I finished a book and was waiting for the next one to become available, I would listen to some more of The Nest.
This turned out to be a good way for me to experience the book. I am also much more patient with audiobooks and don't mind so much that they are slow and meandering. Because The Nest certainly was. It also helps that the narrator, Mia Barron, was good. But she was slow too, so I had to listen at 1.5 speed.
I've read that The Nest is soon to be a motion picture, although I couldn't find anything on the IMDB. If you enjoy books just for the literary style and interesting characters, then I would highly recommend The Nest.
Published by Ecco, 2016
Audiobook obtained from the library
368 pages
Rating: 3.5/5
