Family Dynamics

We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes is a powerful contemporary novel that explores the inner workings of a family.

Family comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Family can be messy, complicated and unpredictable. There are tensions – and ultimately there is much love.

Within the novel, we meet a family with very different dynamics and needs – a newly single mum of two; a stepdad/grandad; a blood-related dad/grandad; and a dog called Truant who barks a lot! Everyone has different needs. Jojo Moyes explores just what it means to be a family.

There is much grief. The Mum/Grandma died (before the book opened.) “It [grief] never stops… It just never stops.” “You’ll be okay, dear girl.” A character is drowning in grief but one day the sun will shine again. “We all have to move on! Doesn’t mean we think about her any less.” We must not feel guilty for living and beginning to smile again.

We follow a newly single mum as she negotiates the playground politics; dips her toe into the waters of dating; and tries to hold her family together. “You okay?” “Nobody ever asks her that question… Everyone tells her what she should be doing… but nobody ever asks her that simple question.” Sometimes we are so busy spinning plates that everyone, ourselves included, loses sight of us.