* Publication date 5/5/202 by Riverhead Books * I received a free digital copy of the book via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review This was a buddy read with my friend Marialyce, and it was one neither of us much enjoyed. I struggled to finish and should have followed my instincts to DNF. This was good writing and there was a potential lovely message that got lost among the sheer number of issues addressed, with nothing to drive the plot forward. I love a character-driven, multi-generational tale with complicated familial relationships, but the characters quickly became caricatures and the story began to feel like a farcical fairy tale. The result is none are treated with the depth they deserved, and the message is diluted.Īfter a while, boredom set in, as the story meanders along with no plot. Unfortunately, the author has a kitchen sink approach to the story and throws in every single hot button social issue she can think of: abuse, bullying, online pedophilia, lesbianism, gender identity, bisexuality, transgender, adultery, artificial insemination, etc, etc.
We are all worthy of forgiveness, acceptance and love. I love the theme that everyone is stumbling through life trying to get along as best we can, sometimes getting it right, sometimes getting it wrong.
The writing is engaging with wonderful nuggets of wisdom, which I found myself frequently highlighting. The children, of course, all have problems and secrets of their own. It’s time to reveal her secrets to her adult children. 68-year-old Astrid witnesses the accidental death of an acquaintance, decides life is short, and it's time to right wrongs. The book starts out with quirky, delightful characters. In All Adults Here, Emma Straub’s unique alchemy of wisdom, humor, and insight come together in a deeply satisfying story about adult siblings, aging parents, high school boyfriends, middle school mean girls, the lifelong effects of birth order, and all the other things that follow us into adulthood, whether we like them to or not. But who gets to decide, so many years later, which long-ago lapses were the ones that mattered? Who decides which apologies really count? It might be that only Astrid’s thirteen-year-old granddaughter and her new friend really understand the courage it takes to tell the truth to the people you love the most. And her eldest seems to measure his adult life according to standards no one else shares. Her daughter is intentionally pregnant yet struggling to give up her own adolescence.
But to what consequence?Īstrid’s youngest son is drifting and unfocused, making parenting mistakes of his own. Suddenly, Astrid realizes she was not quite the parent she thought she’d been to her three, now-grown children. When Astrid Strick witnesses a school bus accident in the center of town, it jostles loose a repressed memory from her young parenting days decades earlier.
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