LIFE

Sometimes, it's easy to feel like your family is the craziest one that has ever lived—maybe you have older siblings that constantly argue, or overprotective parents, or a little sister that throws a daily temper tantrum. Hopefully, even if life gets hectic at times, your household doesn't come close to matching the dysfunction of these five, wacky families from different books...

5. The Spellman family from The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz
The hilarious, nosy Spellman family runs their own private investigation firm, and every member is expected to participate, no matter how old. Basically, if you're a Spellman, you can expect the entire family to know all of your secrets. Witty, sarcastic, older daughter Izzy constantly clashes with her straight-laced brother, who prefers to enter a building through the door rather than the window. Adding to the mix is their rebellious teenaged sister, Rae, their wacky uncle and their well-meaning helicopter parents.

4. The Wormwood family from Matilda by Roald Dahl
Matilda Wormwood is a brilliant girl, teaching herself to read on her own and conquering any math problem put in front of her. While most parents would be thrilled with such a gifted daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood treat Matilda terribly, and become very angry with her for her love of learning. Matilda decides to prank and outsmart them, glueing her father's hat to his head and dying his hair bleach blonde. Luckily, she gets her way in the end, leaving to form a much less dysfunctional family of her own. 

3. The Douglas family from Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell  
16-year-old Eleanor is the oldest of five children and it's often up to her to take care of her little brothers and sisters. All five share a bedroom, and have to work together to protect themselves from their violent stepfather. Their home environment is claustrophobic and chaotic, but the deep love that Eleanor feels for her siblings is apparent throughout this story of one fam's strength and resilience in the face of crazy circumstances.

2. The Fox family from Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple
Bee lives in Seattle with her tech giant father and passionate, architect mother, Bernadette who rarely leaves the house, and handles most of her business through an assistant she has never even met. Both Bernadette and Bee are obsessed with Antarctica, have fabulous senses of humor and wreak havoc in their judgmental private school community. Bee's dad, a Microsoft executive, watches their antics with amusement, as well as occasional confusion. When Bernadette suddenly disappears, Bee gathers every document possible to try and figure out where she's gone, using both detective skills and her remarkable brain to solve the mystery.

1. The Weasley family from The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
The motley crew of Weasleys are obviously the clear winners. They have a fierce, protective mother that spends half her time yelling at them and the other half saving their lives. They have a father obsessed with gadgets and gizmos, one brother that was attacked by a werewolf and another that works with dragons! Then come the class clowns, Fred and George, who created their own prank empire, growing from delinquents to bona fide businessmen. And of course Ron, who basically helped Harry save the world.

How does your family compare? Share your stories in the comments! 

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Photo credit: Wikia.

by Bridget Curley | 5/4/2017