The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray

It doesn't matter what we've accomplished in life and what we've done, when we're together there's still that dynamic,' she says. 'When I go home, I am who I was when I was five still, in the dynamic with my siblings. Gray emphasizes that families are complicated, and the bigger the family, the more complicated. So that's sort of how I look at these sisters.'

But, when it all sort of comes down to it, there's still that gang of five. 'In a large family, you all love each other, but different things come up and you get different factions that form, and those are movable factions. 'I think there's something special in that dynamic,' she says. Gray is one of five children, and she has three sisters of her own. 'But at their best, they are soft places to land.' 'I think the bottom line is, you know, families are complicated,' Gray tells Bustle. When Althea's situation reunites them, the three sisters work to untangle their circumstances and their relationships with each other. Meanwhile, the youngest sister, Lillian, has moved into their old family home and stepped into the role of caretaker for Althea's children, as well as for her deceased ex-husband's elderly grandmother.

Viola, the middle sister, has just separated from her wife, and after years of recovery from an eating disorder, has relapsed. The book is told from the points-of-view of Althea and her two younger sisters, Viola, and Lillian. After learning the two are headed to prison for several years, their family deals with the fallout - specifically, the question of what will happen to Althea and Proctor's two teenage daughters, Kim and Baby Vi. The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls begins during the sentencing of restaurant owner Althea and her husband, Proctor, who have just been convicted of running a fraudulent charity after a very public and emotionally-charged trial. In her debut novel, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls, author Anissa Gray explores how, when a woman and her husband are sent to prison, a family falls back on each other in the face of this new hardship, even as they come to terms with the wounds that have shaped them.

There's a lot you can inherit from your family: your name, the shape of your nose, the color of your eyes - as well as pain, secrets, and trauma.

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray