Zibby Mag

By Sherri Puzey & Emily Sharp

Sherri

Cyril Pennington sees himself “as more of a people person than a father,” which is unfortunate for his five children. Though he introduces the half-siblings to each other rather impulsively one day, his kids have limited interactions with one another for the next 16 years. A crisis prompts 30-year-old Dimple to reach out to her oldest, estranged sister for help. Though they’ve never liked each other (or each other’s mothers, for that matter), the five half-siblings learn to love one another and bond in unexpected and transformative ways over the course of the story. Candice Carty-Williams doesn’t shy away from addressing contemporary issues of social media, toxic relationships, race, and mental health, but she never does so in a heavy-handed way.

I love novels that center on sibling dynamics (The Dutch House, Commonwealth, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance, and Marrying the Ketchups immediately come to mind), but often these novels fall on the more literary end of the spectrum. People Person, however, explores the sibling bond in a slightly more accessible, informal way. While I personally prefer the character depth and prose of the more literary works in this sibling relationships sub-genre, People Person hits just the right notes of humor and heart in this vibrant story of modern familial bonds.

Emily

Cyril Pennington’s five children—Nikisha, Danny, Dimple, Lizzie, and Prynce—are such unique individuals who are pulled together and forced to trust one another after Dimple finds herself in the middle of a crisis. As they navigate their way through one another’s personalities, the strong presence of their mothers, the infrequent appearances of their untrustworthy and mercurial father, and the consequences of their own actions, the five Pennington children grow as people and as a family—however dysfunctional they may be.

I am a new audiobook convert and superficial enough to say I love listening to British books. As I listened to Danielle Vitalis read Candice Carty-Williams’ words, I felt the characters truly come to life. Carty-Williams has such a delightfully strong sense of humor and a knack for accurately portraying characters at the weirdest moments of their lives (see also: her 2019 smash hit, Queenie). Although the tone of the book remained relatively light, the amount of heart in People Person certainly packs a strong punch and I’ll be thinking of these characters—with whom I’ve formed parasocial friendships—for a while.

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Sherri Puzey is an editor at Zibby Mag and a marketing manager at Zibby Books. You can find her book reviews and recommendations @whatsherrireads

Emily Sharp is the Associate Editor of Zibby Mag and the Associate Acquisitions Editor at Zibby Books. She writes and manages a weekly political Substack newsletter called Emily For President but most importantly, she’s trying to be funnier on Twitter.