The holidays are on their way, and nothing says holidays like mandatory time with family! 

Sometimes your family is your rock and sometimes your family is the rock that is chained to your leg after you are thrown in the ocean. Usually they are something in between. I put together a booklist about families; the good, the bad, the creepy and the homicidal. Consider it my holiday gift to you. 

How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents by Julia Alvarez

In the 1960s, the four lively Garcia sisters move from the Dominican Republic to New York City. Even with their language and cultural barriers, the sisters find a way to rebel against their very traditional parents. 

King of the Screwups by K.L. Going

After disappointing his hard to please father for the last time, Liam is sent to live in a trailer park with his gay, glam-rock loving uncle.

For Keeps by Natasha Friend

Josie and her mother have been a team for all of her 16 years. Until one day news spreads that her mother's high school boyfriend, Josie's father, is coming back to town.  Soon old secrets come to light and Josie's relationship with her mother is strained. 

Born to Rock by Gordon Korman

Conservative and mild mannered Leo learns that is real father is none other than King Maggot, lead singer of the legendary punk rock group Purge. 

My Mother the Cheerleader by Robert Sharenow

After her school becomes desegregated, 13 year old Louise is pulled out of school and her mother joins the Cheerleaders, a group that meets to heckle six-year old Ruby Bridges as she tries to go to school.  Louise doesn't feel right about this but there is no one to listen, until an out-of-towner gets a room in her mother's boarding house. 

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

Parents will do just about anything to save their children's lives, even when they shouldn't.

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

To get away from her pregnant stepmother in New York City, fifteen-year-old Daisy goes to England to stay with her aunt and cousins, with whom she instantly bonds, but soon war breaks out and rips apart the family while devastating the land.

Runaways (series)

A group of very different teenagers find common ground when they find out that their parents are actually supervillians and that they have super-powers of their own.

Kendra by Coe Booth

Kendra longs for a relationship with her mother, who at the age of 14 left her to live with her grandmother.  After Kendra's 14th birthday her mother comes back but their relationship is far from easy.

The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs by Jack Gantos

Ivy feels a strange connection with the creepy Rumbaugh twins.  All she knows is that they love taxidermy and they really really love their mother, and so does she.  Soon Ivy feels their curse taking over the lives of her and her mother.  Twisted!