The Reeds

by Arjun Basu

The Reeds are a very loving, slightly dysfunctional family — but a summer of individual changes is about to shake their tight family unit. Bobby, the father, loses his executive job while his wife Mimi’s lucrative home-run business leaps ahead. Their adopted son, Abbie, leverages his internet stardom into the makings of a career, while their adopted daughter, Dee, discovers who she really is. They’ll have to navigate the shifting landscapes of commerce and fame in the age of the internet, office politics, gender dynamics, and sexuality in a world that has just seen Brexit, Trump, and heightened climate anxiety. Set in Montreal’s west end, The Reeds is about family, love, and nostalgia while exploring the dehumanization of work and the power of art against a backdrop of mid-century modern furniture, shag carpeting, the relentlessness of change, gentrification, and Korean fried chicken. In many ways, The Reeds is an optimistic story about the middle class, its hopes, ambitions, and challenges.

Genres: Audiobook, Fiction, Family, Canada

360 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2024

About the author

My first book, Squishy, was published in 2008 and my first novel, Waiting for the Man, was published in 2014. My next novel, The Reeds, is out in fall 2024. I'm on Twitter, Mastodon and BlueSky as @arjunbasu. My website is www.arjunbasu.com.

Reviews

[Lindsay L]

DNF @ 25%. No connection to storyline or writing. Characters are extremely unlikable and uninteresting. Writing feels distant. Not for me.

[Kailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Reeds follows a family of 4 in a very tumultuous period in each family member's life. Following each one of their successes and failures we get an inside scoop into each character's inner workings thanks to the omniscient 3rd person narration. I particularly enjoyed the family dinner scenes which allowed us to see the family dynamics from both an outside and inside view. Hearing each character's thoughts and how that played out in their family dinners was very unique and turned the family itself into its own character with its own development.

This book is for you if you particularly enjoy character driven stories that are heavier on the character development with a slower plot.

The Reeds was an overall enjoyable read with a few nods to Montreal and Quebec culture that you will appreciate if you are from the area.

Thanks to ECW press for sending me this ARC.

[Jo Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Happy publication day 🎉🥳


A family drama, where the problems are much the same as most families, everyone has forgotten the core values, they insist on no phones around the dinner table to unite, yet each of them are completely in their own heads and desperate to get away. The parents are absorbed in work, the lack of work and a little stuck going through the motions with family basics. the kids need to talk and for a long time nobody is listening .

I enjoyed the story, I wanted the characters to overcome and I wanted a happy ending. However I found Bobby and Mimi massively unlikeable and wasn’t overcome by them. I did love the kids and other side characters though.

If you enjoy character centric novels this might be for you.

Thanks to ECW Press Audio via NetGalley for this ELC

[dobbs the dog · Rating 1 out of 5]

Received from NetGalley, thanks!

This book was terrible. The casual aphobia, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and ethnic erasure was really awful to read.

This isn’t the sort of book that I would normally pick up, but the blurb sounded interesting, it’s published by an Canadian Indie publisher who tends to publish stories I enjoy, so I thought I would give it a go. I have learned my lesson. I really wanted to DNF it, and I probably should have.

The book is about the Reed family, a culturally diverse family who sounded like every white suburban family I’ve ever read. The father is white and Latine, the mother is Japanese, the daughter was adopted from India, and the son was adopted from Ghana (I think? I feel terrible that I’m unsure of the country, but it was mentioned in such a offhand way that it didn’t really stick in my memory). I really don’t understand why the author would choose to make this family so diverse, but for that diversity to have zero impact on the story, other than at one point a side character asks Abby (the son) which of his parents is Black and he says neither, he’s adopted. Seriously, that is the most that is said about any of their ethnicities/cultures in the entire book. I think more is said about the next door neighbours being Jewish than is said about the family itself (the neighbours won’t come over for dinner, because the Reeds refuse to cook kosher, which, uh… 😬).

I’m not even going to bother going into the plot of the book, because it’s like any other litfic family drama I’ve ever read. It was just incredibly boring, with a whole lot of telling and not showing. There is an authors note at the end that talks about the book being such a mess when the author brought it to the publisher and how he was so thankful to all the wonderful people who made it a better book. Sorry, but this book is still a fucking mess, I shudder to think what it was like to begin with.

Anyway, 1/5 stars, do not recommend.

[Rachel Quinlan · Rating 3 out of 5]

To the outside world the Reeds are just a normal family. But on closer inspection they’re a little dysfunctional!
The Reeds live in Montreal, Canada.
Bobby has always prided himself in his harsh management style, which gets him fired (thankfully with a fantastic severance deal!).
Mimi, his wife, is setting up an online sales business and is moving high end furniture as well as trinkets. She works long hours but is pulling in a small fortune.
Abbie is adopted from Ghana. He doesn’t know what he wants to do. It’s time to decide, his best friend is off to school. All Abbie wants to do is take photos, which he puts online.
Dee is also adopted and feels she doesn’t fit in with her peers. She gets on with them and has good friends, but is confused why she doesn’t always like the same things.
We watch the dynamics of the family shift and alter as they change, coming to terms with these changes and adapting, sometimes uncomfortably.
Interesting read, more of a contemporary family drama. Easy, gentle read. I enjoyed it.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up. Poignant, often funny, sometimes frustrating, I think this is a wonderful slice of life book about a complex family. The parents often suck, but the kids are absolute gems.

I’ll be honest, I did not like this book for the first few chapters because I instantly hated Bobby, and I thought I would struggle to get through the rest of it because of that, but it turns out we’re all pretty much products of our environment. This is a story of deeply flawed, nuanced characters with rich inner lives that they are starting to realise need to be shared with their family, but maybe not knowing how to communicate clearly.

I think readers who enjoyed The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro would also enjoy this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and ECW Press for the ARC!

[Owais · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately I DNFed this one. Only after 30% in and things moving a tad too slowly for my liking. I love a good slow burn but writing needs to keep me hooked too. The slow plot and so much exposition, at one point 4 pages of background before Bobby enters home, the all over the place writing needed to be more contained and concised while delivering the needed context.

Thank you NetGalley and publishers for the eARC in exchange of an honest review

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my honest and unbiased review of the novel, The Reeds, by Arjun Basu an advanced reading copy of which was provided to me by ECW Press.

I liked this book. A lot. A character driven look at a family. Each member of this family at a certain crossroads in his or her life. Each of those crossroads well imagined and presented with razor sharp precision.

This book could have been 'amazing', but.... It is written in 3rd person narration. I’m not usually a fan of 3rd person narration, but this time it worked .... for the most part. I liked that the chapters rotated from one family member to the next - so you know whose point of view is being featured. There were a few occasions however, when the point of view became confused and I had to read a passage over a couple of times to sort out just whose it was (check out Chapter 29, page 252 - an exchange between Dee and Beth - for the most egregious example and Beth is only a peripheral character!). To be fair, it didn’t happen often, but when it did, it irritated me. Maybe I’m too much of a stickler, but this is the thing about 3rd person narration .... the danger of too many points of view flying around. I’ve given up on many a novel due to this irritation.

Nevertheless I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. The characters are interesting and believable. The story line and character sketches grabbed my interest right from the get-go and kept me interested to the end. I love family drama and this book provided just that.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of this novel as an ARC and was asked to review it. Initially I did not think that I would enjoy it as I had difficulty getting into the story.
During the first third of the novel I developed a severe dislike for Bobby,the main character.Had I known him in real life, I would have given him a piece of my mind or punched him.He certainly provoked a visceral response and this was one of the reasons that I continued to read this novel .After some professional misfortune, Bobby takes the opportunity to redeem himself . The interactions with his adopted children,who were both discovering themselves and struggling with life choices , and his loving wife ,who was struggling with a burgeoning business, help the story move along. In hindsight, I am glad that I continued to read this novel as I really did enjoy it in the end. Should you choose to read this novel, I recommend that you stick with it and finish the story.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Actual Rating = 3.75 stars)

The Reeds are a family in transition: Roberto “Bobby” Reed loses his job as a high-powered executive, while his wife’s e-commerce business has become wildly successful. Their children Abbie and Dee, in their late teens, navigate love and professional development.

I came across this book because I met the author a few months back through a networking service. I’m always looking for new things to read, and I was excited to hear about a new release. I enjoyed the book’s mix of wry humor and deeply moving scenes. If you’re looking to support Canadian authors, check this book out.

[Dav Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gifted an advance copy via NetGalley. Adored the premise of this book - a middle class family for whom changes in each of their individual experiences creates a fundamental shift in who they are. Imagine Schitt’s Creek but with a more immediately likeable main family. The writer is, however, a fan of VERY long sentences sometimes - sometimes this can be… arduous. That said, the book is still a winner.

[Ali · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately this was not the book for me. The author writes the head of the family in the first few chapter as a Patrick Bateman-esque unlikeable character, but gives us no reason to root for him or his (rather annoying) family. I love an unlikeable main character but there has to be some reason to keep reading, whereas this took me a few weeks just to get through around 30% before I had to DNF. Thank you to Net Galley for the advance copy of this book.

[Enid Wray]

I just don’t even know where to begin on this one… so maybe the best thing is to say nothing at all.

Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for granting me access to an early digital copy.

DNF

[Isla · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘The Reeds’ by Arjun Basu is a fictional novel that follows a middle-class family in the turbulences of their everyday. The novel is completely character based and contains a very minimal plot used to push and transform the characters.

I adored this concept and thought that for specific characters it completely worked. The narrative of the son was a good one, the burden of being an elder sibling really shone through. My only complaint would be that the perspective of the young daughter was a little misrecognised. She didn’t seem like a real girl to me. The way she spoke on thoughts that seemed authentic didn’t quite work or enhance her character for me. Other than this I loved her interactions with her siblings, and this really worked in counteracting her own thoughts. The family connections were dysfunctional in the best way. Everyone was desperate to be separated from the others, yet didn’t lack the feeling of a real family.

In terms of the audiobook format, the narrator was good and made the story easy to listen to. I thought he did a good job at taking on the role of an omniscient narrator well and individually replicated each character.

I would recommend this book to people who enjoy character-driven stories and Sally Rooney-esque.
3.5 stars

Thank you to #netgalley for this advanced copy of #thereeds in audiobook