"People Person" by Candice Carty-Williams is a heartfelt exploration of family dynamics and the ties that bind, even when they're fragile. Through Dimple's journey of reconnecting with her half-siblings and estranged father, the novel delves into the complexities of abandonment, self-identity, and the search for belonging. Carty-Williams weaves humor and emotion into this poignant tale of unexpected family connections.

My thoughts: I really enjoyed this book, the writing style and the story. I think the author did a good job in exploring the characters and what it means to be a family.

I just could not get into this book. I am not sure if it was the writing for the storyline but not for me. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher.

Cyril Pennington has always considered himself more of a PEOPLE PERSON (cheerful, social, doesn’t dwell on the bad, finds happiness in the small things) than a father. Therefore he is an absent father. He has five children whom he fathered to four different women. Two children being a week apart from one another. As they become older (teen years) he decides to bring them all together and meet their half siblings. Then Cyril disappears from their lives again. Years later, one daughter, Dimple finds herself in a (pickle) and calls on her siblings. This read becomes about blood and family. How far will you go to protect someone you meet once and ignore at the grocery store? As the siblings intertwine in each of their lives the Bickering between the moms begin to form. Also, and mom and child relationship begin to have exchange of words. Moms protecting their child from the wrath of Cyril. It shows how absent father has effects on each of the five children who are young adults at this point. Thank you NetGalley and Gallery Books for ARC in exchange for my review.

Dimple Pennington is a 30 year old aspiring influencer who in a time of crisis calls on her mostly unknown half siblings to help her out. They do, with reservations and minor grumbling but their plans go awry and they must stick together a bit more than any of them would like. Their father, Cyril, who had five children (at least) with four different women has only dropped in the siblings lives very infrequently, leaving the siblings with very little in common and they may as well be strangers to each other.

As the novel progresses, you get a bizarre take on the siblings sticking together through thick and thin trope coupled with a side of abandonment and as it turns out a healthy dose of generational trauma. Dimple really wants to be a part of her siblings lives and is met with either lackluster or outright hostility when trying to get to know her family but through the course of the book the siblings start to open up to each other and become family, however messed up it may be.

I really enjoyed this book and the author's writing style is pleasant and flows well, however this American needs a British/Jamaican slang dictionary, but not knowing the slang took nothing from the story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the e-book.

I enjoyed this moving story about what it means to be a family. The relationships between these characters were interesting to read about, however, I tend to prefer plot-driven stories to character-driven stories so I found it somewhat slow at parts. I don't read a lot of literary fiction, so that is definitely a "me" problem!

Candice Carty Williams’s best-selling Queenie was inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. In her new book, a family of half-siblings who never really knew each other come together due to a catastrophic event. Forced to reconnect, they will find out even more family secrets in Candice Carty William’s People Person.

One thing is for certain, Candice is going to give us family drama and I’m here for it!! She definitely has a craft for writing about the “messy” parts of life… family, people, and relationships. I enjoyed People Person. I love how she examines the relationships between siblings and writes in a way that the reader can connect with her characters. I had the honor of moderating a book event with Candice and she provided gave some insight on her characters — she assigns astrological signs to all of her characters — Dimple is a Cancer ♋️ and Queenie is a Leo ♌️!! Things make sense now 😅

When Cyril Pennington decides to bring his five (unknown to each other and really him as well) grown children together as a “family”. When Dimple, one of those siblings, needs help the boundaries and understandings of the word “family” will be tested. As with her debut novel this author does a phenomenal job of creating characters and fully developing them, even if you don’t always like them. An engaging read and this author is definitely one to watch.

This wasn’t what I was expecting but I enjoyed the camaraderie of the siblings to help one of their own out.

Cyril Pennington, an absent father, has five children by four different women in Brixton. As adults, the five siblings know of each other, but have few memories of meeting as children. When Dimple, a thirty-something struggling influencer, thinks her on-and-off boyfriend is dead after a slip and fall accident, Dimple calls on her four siblings for help. The dialogue among the adult children sparkles as they each bring their own personalities to the family. People Person will make a great movie and a delightful audio book.

Well written and full of great characters. This author knows how to paint a picture with her words and put you right into the heart of the action.

PEOPLE PERSON has got to have one of the most surprising main narratives I've encountered in awhile. I had a vivid nightmare inspired by reading Chapters 2-4 right before bed, which was not at all what I was expecting after picking up Candice Carty-Williams's sophomore novel.

DImple's a 30-year-old aspiring influencer with few followers, no friends, and an unfortunate on-again-off-again boyfriend. She has four half siblings, but doesn't really know them -- until one day when she calls her older sister for help.

The real star for me is Carty-Williams's writing style; I still believe that if she wrote it, I wanna read it. The novel's an interesting blend of family drama and "madcap plot," with a side of coming of age. Parts of it worked better for me than others, but overall I love a messy family depicted on the page.

Overall the writing of this novel was well-done. I just couldn't relate to any of the characters and felt their fast connection after nearly 15 years to be unbelievable. I found the main protagonist, Dimple, to be annoying and frustrating. And the trauma and abandonment experienced by the five adult children was touched upon but never really addressed.

After reading "Queenie" a few years back, I swore I would read anything that Carty-Williams wrote, and I'm so glad I did. "People Person" is a truly inventive, unique book that I can promise will not seem similar to anything else you have read. The plot is a true roller coaster, but a slow one that develops at a pace where the reader can digest the (sometimes slightly insane) turns it takes. And for that reason, it remains a believable story, even as you can't believe what you're reading.

Carty-Williams has a gift for developing flawed characters who you will truly root for, and this is no exception. No one is perfect here, and yet you feel for all of them because you'll be able to recognize yourself in at least one of the five siblings. Highly recommend.

People Person is a darkly comedic novel of family--that which we're born into, and that which we choose--from Candice Carty-Williams, author of the much-praised Queenie.

Nikisha, Danny, Dimple, Elizabeth and Prynce share very little in common--besides, that is, Cyril Pennington as their (mostly absent) father, who "was not a discriminatory man," having fathered five kids with four women in a five-mile radius in the span of 10 years. Nikisha and Prynce, the oldest and youngest of Cyril's offspring, share a mother; Dimple and Elizabeth boast birthdays just weeks apart in between the two. Danny, the second eldest, once served time in prison and now centers his life on his young toddler; Dimple is a somewhat desperate aspiring influencer with a problematic on-again, off-again boyfriend; Prynce juggles phone calls from any number of women each day; Elizabeth is on track to become a doctor and lives with her long-time girlfriend.

The five meet just once as young adults, when Cyril collects them all in his gleaming gold Jeep for an afternoon at a local park. "This is so none of you ever buck up with each other on road and fall in love or have sex or any of dem tings," Cyril explains to his crew, in what readers will come to recognize as his patently out-of-touch approach to parenting. Each assumes that will be the last they see of one another--until one day Dimple calls Nikisha in a panic after maybe having accidentally killed her boyfriend when he tried to strangle her for breaking up with him. Nikisha subsequently calls the whole bunch, forever binding them together over the pooled blood they must then bleach off of Dimple's mother's kitchen floor before hiding the dead body--which then goes mysteriously missing, creating new problems.

There's good-hearted fun in trying to keep track of each of the Pennington siblings' backstories as their lives smash together in the most unexpected ways. As their stories emerge, so too do their inner selves: who is insecure and who is too cocky, whose laid-back attitude is both a blessing and a curse, who carries their father's abandonment as an open wound and who spurns any measly attempts Cyril makes as a parent. These personalities weave together amid a plot as heartfelt as it is hilarious. Carty-Williams probes hard questions about race, microaggressions and abandonment within a larger, somehow softer story about what makes a family, what makes a friend and what happens when the two are one and the same. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer

Shelf Talker: A heartfelt and hilarious novel of family, by blood and by choice, from the acclaimed author of Queenie.

Candice Carty-Williams' newest novel is funny, sharp, and messy. I enjoyed every page of it.

Here, "messy" refers to the Pennington family: Cyril Pennington, who fathered five (known) children--Nikisha, Danny, Dimple, Lizzie, and Prynce--with four different women. After popping in and out of their lives for years, Cyril brings them all together once in their adolescence to ensure they can recognize and thus not procreate with one another--a pretty apt example of how flighty and erratic a father he has been to them all. The siblings do not stay in touch after this bizarre introduction to one another, and yet when Dimple finds herself in a sticky situation nearly fifteen years later, her brothers and sisters rally to help her even if it means getting caught up in her drama as well.

This novel is about what it means for the Pennington children to learn to know, accept, and love their siblings as adults; to overcome jealousies and judgments they formed after years of hearing about but not really knowing one another; and to accept themselves in the process.

There are truly laugh-out-loud moments. There are also moments when you will be as annoyed and frustrated with individual characters as their siblings are. You will be invested, that's for sure.

I saw another reviewer mention that Dimple was a strange or weak choice to center so much of the story around; she seems to be the most juvenile of her siblings even though she is 30 years old. I admit, I did find this hard at times. (I suspect I'm more of a Lizzie than a Dimple.) As Prynce points out later in the book, Dimple's also the least judgmental and takes people for who they are--something that might have been lost through the perspective of another of the rich characters in this book.

I am definitely a Candice Carty-Williams fan after Queenie and this novel, and I can't wait to read more from her.

I loved her last book and was looking forward to this one. I had a hard time getting into it at first, I put it down. But I picked it up again and finally finished it. I don't think I would have chosen the deadbeat dad as the opener. I did not find him interesting at all and in fact he was kind of off putting. I thought the idea of starting with their meeting was a good idea but I would have rathered it been from a stranger watching the scene instead of the dad. He was so off putting I didn't want read more but powered past it the second time. I thought it was a fun, messy story with a little intrigue and a lot of sibling drama. Everyone really felt like a different person with their own voice which I realize is difficult to pull off. Can't wait to see what she does next! I also think this would make a good mini series.

"People Person" is an of-the-moment peek into the lives of five Black siblings who share a mostly absent rakish father and not much else until a shocking incident brings them together. Set in London, the novel is often amusing, which is a tribute to Candice Carty-Williams' artistry, given that the story touches on serious topics such as intimate partner violence, racism and influencer culture. Carty-Williams, author of "Queenie," juggles multiple storylines with ease and sketches such sharp characters that you will quickly have a distinct mental image of each of the siblings and their Jamaican immigrant father. Recommended.

This book warmed me up, cured my anxiety, swaddled me into a blanket of care. I don't know what part of it did this, but I'm not going to question. I started this book 3 times before I can immerse myself. Just like most of the people, I was coming in with expectations that Queenie set. So I was getting bit anxious when I could pass first 40-50 pages. But once I finally passed that point, it was such a delight

Don't get me wrong, everything happened to Cyril's 5 children was horrible except for them getting together years after their somewhat traumatic first meeting. Imagine, while you were thinking you are an only child; there were 4 other that your dad brought to you. If I were in that position, I'm not sure what I would think: "yay, I'm no longer an only child" or "ewwww, no dad!"

Next time they met was even more traumatic than the first. At least this instance was more connecting (maybe not in the fluffy way you think it should be). Middle one ended up in big trouble and she did one thing a person who remembered that s/he had siblings: call them to clean it up. And what a clean up was that...

This successful sophomore novel is hard to talk about because so much of what I loved about it was in the surprise of the plot...none of which is mentioned in the publisher's synopsis. People Person is the story of a father and his 5 children who were conceived with 4 different mothers in a series of one night stands. After having been estranged for years, they finally meet at a park only to become estranged yet again. Years later, when 2 of his daughters are 30, the 5 siblings are brought together again through an unfortunate event. The writing made this book for me. Carty-Williams writes about serious issues in a lighthearted way that's full of dry humor. The crux of this story is five half siblings who do not know each other, but are thrust into a situation that immediately bonds them. For better or for worse. The story explores questions of obligation to family, especially family you were not previously close to. And, there is one book that's an obvious comparison for People Person, but it would too spoiler-y to name it.