So here's another belated book review for you. This is for All Adults Here by Emma Straub. This was May's Read With Jenna selection and I actually liked this. It was a little slow to get into but I really enjoyed it in the end. It was a little lighter and fluffier than a lot of the Read With Jenna book picks which was exactly what I needed with the current state of world affairs and with the disappointment of Year One. I gave this a 4/5 on GoodReads, maybe more like a 3.5. It was a nice solid book but one I probably won't be rereading despite the fact that I own the Kindle version of this. As always there may be some spoilers in the rest of the review.
So All Adults Here is an adult contemporary family drama/comedy. It revolves around the Strick family headed by widowed matriarch Astrid Strick. Astrid has three children: two sons and a daughter and three grandchildren. It starts when Astrid witnesses a woman get hit by a bus in the middle of town and she suddenly realizes that she hasn't been the woman she wants to be and she hasn't been the mother to her children she wants to be. Astrid's thirteen year old granddaughter (her youngest son's daughter) is sent to live with her from New York City after a scandal drove her from her school in the city. Astrid's oldest son seems unhappy with his own family and judges himself on a scale that no one else seems to understand. Astrid's daughter is pregnant via sperm donor, making the same mistakes she's been making since high school. The weekend after Astrid's granddaughter comes (also the weekend after she witnesses the accident) Astrid invites her girlfriend over for the family brunch and comes out of the closet as a bisexual woman. Throughout the story you find that the pregnant daughter is having an affair with her now-married high school boyfriend, an affair that's been going on since college. The oldest son, who had been caught kissing another boy as a teen by the dead woman, and is unhappy with his life reveals that his conflict with his mother wasn't about the incident with the boy but rather when he overheard his parents talking about his law school prospects one summer while he was in college and derailed his previous plans because of their harsh words. The granddaughter was sent to live with her grandmother for telling trusted adults about her friend who was dating and meeting a much older man (in his 20s). She becomes friends with the son of a friend of her Aunt's who turns out to be transgender and who she supports as he publicly becomes the girl she always was privately. The book explores family relationships and small town relationships (the granddaughter's high school homeroom teacher is her Aunt's best friend and her rival at school is the daughter of her aunt's affair partner). The book had a happy ending with Astrid marrying her girlfriend, the daughter having her baby, and the son coming to terms with his life and his relationships with his parents.
It was a nice book and I really enjoyed the small town setting and the characters. As someone from a small town myself I really related to the relationships they had to other people in the town. I think the book was mostly about being true to yourself and being brave enough to embrace yourself and share yourself with others. It was a nice little story with a good ending and I gave it a 4/5 rating. It was refreshing after the disappointment of the previous book.
Happy Reading!
Richelle and Emma
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