Very .

Family and Other Calamities by Leslie Gray Streeter is fantastic! I love the characters.

Will Dawn clear her name and explain why it took so long?

Dawn Roberts is our main character, and she is marvelous. She is genuine. Let me clarify that she is an outstanding journalist, but she isn't completely honest with herself. When she needed to choose between fight or flight, she chose the latter. In her defense, she was in love and young. Dale, the man that she moved for and married, kept her sane, gave her a good life, and truly loved her. So, the decision wasn't a wreck, but now that Dale is gone, she needs to right some wrongs. As it seems, her old friend is out to ruin her completely and Dale's reputation.

Dawn and all the characters in her world are so fantastically written. I can see all of them in my mind, from the crazy outbursts to the sisterly disagreements and the loud arguments. One of my favorites is Vivienne St. Clair. What a diva! Yet, don't forget Dawn's mom, Nita, is the best. She is down-to-earth and yet stands back and lets her girls be themselves.

Joe Perkins is our bad guy, but honestly, he is just an angry man who stole a story from someone who thought of him as a friend and a mentor, but he was just a jealous, petty man. Joe consistently reveals his true colors. However, Dawn didn't see any of it because she is just a good person. Almost too good to be a journalist, at least in the media today. That is just my opinion, not a premise in the book.

Five Stars
My rating for Family and Other Calamities by Leslie Gray Streeter is a beautiful story, filled with realistic characters and a believable story. Ms. Streeter brought Baltimore to life for me. I have never been there, and yet I feel as though I have. I highly recommend this story to everyone. It will make you laugh, cry, and want to call your family members.

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Thank you for dropping by! I hope you enjoyed this review of Family and Other Calamities by Leslie Gray Streeter.

Until the next time,
~Jen

If you would like to see other reviews like this one, check out Baroness Book Trove.

I was drawn to this book because of the cover and the title and even thought it was kind of entertaining I didn't love it. The writing was not my fav and made it slow to read. I feel like most of the book was explaining the plot and then the last few pages solved everything.

Heartfelt and funny!

Filled with slightly flawed but deeply human and lovable characters, this one was a fast, easy read. It's told in dual timelines and explores family dynamics and the lengths you will go to for your loved ones.

Thanks to Netgalley & Lake Union Publishing for the e-copy!

This book was not for me. I felt like it was a hot mess. Dawn goes home to bury her husband's ashes and gets pulled back into the past when a story was stolen from her. I felt like it bounced all around, I was invested and didn't really care. The main character annoyed me. It just wasn't for me.

loved this romance and that she found love. Loved that family was a big part of her life and that she was able to find some balance.

Dawn Roberts is an entertainment journalist and a recently bereaved widow, who is desperately trying to do right by her and her late husband's families, all while seeking justice on a decades-old slight by a trusted friend. Family & Other Calamities goes behind the curtain of Baltimore's news scene and shows what it takes to get ahead in a cutthroat industry, and more importantly, what it takes to get even.

The main storyline follows Dawn who suffered a betrayal in the 90's when a trusted friend, Joe, in the industry stole her career-defining story and gained huge recognition for it. Dawn left town with her new boyfriend who she later married and decided to build herself up again despite this hurdle. Fast forward, Dawn is back in town to deliver her husband's ashes to his family who she has a strained relationship with, when she finds out Joe now has a movie deal to bring his stolen story to the big screen. Dawn discovers that the script not only paints her in a bad light, but also her late husband, which is the final straw. Dawn and her loved ones who she isn't fighting with, plus a junior journalist who originally set out to embarrass her, will go to whatever lengths they can to discredit Joe and tell the world the truth about his call to fame.

I was interested in the major plot line, as well as Dawn's struggles with her in-laws and how her husband's death added to these trials. Unfortunately only two of her in-laws are really examined and the rest feel like white noise in the background. It was nice to have one relationship in this dynamic to really focus on and I like the way this relationship changed, but I didn't feel connected to the family as a whole because there were too many gaps left to the reader to fill in. All of the conflict was very much "told not shown" as well which makes it hard for me to relate.

There were a couple of good reveals and I liked most of the main characters but they weren't written cohesively. There were a couple of scenes where a character would start talking and I stopped and said "what are they doing there" because it wasn't always clear when cutting to a new scene who was present/where they were. This felt like an editing issue above anything else.

Dawn is a black woman and I really appreciated how this book explores her experiences as a black woman both professionally (at different stages of her career) and when marrying into a white family and the racism she faced throughout her life.

I think the concept of this book is better than the execution but readers who are more into contemporary mysteries may enjoy it more than I did!

Family and Other Calamities is a story that balances grief, identity, and family dysfunction with humor. Dawn Roberts, an entertainment journalist returns to Baltimore with her late husband’s ashes, only to fall smack dab into a whirlwind of old grudges, family chaos, and career sabotage. I found this one to be entertaining and lighthearted as I followed Dawn’s journey to redemption. I read this one on my travel day back home. It was the perfect choice with good banter, slick dialogue and laugh out loud moments! I enjoyed how Streeter took a story that touched on series topics, but made it fun while keeping to the main points of the story!

Funny, heartfelt, and utterly relatable 🏠❤️. Family & Other Calamities delivers a brilliant mix of chaos, love, and laughter as one family navigates life’s unexpected messes. Leslie Gray Streeter’s writing sparkles with warmth and humour, perfectly capturing the beauty and dysfunction of family life. I loved the imperfect but lovable characters and the way the story balances comedy with tender, emotional moments. It’s a feel-good novel about resilience, connection, and embracing life’s imperfections. You’ll laugh, tear up, and maybe call your family afterwards!

Unfortunately this book just wasn’t for me. I initially liked the premise, but the narrative voice was grating after a while - too jokey in a way which became irritating. About 50 pages in I was struggling to care about or like the characters enough.

This was a really good read and I think it had a decent writing style and story! Would recommend to anyone looking for next read

How delightful, to have a fiction debut from Leslie Gray Streeter!

I had a lot of fun with FAMILY & OTHER CALAMITIES. This is the beach read for you, if you're not a big genre fiction reader (read: looking for something besides a thriller or romance).

Dawn is heading home with her husband's ashes when she runs into her nemesis on the plane. I want to detail their background, but I also don't want to spoil a bit of the story... suffice it to say, she has an actual grievance with him. And Dawn is a character that'll instantly have you rooting for her.

I particularly enjoyed how I could feel the love between all Dawn's family members. They treated each other like a real family: the good, the bad, and the funny.

And of course, expert narrator Bahni Turpin did this story justice and was a joy to listen to. Her inflections were perfect.

I always love a Baltimore book! Having read the memoir of the author the book felt pretty autobiographical which I think helped the characters feel like real people. It was a light book but that made it good for vacations or just spacing out for a bit. I did feel like a lot of the characters were terrible people so if you want a book where everyone is likable, this might not be the book for you!

I am obsessed with Dawn. Everything about this character and the setting was so authentic that I researched the author to see if Dawn was based on her. Told in two timelines, the past when Dawn was just starting as an intern, and the present as Dawn realizes a movie is being made about a story another reporter stole from her.

The story was engaging, and the characters were amazing and funny. I loved everything about this novel. I need to learn how to throw a birthday party like this cast! Don't sleep on this one, everyone!

I loved this! It's an absolute delight to read with a great story, wonderful characters and very funny.

Set in two timelines Dawn Roberts-Schaffer is a journalist who has to head home from LA to Baltimore to take half her late husband's ashes to be interred alongside his mother. Unfortunately for Dawn as she steps off the plane she finds herself hijacked by Bria James, another journalist out to find out Dawn's feelings about a new movie that's just about to start shooting. Unfortunately Dawn knows nothing about it even though her sister, Tonya, is one of its advisors.

Yes, you're thrown in at the deep end. Yes it's a tiny bit confusing to begin with but all is explained really quickly and you won't care anyway because Dawn and her sister Tonya are such great characters.

The story goes back in time to explain that Dawn had a great story. It was stolen by a friend, turned into a Pulitzer winning story and is now about to be turned into a blockbusting film. What Dawn finds out pretty quickly after that is going to set her on collision course with the journalist who nicked her story.

I swear it isn't anywhere near as complicated as I'm trying not to make it sound. The plot is great and totally believable but even if it weren't the characters would make this book worth reading on their own. Dawn is permanently slightly out of control and a bit angry and sister, Tonya, is much the same. Their bantering speech is perfection. I loved them both. Then we've got an arch enemy, a missing friend, an annoying journalist from a news site, several slightly judgemental relatives, one or two really judgemental relatives and a diva par excellence.

This is quite probably the most thoroughly entertaining novel I've read this year. It's a riot and I loved reading it. Leslie Gray Streeter needs to write more fiction - lots more.

Thankyou very much to Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for the advance review copy. Very much appreciated.
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This was an emotional journey of an insecure character making some bad decisions but you still want them to succeed. I did think they main character seem to have a problem with women and kind of held men to a higher standard which rubbed me the wrong way.

This was a fun fast paced book. The main character, Dawn, fills the book with amusing
snarky inner thoughts throughout the book during her visit back home in Baltimore. Include sibling/ relative conflict , dual timelines, and references to the 90’s and earlier, this one is for you!

This book was light enough to read but I didn't love it. Family & Other Calamities is definitely an easy, enjoyable read with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments that kept me entertained. The humor is sharp, and there’s a quirky charm to the chaos that unfolds. Some of the plotlines are so wildly over-the-top they’re actually fun — though others felt a bit too absurd, and not always in a good way.
One thing that held me back from fully loving it was the pacing. The flashbacks, while meant to add depth, often slowed things down and pulled me out of the momentum of the main storyline. I usually breeze through books like this, but I found myself taking longer with this one.
The characters were another mixed bag. While they were undeniably colourful, it was sometimes hard to root for them — they often seemed quick to turn on each other and acted selfishly in ways that made emotional connection difficult. Although that often can be the reality of life.
That said, the ending really pulled things together in a satisfying way and left me with a smile. Despite its flaws, this was a fun read overall — a bit chaotic but heartfelt, and worth picking up if you're in the mood for something light with a touch of madness.

I went into this one blind & ended up really enjoying it! There were some proper laugh out loud moments & plenty of wit throughout but it also touched on some tougher topics, which gave it a really good balance. I LOVE DAWN.
It was my first read by this author & I’ll definitely be checking out more!

I am rating this book 4.5 stars!!!

This is a book about grief, love and the messiness of life. I had no idea when I started this book the amount of times I would be highlighting and laughing and crying. Beyond its tongue in cheek facade, lays a multilayered story.

In this story we follow Dawn, as she is thrust back into the realities of a decision she made thirty years earlier when she has to come back home to bury her husband. It sounds like it would be a heavy read, but there are so many moments that sprinkle in human and the mundane conversations that can be hilarious within themselves that we have with family, whether they are estranged or close.

This hit for me real hard. It reminds me of my family. It made me think of some old school music, shows, stuff from my childhood and early adult life when I was just trying to figure out everything.

The format of the book is very easy to follow, it does jump back and forth between timelines to tell the full story. I just loved the author’s prose as well!!! It felt like I was sitting out back at a cook out hearing stories.

Anyway.. I could tap about this all day but it boils down to this was the right book at the right time for me and the FMC is really relatable to me in general because I see a lot of myself in her.

I didn’t even really understand what this was gonna be about and I am so glad I read it and now I will be looking for anything else this author writes!!