Are you sorry that your favorite television show, Schitts Creek, with its quirky but lovable characters and storylines has bid adieu after 6 seasons?
A Canadian television sitcom created by Dan and Eugene Levy that originally aired on CBC Television, Netflix acquired the streaming rights to the show in 2017.
Suddenly broke, the formerly filthy-rich Rose family is reduced to living in a ramshackle motel in a town they once bought as a joke: Schitt’s Creek. Now living in a motel, Johnny Rose (Eugene Levy) and Moira Rose (Catherine O’Hara)—along with their adult children, David (Dan Levy) and Alexis (Annie Murphy)—must adjust to life without money and with each other.
Schitt’s Creek received critical acclaim, particularly for its writing, humour and acting and has won various accolades over the years. At the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, the series’ final sixth season swept all seven major comedy awards (the first time for a comedy or drama series).
But now that the show has taken its final bow, you might be itching for more stories of eccentric families, adult children living with parents, riches-to-rags plots, in-depth explorations of family legacy, and lots of small-town charm.
The books/ebooks listed below, all available with your Library card, may offer just the right alternative.
The Darlings by Cristina Alger
A sophisticated page-turner about a wealthy New York family embroiled in a financial scandal with cataclysmic consequences. Now that he’s married to Merrill Darling, daughter of billionaire financier Carter Darling, attorney Paul Ross has grown accustomed to New York society and all of its luxuries: a Park Avenue apartment, weekends in the Hamptons, bespoke suits. When Paul loses his job, Carter offers him the chance to head the legal team at his hedge fund. Thrilled with his good fortune in the midst of the worst financial downturn since the Great Depression, Paul accepts the position. But Paul’s luck is about to shift: a tragic event catapults the Darling family into the media spotlight, a regulatory investigation, and a red-hot scandal with enormous implications for everyone involved. Suddenly, Paul must decide where his loyalties lie-will he save himself while betraying his wife and in-laws or protect the family business at all costs?
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
A funny, poignant, laugh-and-cry-out-loud (sometimes at the same time) novel about the art of surviving a masterpiece of dysfunction. Annie and Buster Fang have spent most of their adult lives trying to distance themselves from their famous artist parents, Caleb and Camille. But when a bad economy and a few bad personal decisions converge, the two siblings have nowhere to turn but their family home. Reunited under one roof for the first time in more than a decade and surrounded by the souvenirs of their unusual upbringing, Buster and Annie are forced to confront not only their creatively ambitious parents, but the chaos and confusion of their childhood.
They’re a glamorous family, the Caseys. Johnny Casey, his two brothers Ed and Liam, their beautiful, talented wives and all their kids spend a lot of time together–birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, weekends away. And they’re a happy family. Johnny’s wife, Jessie–who has the most money–insists on it. Under the surface, though, conditions are murkier. While some people clash, other people like each other far too much . . . Still, everything manages to stay under control–that is, until Ed’s wife, Cara, gets a concussion and can’t keep her thoughts or opinions to herself. One careless remark at Johnny’s birthday party, with the entire family present, and Cara starts spilling all their secrets. As everything unravels, each of the adults finds themselves wondering if it’s–finally–the time to grow up
Second Honeymoon : a novel by Joanna Trollope
Ben Boyd is leaving home. At twenty-two, he’s the youngest of the family and the last to leave. His mother Edie, an actress, is distraught. His father Russell, a theatrical agent, is hoping to get his wife back after decades of family life. Ben’s brother, Matthew, is wrestling with a relationship in which he earns less than his successful girlfriend. Their sister Rosa is wrestling with debt, and the end of a turbulent love affair. Living on your own, it seems, may not be as glamorous as it’s cracked up to be. Rosa is the first of the Boyd children to think she may have to move back in with her parents–just until she can make ends meet again.
This is the empty nest, twenty-first-century style–with grown children coming and going just as parents are getting ready for their second honeymoon.
Seven Days of Us : a novel by Francesca Hornak
A warm, wry, sharply observed debut novel about what happens when a family is forced to spend a week together in quarantine over the holidays… It’s Christmas, and for the first time in years the entire Birch family will be under one roof. For the next seven days, the Birches are locked down, cut off from the rest of humanity–and even decent Wi-FI–and forced into each other’s orbits. In close proximity, not much can stay hidden for long, and as revelations and long-held tensions come to light, nothing is more shocking than the unexpected guest who’s about to arrive.
The Smart One by Jennifer Close
After watching her engagement fall apart, her job performance tank, and her credit-card balance rise into the stratosphere, Claire Coffey decides it’s time to move back home. An old romantic flame even resurfaces, though Claire believes that being home for any meaningful length of time forces a regression to teenage behavior. While Claire, older sister Martha, younger brother Max, and the rest of the Coffey family try to navigate the logistics of having adult children return to the previously empty nest, they realize that no right answers can be found in any parenting manual.
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over fifty years. Their house has seen thirteen children grown and gone–and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit’s East Side, and the loss of a father. The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to the suburbs. But now, as ailing matriarch Viola finds herself forced to leave her home and move in with her eldest son, the family discovers that the house is worth just a tenth of its mortgage. The Turner children are called home to decide its fate and to reckon with how each of their pasts haunts–and shapes–their family’s future.
The Wangs vs the World by Jade Chang
A wealthy but dysfunctional Chinese immigrant family has it all, only to lose every last cent. Mad at America, Wang, a brash but lovable immigrant businessman takes his family on a cross-country road trip that, despite a few harrowing twists and turns, eventually brings them back together again.
Wherever You Go, There They Are: stories about my family you might relate to by Annabelle Gurwitch
A hysterically funny and slyly insightful new collection of essays from New York Times bestselling author Gurwitch, about her own family of scam artists and hucksters, as well as the sisterhoods, temporary tribes, communities, and cults who have become surrogates along the way. A family of bootleggers, gamblers, and philanderers, the Gurwitches have always been a bit vague on the ideal of a loving and supportive family. Their definition includes people you can count on to borrow money from, hold a grudge against, or blackmail. Thus began a lifetime of Annabelle seeking out surrogates. If she’s learned anything, it’s that no matter how hard you try to escape a crazy family, you just end up in another crazy family.
The Windfall: a novel by Diksha Basu
For the past thirty years, Mr. and Mrs. Jha’s lives have been defined by cramped spaces, cut corners, gossipy neighbors, and the small dramas of stolen yoga pants and stale marriages. But then Mr. Jha comes into an enormous and unexpected sum of money, and moves his wife from their housing complex in East Delhi to the super-rich side of town, where he becomes eager to fit in as a man of status: skinny ties, hired guards, shoe-polishing machines, and all. The move sets off a chain of events that rock their neighbors, their marriage, and their son, who is struggling to keep a lid on his romantic dilemmas and slipping grades, and brings unintended consequences, ultimately forcing the Jha family to reckon with what really matters.
-Archana, Adult Services & Acquisitions Librarian