The Weirds have always been a little off, but not one of them ever suspected that they'd been cursed by their grandmother.
At the moment of the births of her five grandchildren Annie Weird gave each one a special power. Richard, the oldest, always keeps safe; Abba always has hope; Lucy is never lost and Kent can beat anyone in a fight. As for Angie, she always forgives, instantly. But over the years these so-called blessings ended up ruining their lives.
Now Annie is dying and she has one last task for Angie: gather her far-flung brothers and sisters and assemble them in her grandmother's hospital room so that at the moment of her death, she can lift these blessings-turned-curses. And Angie has just two weeks to do it.
What follows is a quest like no other, tearing up highways and racing through airports, from a sketchy Winnipeg nursing home to the small island kingdom of Upliffta, from the family's crumbling ancestral Toronto mansion to a motel called Love. And there is also the search for the answer to the greatest family mystery of all: what really happened to their father, whose maroon Maserati was fished out of a lake so many years ago?
Born Weird
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FINALIST 2013 – Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour
“Kaufman’s stories are whimsical, gentle and reassuringly upbeat…. This novel rests firmly on a vision of hope and imagination.”
—Patricia Dawn Robertson, The Globe and Mail
“Fantastical, quirky, full of wordplay, and laugh-out-loud funny…. With humour, sensitivity and insight, Kaufman reveals how we all spin fantasies to survive the setbacks in life. He creates extraordinary, unreal scenarios in which he is able [to] poignantly illuminate the very real pitfalls and pain of human connection.”
—The Chronicle Herald
“Kaufman has the enviable ability to zing his writing with humor. I often found myself laughing aloud at the Weirds’ fractured reality and the silliness that ensues.”
—Jennifer Hunter, Toronto Star
“With razor-sharp wit and…quirky characters, Andrew Kaufman’s novel conveys the importance of family through a delightful modern-day quest.”
—Chatelaine
“Spending time with the Weirds is enjoyable, and Kaufman has a gift for quick repartee among his characters.”
—Quill & Quire
About the Author
ANDREW KAUFMAN is the author of All My Friends Are Superheroes, The Tiny Wife, and The Waterproof Bible. He was born in Wingham, Ontario, the birthplace of Alice Munro, making him the second-best writer from a town of 3000. His work has been published in 11 countries and translated into 9 languages. He is also an accomplished screenwriter and lives in Toronto with his wife and their 2 children.
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Most helpful customer reviews
By vivalakt
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Born Weird is... Weird. I know, I know I'm ridiculously original with saying that. So clever, people should pay me to write this stuff. So I knew nothing about Kaufman, other than I had heard about him vaguely at the only Toronto literary thing I've been to literally in 3 years when someone told me he was funny.
The thing is, everyone's family is weird. We all say that, right? I'm pretty sure we all also say "ha ha you think your family is weird, but compared to mine they're normal". Well folks, we're basically all mad here, and that's kind of the core of Born Weird. Kaufman drags a family who was blessing/cursed/blursed by The Shark (aka Grandma, and really, who's Grandma wasn't a shark?) so they could survive being raised by their too young kind of crazy parents. Grandma Weird (ok, so to clarify, really, their last name is Weird) decided the blessings-turned-curses need to go, and says she'll get rid of them on the day she dies and her (youngest?) grandchild Angie proceeds to go on a mildly mad-cap journey across Canada and randomly Upliffta (it's a thing. If I explain why it's a thing, I'll ruin the thing, so I'm not ging to explain the thing) to gather her siblings so they will no longer be cursed. Obviously, they all show up, or the curses don't get lifted. It's a fairy tale guys.
So also hilariously, Goodreads has this on the Fantasy shelf. That confuses me a little, but it does have a princess so I guess I'm ok with it. The book is strange, quirky and full of family drama. It's a quick read, and admittedly adorable (though I kind of feel the author will hate I called it adorable) even if it is a little confusing.
*** I was sent this book by the publisher - all opinions are my own.
The thing is, everyone's family is weird. We all say that, right? I'm pretty sure we all also say "ha ha you think your family is weird, but compared to mine they're normal". Well folks, we're basically all mad here, and that's kind of the core of Born Weird. Kaufman drags a family who was blessing/cursed/blursed by The Shark (aka Grandma, and really, who's Grandma wasn't a shark?) so they could survive being raised by their too young kind of crazy parents. Grandma Weird (ok, so to clarify, really, their last name is Weird) decided the blessings-turned-curses need to go, and says she'll get rid of them on the day she dies and her (youngest?) grandchild Angie proceeds to go on a mildly mad-cap journey across Canada and randomly Upliffta (it's a thing. If I explain why it's a thing, I'll ruin the thing, so I'm not ging to explain the thing) to gather her siblings so they will no longer be cursed. Obviously, they all show up, or the curses don't get lifted. It's a fairy tale guys.
So also hilariously, Goodreads has this on the Fantasy shelf. That confuses me a little, but it does have a princess so I guess I'm ok with it. The book is strange, quirky and full of family drama. It's a quick read, and admittedly adorable (though I kind of feel the author will hate I called it adorable) even if it is a little confusing.
*** I was sent this book by the publisher - all opinions are my own.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.3 out of 5 stars
3 reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Book Weird!
Mar 4 2013
By Lincs Reader
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
Born Weird by Andrew Kaufman was published by The Friday Project (an imprint of Harper Collins) on 3 January 2012.
I discovered Andrw Kaufman's writing back in January of this year when I read and reviewed his wonderful novella The Tiny Wife I startled myself, and some of my friends by praising a story that could be classed as magical realism - a genre that usually leaves me cold.
I am startled once more! Born Weird is most certainly magical realism, and is a full-length novel, and I loved every page. I'm a little perplexed, a little bemused and fairly confused about it all to be honest; it's a case of thinking 'what the hell was that all about?', but I really really enjoyed it.
Born Weird is book weird! Five brothers and sisters, all with a blursing. What in God's name is a blursing? Well, each of the siblings were given a blessing by their Grandmother when they were born, these blessings turned out to be more curse-like. So, a cross between a blessing and a curse - a blursing!
Grandmother Weird is going to die, on her birthday, and has decided that she will remove these blessings on her death-bed. Angie is given the task of making sure that all the brothers and sisters arrive together, on time before Grandmother dies.
And so the reader is plunged into the weird and wonderful world of the Weird family and travels along with them on their remarkable journey. Along the way their past history is revealed and each character is introduced, along with their dead (or is he?) father and their totally bonkers mother.
I giggled and spluttered and gasped as this remarkable story unfolded, often wondering where on earth it was heading, but always eager to turn the page to find out a little bit more.
If you enjoy quirky and strange, and of course, weird, you will love this tale of family drama and life journeys
I discovered Andrw Kaufman's writing back in January of this year when I read and reviewed his wonderful novella The Tiny Wife I startled myself, and some of my friends by praising a story that could be classed as magical realism - a genre that usually leaves me cold.
I am startled once more! Born Weird is most certainly magical realism, and is a full-length novel, and I loved every page. I'm a little perplexed, a little bemused and fairly confused about it all to be honest; it's a case of thinking 'what the hell was that all about?', but I really really enjoyed it.
Born Weird is book weird! Five brothers and sisters, all with a blursing. What in God's name is a blursing? Well, each of the siblings were given a blessing by their Grandmother when they were born, these blessings turned out to be more curse-like. So, a cross between a blessing and a curse - a blursing!
Grandmother Weird is going to die, on her birthday, and has decided that she will remove these blessings on her death-bed. Angie is given the task of making sure that all the brothers and sisters arrive together, on time before Grandmother dies.
And so the reader is plunged into the weird and wonderful world of the Weird family and travels along with them on their remarkable journey. Along the way their past history is revealed and each character is introduced, along with their dead (or is he?) father and their totally bonkers mother.
I giggled and spluttered and gasped as this remarkable story unfolded, often wondering where on earth it was heading, but always eager to turn the page to find out a little bit more.
If you enjoy quirky and strange, and of course, weird, you will love this tale of family drama and life journeys
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great!
Feb 10 2013
By Summer72
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Fresh, whitty, fast read. Emotionally refreshing! I loved that the memories & emotions the character shared were from their childhood hearts.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Book Review from The Bibliotaphe Closet: Born Weird by Andrew Kaufman
Jan 11 2013
By Zara Garcia-Alvarez
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Born Weird by Andrew Kaufman is a light-hearted fictional tale about a creative and quirky family named The Weirds after a misspelling of the original name of their ancestor, Sterling D. Wyird, in the process of emigrating from England to Canada.
It's a story of the grown children's quest to gather themselves together to meet their grandmother who they all cynically refer to as the Shark, before the deadline of her own prophetic death.
Why must they do this? Because much to what they've guessed about themselves, their grandmother reaffirmed their beliefs about being "cursed" with special gifts they each received from her and promises to lift each curse upon her death.
Though the premise of the story sounds absurd, its telling is easily readable and entertaining enough for the reader to be drawn into its fantastical plausibility.
The Weird Family consists of intelligent, witty, and creative, imaginative siblings, though different in personality, are all bound by the sentimental act of building a model city together as children from cardboard boxes and their vivid imagination--and also by the trauma of an absent father who is tragically killed in a car accident.
The five siblings--Richard, is given the ability to keep himself safe; Lucy, is never lost; Abba, never loses hope; Angie, is given the power to forgive anyone, anytime; and Kent, has powerful physical strength in order to defend himself.
And while these "gifts" appear as blessings, bound by the absolutism of them, the bearers are hindered and the gifts become a curse.
To read the rest of my review, you're more than welcome to visit my blog, The Bibliotaphe Closet:
[...]
Thanks,
Zara
The Bibliotaphe Closet
[...]
It's a story of the grown children's quest to gather themselves together to meet their grandmother who they all cynically refer to as the Shark, before the deadline of her own prophetic death.
Why must they do this? Because much to what they've guessed about themselves, their grandmother reaffirmed their beliefs about being "cursed" with special gifts they each received from her and promises to lift each curse upon her death.
Though the premise of the story sounds absurd, its telling is easily readable and entertaining enough for the reader to be drawn into its fantastical plausibility.
The Weird Family consists of intelligent, witty, and creative, imaginative siblings, though different in personality, are all bound by the sentimental act of building a model city together as children from cardboard boxes and their vivid imagination--and also by the trauma of an absent father who is tragically killed in a car accident.
The five siblings--Richard, is given the ability to keep himself safe; Lucy, is never lost; Abba, never loses hope; Angie, is given the power to forgive anyone, anytime; and Kent, has powerful physical strength in order to defend himself.
And while these "gifts" appear as blessings, bound by the absolutism of them, the bearers are hindered and the gifts become a curse.
To read the rest of my review, you're more than welcome to visit my blog, The Bibliotaphe Closet:
[...]
Thanks,
Zara
The Bibliotaphe Closet
[...]
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 3 reviews
4.3 out of 5 stars
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