The Adult is not a book I immediately fell in love with. It took me awhile to warm to the story and its characters but when I did, all I saw was a beautiful, quiet story that resonated with me.
I saw pieces of myself in Natalie. In how scared, lost and confused she could be, and in how she would react to the events happening to her and around her.
This story will now hold a special place in my heart. I can’t wait to see what Bronwyn Fischer does next.

Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada and Netgalley for providing me of an arc in exchange for a honest review.

Thank you so much to Penguin Random House Canada and NetGalley for this galley!

The Adult reads, to me, as a queer loss of innocence story rather than a romantic whirlwind. Our main character Natalie has made the huge choice to come to Toronto for university, but feels lost in all other ways. Her desperation for direction but fear of appearing to need it keeps her reserved and confused about her new friends, despite imitating them to try on being a young woman.

Natalie's connection to Nora holds an inevitable feeling, a fated meeting between student and teacher, but not in the way I expected. Natalie’s view of their relationship is that of a teenager - focused only on the intensity of how she feels for Nora, Natalie will do anything to stay with her. Fischer’s depiction of Natalie is careful to walk the line of believable naiveté, and we as readers feel the pit in our stomachs much earlier than Natalie does. Natalie is comfortable with, even grateful that Nora is older, and quantifying their age gap is of little concern to her. Natalie believes in the power of their love wholeheartedly on the basis of its sweetness, making all bumps in the road, such as Nora’s obvious secret keeping or sudden aloofness, distractions at worst.

I enjoyed so much about this novel - I love a Toronto story, and a university finding-yourself story, and a queer story. The Adult is a lovely mix of these things but manages to cover more - familial growing pains, sacrifices of self to maintain friendships, the pressure of constructing your personhood. I found that this story was straightforward in its goal to capture how painful becoming an adult is, but captured how complex those transformative times feel in the moment. At first, I thought I would want more of Natalie’s grappling with the ethics/deceit in her relationship to Nora, but in the end I like that Natalie stays true to character in her need for time to reflect, instead grieving the experience emotionally. Natalie feels so real that I found myself wondering if it was at all auto-fictional, which, to me, is the mark of a truly believable main character. Nora and Jones, in some moments, did not feel as real as Natalie, but I can see that, through Natalie’s eyes, their actions and motivations could only have very black and white reasoning.

It is also compulsively readable and fast paced, despite the beauty of Fischer’s prose. I kept pausing to tell my partner “Guess what just happened -” to the very end. It reminded me of We Do What We Do In The Dark by Michelle Hart in themes, and will be recommending it to folks who enjoyed that one with the note that this one has a lighter, more hopeful feeling. Looking forward to reading other thoughts on this one, and Bronwyn Fischer will definitely be an author to watch in the future for me!

The Adult By Bronwyn Fischer is a beautifully written coming of age story about first loves and finding your place in the world.
18 year old Natalie is new to the city and attending university in Toronto. Enter Nora, the beautiful older woman who's about to turn Natalie's entire world upside down.
The way this story is told is heartbreaking and relatable and will be talked about for years to come.
Please find attached my spoiler free youtube review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3ofZ3RPC1A&feature=youtu.be

<i>This review is for a copy I received from NetGalley and the publisher.</i>

A strong and intimate debut, <i>The Adult</i> is the story of Natalie, a young woman who moves to Toronto from a small town in North Ontario, to attend U of T. She's unsure, unformed and very delicately trying to adapt to meeting new people, attending her classes and learning about who she is away from her family - does she like alcohol and if so, what kinds, does she know what she wants to do with her life (no), can she live truthfully amongst people (also no) and what of her childhood will she have to leave behind in order to become who she truly is?

Along the way, Natalie meets Nora in a park, and they strike up an easy acquaintanceship. I found the method of their meeting to be odd - one of the only weak parts of the book. But their relationship is interesting from the get-go, mostly due to the power dynamics. There's a substantial age difference that is never elucidated but I gathered to be at least 20 years. Furthermore, Nora is a successful grant writer, lives in an eclectic home and seems vaguely sure of herself in a way that Natalie is fascinated by.

Soon, they are romantically involved, and for Natalie - her world is cracked open - she can't believe what she's uncovered, and can't believe that this is now her life. She's falling in love. While, Nora... well, she has other plans.

The cast of characters are delightful (hopeless Natalie, who is lost in a sea of her own desire and confusion, the irascible Clara, driven Rachel, the steadfast and steadying Jones, and Nora herself - who is somewhat of a blank slate to the reader - she is whoever Natalie decides she is - the pinnacle of mystery and agony and wanting) and the writing is superb and full of deliciousness that is to be savoured. Some of the metaphors and turns of phrase had me pausing to read them over and over again.

I can't wait to see what Bronwyn Fischer does next. May she continue to explore the lives of women for years to come!

I find this book difficult to assign a star rating to, because reading it gave me an unpleasant, heavy feeling most of the time - but perhaps that's because the writing is so skillful I was feeling the main character's low-level depression, self-loathing, and young adult angst? I will say there's definitely lots of material here for book club discussion!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book in advance of publication in exchange for my honest review.

Something in this book sliced something in me. The way Fischer writes about the isolation of growing up feels deeply true and I will be recommending it to so many of my friends.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the e-ARC!

Natalie is 18.⁠ She's lived a quiet life in a rural community where her parents own a lodge and now she is starting a new life at the University of Toronto. Natalie is sweet, awkward and tremendously self-conscious. ⁠She's like a newly born foal - all awkward angles and shaky steps forward. ⁠
⁠
It's that time in a person's life when just pushing a cart down the grocery store aisles feels adult. The time when you try on personas like costumes and struggle to find something original to say. ⁠
⁠
Natalie meets Nora, a woman 'much older' than herself. They begin a relationship - a consuming relationship. Not only does Natalie want to be WITH Nora but she wants to BE Nora - be someone who she feels is charming, confident, mature and successful. ⁠
⁠
As a mum of two 19-year-olds, my heart went out to Natalie and I was so angry at Nora. But nothing is black and white in The Adult and I haven't even touched on the other aspects of Natalie's uni life. ⁠

⁠Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada and @netgalley for this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is the debut, coming-of-age novel you should read this spring!

As eighteen-year-old Natalie is trying to find her footing at her Toronto university, she meets an older woman. She finds herself in an all-consuming relationship that pulls her off campus and away from the typical first-year experiences. Natalie grapples with how to handle this version of adulthood with someone who holds more cards than she knows.

What I liked most about this novel was how Fischer held back, giving the reader just enough for them to feel like they were always perched on the edge of their seat leaning forward to catch the next word. Keeping that energy through a slow, character-driven novel is commendable. Though the writing was restrained, Natalie's character came to life. As readers, we stumbled with her through the awkwardness that comes with figuring out who you are and what to expect from an adult relationship. Fischer's writing was beautiful at the sentence level, bringing new life to things we've heard described a million mundane ways.

I love how this is a queer coming-of-age story that wasn't centered around discovering one's sexuality. It was refreshing to read a book that centers the queer experience in a way that just is, rather than being performative. I also like how she captured the transient nature of the first year of university, which can feel like a piece of the puzzle that just never quite fits right no matter how you try to smooth it into the bigger picture.

A common complaint for me when it comes to the depiction of affairs is that the reader really needs to understand the magnetism of this person, or people, in order to understand the motivation to begin the relationship. I would have liked to see Nora's character developed further to really understand why Natalie was drawn to her so immediately.

Overall, this novel did for me what other, similar novels being released this year did not. It kept me engaged, wanting to pick it up and continue flipping pages with no mind to the page number and how close I was to being done.

If you enjoy coming-of-age stories, this is definitely one you'll want to pick up when it is released on May 23rd!

Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Random House Canada, and Bronwyn Fischer for this ARC. It was a pleasure to read and review.

A book that really captures what it feels like to move away from home for the first time and try to understand who you are, and who you might be.
This book really grabs that feeling and holds onto it.

It takes you back to when you were growing and learning and trying to figure out how others see you.
It is hard to be new anywhere, especially when you leave your small town in Ontario to go to the big city (Toronto) to be a student at university.

Our narrator, Natalie, is trying to find herself, discover who she is and what she likes and finding the space to be, when she starts a relationship with an older women, who is holding some secrets from her.
A great exploration of trying to find yourself when you are really not sure who you are or who you are supposed to be.
The prose is delicate and meaningful.

A stellar debut. The Adult does an excellent job bringing representation to queer coming of age in a way that's both authentic and unique. I enjoyed that despite only being 18, Natalie has a strong understanding of her own sexuality and grows as the story progresses. The focus of the novel is on Natalie navigating her relationship with Nora, an older woman, which teeters on obsession and cleanly partitions her life in two. Growing up in a small town in Northern Ontario with relatively few friends results in Natalie being noticeably naive and immature, which is a key theme throughout.

Bronwyn Fischer does a good job encapsulating the transience associated with navigating first year University, and the fleeting connections that come along with finding your place. The world feels lived in, with ancillary characters acting as more than just literary devices to propel the story forward. Natalie's constant introspection helps the narrative feel coherent and tangible, and really does reflect some of the anxieties that accompany first love (particularly as a queer person). The information you receive is very much filtered and solely from Natalie's perspective, which helps create suspense and made this hard to put down.

The direction the story goes is relatively expected, but the journey to get there is satisfying enough that I didn't have too much issue with this. However, the time skips feel relatively jarring and the story pivots fairly noticeably in the middle; the beginning focuses heavily on Natalie's experiences in University and the dichotomy of that with her budding relationship with Nora. By the latter half of the novel, the focus is almost exclusively on Nora. While this is likely intended from a narrative point of view, it results in several loose threads and unsatisfying conclusions to some relationships between Natalie and Sam, her parents, and Clara.

Overall, I enjoyed this very much and think it brings necessary and realistic representation to queer coming of age, particularly among lesbians. The latter half is slightly weaker than the beginning (hence the 4 star rating), but I certainly would not hesitate to recommend this to others.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Natalie is a freshman at U of T, the first time away from home, questioning everything. Who is she? How is she perceived? From a small community in near Lake Nipissing, she is afloat in her dorm, in the big city, making new friends and trying to discover who she is. One day in the park, she meets Nora, a woman seven years her senior, a conduit for Natalie’s sexual and emotional awakening. This is a novel of transformation of self, love and betrayal and the resilience of a young woman. This was a hard book to put down. I loved her naivete, her internal dialogue, and growth of the young protagonist. 5 out of 5.

The novel follows Natalie as she moves from a small town in northern Ontario to Toronto for university. The reader accompanies Natalie as she tries to navigate school, friendship, and relationships. At the beginning of the school year, Natalie is approached in a park by an older woman. Allured by her charm and self-assuredness, Natalie quickly falls for her, and the two begin a relationship. We then follow Natalie for the rest of the novel as she tries to carve out her own identity and find her footing in a new city while becoming increasingly co-dependent with her older partner.

The book was at once devastating and beautiful and I found myself becoming invested in Natalie's life and rooting for her success. I highly recommend this book to those who love sad girl fiction and authors like Sally Rooney, Elena Ferrante, Elif Batuman, Lilly King, and Melissa Broder.

In all, this book has everything - self-discovery, queer love, female friendships, mommy issues, and the Northrop Frye statue outside of the E.J. Pratt Library.

I read about 10% of this book and could go no further. I find the writing to be very cheesy. I do not feel the main character is relatable. She is very annoying and very young. I understand that is the concept for this book, but I just could go no further. We met the "adult" and I was not connected to her either. Its just a no for me.

It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the book's subject matters & those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on fertility, pregnancy, fertility treatments, bigotry, stalking, & others.

The cold city streets of the unknown enthuse when a walker stumbles. The Canadian seasons foster the winds, rains, & humid atmosphere making the plaques of morbid windows sleeking the streets of big cities all the more ominous; we are never certain of the world we are walking into from the comfort of our home. These elements oozed the tension from an otherwise tedious story that brings the reader back to themselves. Yet, somewhere between blooming memories once suffocated to the corners of one’s mind comes the gentle reminder that this story is about Natalie. The cooing of her anxieties maroons the reader once more into the gentle rocking tides of the pages as they sway out of the hand, then in.

Natalie is young, as we all were once. I found her to be an entirely strange person to read about because she was absolutely a person I recognize as myself. That is not to say that a twin flame guides us through life. Rather, Natalie is as morbidly self-loathing, destructive, uncertain, & intelligent, as the reader. Because Natalie is a person all to her own it is easy to find characteristics of ourselves to draw us to her—we want to see her succeed & we offer her our friendship as a token of our support.

Her inner monologue sees the reader tense their shoulders & breathe sighs reflective of their nerves. Why doesn’t Natalie make the right decision? We have all been at crossroads placed haphazardly through life & we have all made less than insightful choices. That is part of being human. Natalie’s choices are not revolutionary in their destruction of her person, rather they are so alike to our own, we are once again faced with ourselves.

When Natalie leaves her small town in Northern Ontario to attend the University of Toronto she is desperately unsure if she has made the right decision. She is plagued with the figures of her parents who, up until this point, cultivated a life for her that saw her clothed, housed, fed, & safe. At the precipice of such a life-altering change, Natalie begins to convince herself that none of what she does in Toronto matters, she can just as easily go home & be content to never have tried at all.

Her course load revels in absurdity as Natalie has yet to find her footing. She meets people who pretend to know themselves & yet pollute the environment with bigotry & distorted views of who a person should be. When Natalie meets new, soon-to-be, familiar faces during Frosh week, she deliberates on her own ineptitudes. Whereupon she meets Nora, a woman in her late twenties, if not early thirties, who so happens to be sitting on a park bench near Natalie on the same afternoon. From there, the two participate in a sexual relationship that teeters on romantic; the intimacies they share are never named but are expected to be intrinsic.

I suppose what made this book so enticing was the Canadian setting. I cannot help but be drawn to a place I call home. The streets of the city need not be familiar to the reader in the literal sense. Fischer has crafted Toronto to be a place wherein anyone can juxtapose their own home. The important thing to remember is that the winter months frost the warm feelings that Natalie tried to coddle; the summer sun zapped blisters onto the heels of her running romance so that it might never again achieve forward movement.

It is important to note that Nora & Natalie share a rather imposing age difference. It is not indelicate to state that this is not an uncommon age difference & certainly Nora’s age is never revealed explicitly because Nora understands that, though under Ontario legislation, all participants are viewed as consenting adults, Natalie is immature to the point of needing to be sheltered. Much of what transpires between the two women is confusing. What draws Natalie to Nora? One might make excuses for why Natalie was enamoured by Nora’s breezy confidence the first afternoon that they met, but there is little reason for their joint attraction.

Perhaps, the reader is meant to believe that Nora needed saving. I do not state this lightly as my intention is not to degrade Nora as a person. She is, after all, a highly functioning, independent adult. However, we see her sneaking cookies in the grocery store as though no one eats the food in their basket while they peruse the aisles. We read about her active desire for secret keeping as though she were once more a young child on the playground. Alone, these instances illustrate a person who is somewhat taken aback by their society—not yet part of the big-bad world that towers over us all.

Collectively, Nora’s characteristics sing the tune of a person who is bewildered by simplicity. She eagerly abandons a meal she intentionally made with the intent of engaging in sexual relations with Natalie. I refuse to believe that she did not know what she was doing when she eagerly told Natalie that she would give her a tour of her house. Her abandonment of apple pies, snow shovelling, the reveal of inner thoughts, translucent dialogue, truth, & tenderness, is shocking. What has made Nora so jaded that she felt it was okay to engage in detrimental behaviours with Natalie?

I can appreciate that Nora is troubled. The person that she loved most in the world is separated from her & she is on the brink of finding out that her fertility treatments have settled roots. Meeting Natalie might have felt like a reminder for Nora. When she was Natalie’s age, Nora was in love with a person who was smart & engaged in poetry, readings, words, & rhymes. It might have been enticing to meet someone who had so few inhibitions towards the world, their mere presence became the work of art they sought to produce. But that is not enough of a reason for me.

When the coin is flipped, I find the same to be true of Natalie’s infatuation with Nora. What part of Nora was appealing in the delicious ways that unbridled physical intimacy tends to be? Maybe, it was enough for Natalie to meet a woman who was openly who she was. Perhaps, to be in the presence of someone who is tender during your first moments of something new, the heart longs to draw an eternal connection to them. To Natalie, it might not have mattered that Nora’s mind gravitated to the familiar, always seeking to bring her back to the relationship she lost.

I found myself fully invested in their relationship from the start. This is bizarre to admit because very little seems to transpire in their relationship save for miscommunication. At once, Natalie is trying to tell Nora that she is confident in their proximity & that what she feels for Nora is love. All the while, Natalie is insecure in her role within the relationship. Both of these things can be true. I think that what made Natalie such a riveting character to follow was her dedication to herself. Her inner monologue felt earnest & familiar like the smell of freshly baked warmth in the kitchen of a home where love lived. Her inclination to use Google for the most absurd reasons made me feel tender toward her.

All of the things that made Natalie a person one longs to see succeed were reflected negatively back in the secondary characters. Clara is difficult to read. She seems suffocated by the idea that someone might be queer, gay—a member of the LGBTQ+. Yet, one almost wants to reason her choice to ostracize her former friends because they weren’t honest with her. That small part of the reader that wants to forgive is soon set on fire by Clara’s intent engagement in the opposite direction. This person lives in one of the largest cities in Canada, one that has a blooming Gay Village. I cannot possibly believe that she, in this day & age, could not understand that queer folks might not feel safe to divulge themselves to the world.

I say this but, I recognize that there are people out in the world, in Canada, that are intent on maintaining their ignorance. The plight of free-living applies to them alone & they are unperturbed by the struggles of others to attain a semblance of safety. It is disappointing to read about Clara because one recognizes her as the antagonist of the novel & of herself. Clara will most certainly go forward in life seeking to cause harm to the LGBTQ+ community because of her own demented sense of self. One remembers Annie throughout all of this & longs to whisper through the pages that she is supported.

A character that grew in imbecilic action was Rachel. Part of my mind wanted to feel sympathy for her but, I was never able to achieve the sentiment because—like Clara—she is intent on being an idiot. I appreciate how Rachel was written into the story as being a genuinely awkward person to socialize with. Her inability to understand that people might read the same book as she had was astounding & made me laugh out loud. At the same time, I understood that we were once again, dealing with a character with immense immaturity. What prompted her to believe that she was different from anyone else at the University, let alone any better than Poets who had been naturally talented in the field—no schooling required.

I suppose I am feeling somewhat spiteful. Rachel did not meet the consequences of her actions that I believe she deserved. She was rude to her classmates & an all-around mean person. Even when Natalie was inebriated, Rachel was focused on being condescending & short. Maybe she had never had an encounter with someone under the influence—they are chronically difficult to have a conversation with when one party is sober. I digress. Rachel is stalking her professor & yet the story simply moves past this as a consequence of including Jones in the narrative.

Stalking is a serious offence & I do not think it was taken seriously by anyone. Rachel assaults Natalie when she broaches the topic & we never read about it after she continues to invest all of her energy into delving deeper into Jones’ life. It was very disturbing to read about a person who simply got to continue on in life, unhindered by the confines that legally shape our world.

With that being said, the aspects of the book I appreciated include the particulars of the situations that I did not. Every part of this story played an important role in the total sum of the plot. It made me glad to see the way Natalie’s inner dialogue developed over the course of a year & all of the ways her person sought to improve her circumstances. Her slow easing confidence in her skin, the intention behind her eagerness to believe in love, & her deliberate innocence encouraged this story to become one of gratitude. We are seldom so lucky as to grow without grime.

I am not so naive as to believe that Fischer wanted the reveal of Nora’s wife to have been some largely crucifying twist. In my mind, Jones was the obvious choice but that was not the point. The purpose of this story was to explore each individual character’s relationship with themselves, each other, & the world at writ large. We can conclude that the book would still have held intrigue had Nora’s wife been a stranger to us but, it needed to be Jones. Her character is well-established & lives a life fulfilling her desires. While we ponder what might have made Nora an appealing partner for Natalie we are nudged to remember that Nora is not meant to be an appealing partner for Natalie—she is an ideal partner for Jones.

In all, I am grateful for this book. As a reader, I am enthused to find myself in the middle of a story that brings me back to myself. I cherish the experience of allowing my mind to remember. Stories that guide us through times in our lives reflect an intimacy in the talent of the author. Certainly, one who can write with so much transparency is someone who has understood what it means to be alive. Through the moments we are caught unawares, mind flown back in time, the eyes remind us of the blooming stories petalled in our hands & we are welcomed back once more to the time of now.

For Natalie, I wish warmth, tenderness, cool raindrops, & gentle sunshine. In the world, there are many people like Natalie & I hope they find themselves peering into a mirrored spring stream & recognize the greenery that surrounds them, the life that exudes the scaly, salty, blistery winds of their mind.

Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Random House Canada, & Bronwyn Fischer for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This is an incredible book that I already know I will want to read again. Highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have been anxiously waiting to get approved to read this ARC since I requested it last December. As soon as I read the synopsis I knew that I would love this book.

And I was right, I did love this book. For so many reasons. It is set in Toronto, which is something that I always appreciate. There's something special about seeing your home depicted in a work of fiction. Natalie, the protagonist, is a first-year student at the University of Toronto, which is also my alma mater. Although it is not explicitly confirmed, I like to believe that Natalie lived at Victoria College and that she slept in the same dorm building and ate at the same dining hall that I once did.

The novel follows Natalie as she moves from a small town in northern Ontario to Toronto for university. The reader accompanies Natalie as she tries to navigate school, friendship, and relationships. At the beginning of the school year, Natalie is approached in a park by an older woman. Allured by her charm and self-assuredness, Natalie quickly falls for her, and the two begin a relationship. We then follow Natalie for the rest of the novel as she tries to carve out her own identity and find her footing in a new city while becoming increasingly co-dependent with her older partner.

The book was at once devastating and beautiful and I found myself becoming invested in Natalie's life and rooting for her success. I highly recommend this book to those who love sad girl fiction and authors like Sally Rooney, Elena Ferrante, Elif Batuman, Lilly King, and Melissa Broder.

In all, this book has everything - self-discovery, queer love, female friendships, mommy issues, and the Northrop Frye statue outside of the E.J. Pratt Library.

Wow, this book!

This book was heavy— not literally, but figuratively. The whole time I was reading it, I was trying to watch for all of the various symbolism and themes within this novel; but, I feel like there was so much to examine that I undoubtedly missed some. That being said, if someone were to write an essay on this book, I don’t think they’d have any shortage of content to work with. It’s so simply complicated, and explores themes of love, growing up, anxiety even. It’s art. I think fans of Sally Rooney would like this!

I loved the way our narrator, Natalie, took us through this story. Her brain going on various little trains of thought or streams of consciousness throughout, I liked it, and found it to be a pretty thoughtful presentation of how an over-thinker’s brain works. Furthermore, how she tries to manage her emotions while maintaining a desired “image” throughout the novel is something I think many readers will relate to.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The closer I got to the end, the more inclined I was to keep reading.