Having read most of the very good Shari Lapena books, I went back to the beginning.

Things Go Flying (2007) was her 1st novel. Very original and interesting. Lapena was a terrific author right from the start.

Harold Walker, desperately average, is in the throes of a mid-life depression.

His wife Audrey clings to an illusory sense of control—over their home, their teenaged sons, Dylan and John, and her own explosive secret.

The death of a long-estranged friend triggers a series of perturbing events that catapults Harold out of his La-Z-Boy and throws the household into chaos.

Things go flying when the dead begin communicating with Harold, leaving Audrey’s secret vulnerable to exposure, and Harold more confused than ever.

What these familiar voices from the afterlife ultimately reveal is just how little the living know about living.

“Things Go Flying is just plain fun, a continual giggle. Hilarious, fast-paced and irreverent, it is about a modern dysfunctional family that could be yours or mine—but thank goodness it is not.” —Owen Sound Sun Times

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I immediately started on Lapena’s 2nd book, Happiness Economics (2011), but got bored about half way through.

I couldn’t cheer any of the characters.