V171 reviewed Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
Review of 'Nothing to See Here' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
The description of this story says it is about a woman who has fallen on hard times is approached by her closest, richest friend from high school to temporarily care for her friend's step children. These children also catch on fire. And you know what? That's exactly what this book is about. But it's the details and the character work that really elevated this beyond what I expected.
The story itself is fairly predictable. Based on the pitch, we can see where it's going. Lillian is approached by her rich, wealthy, and powerful high school friend Madison (with whom she has a complicated relationship) to care for Madison's step children over the summer. These children have a strange "condition" that causes them to burst into flame when they experience strong emotions, and attention on these children would harm Madison's husband's image as a powerful Senator. She needs Lillian's help until …
The description of this story says it is about a woman who has fallen on hard times is approached by her closest, richest friend from high school to temporarily care for her friend's step children. These children also catch on fire. And you know what? That's exactly what this book is about. But it's the details and the character work that really elevated this beyond what I expected.
The story itself is fairly predictable. Based on the pitch, we can see where it's going. Lillian is approached by her rich, wealthy, and powerful high school friend Madison (with whom she has a complicated relationship) to care for Madison's step children over the summer. These children have a strange "condition" that causes them to burst into flame when they experience strong emotions, and attention on these children would harm Madison's husband's image as a powerful Senator. She needs Lillian's help until they figure out what to do with the kids long term. As expected, Lillian develops a close relationship with these kids, opting to see beyond their odd and dangerous condition and learns to love them for who they are, even though the other adults in their lives are more resistant to do so. There were no surprises here, the story played out exactly as expected.
But the care and effort the author put into developing the characters and the complicated relationships between them really enriched this story to be a new favorite. All of the main characters were very well rounded and dynamic. Wilson shied away from writing characters into tropes, expertly fleshing out even the smallest of characters with personality and identity.
Madison could have easily been written as just the cold stepmother who cares only about her family's image, but she also cared deeply for her step children when she had no narrative reason to do so. Jasper, the senator, could have been written as the career driven, egotistical, absent father to his children, but while we see aspects of that, he also cares deeply for all of this children and respects their boundaries. Even small characters, such as the housekeeper Mary, were filled with personality and humor.
Wilson could have told a predictable story with predictable characters and this book would probably still have been good. But with his excellent character and relationship writing, Wilson created a really stand-out story.
