I enjoyed this book as it was very humourless and an easy to read book. Would recommend to those looking for a light read.

Truly brilliant. I adored this by Hulse. Absolutely excellent book and a brilliant read. Recommend highly!

Two exes, their daughter and their new partners decide to spend Christmas together in a self catering lodge in a forest where there are lots of organised activities - surprisingly they don't all get on and arguments and misunderstandings ensue. I wasn't overly keen on this one but it was an easy to read book and there were a few funny moments.

The Adults by Caroline Hulse is about divorced parents and the tricky issue of blending families and spending Christmas together.

Honestly, this is not what I expected this book to be. I thought it would have been a lighter hearted book but reading it it just showed deeper issues within the adults themselves and how they were overcoming them, all together on a family holiday with new partners.

An interesting read but unfortunately not for me. I think it’s a great read for those who enjoy reading about true relationships/dynamics within a blended family and how coming together at a hyped time of year can treat them:

Thanks for giving me the chance to read this book.

Mark and Claire have a daughter - Scarlett - but are separated, and they decide to spend Christmas together, with their new partners. What could possibly go wrong?!

This was an easy and enjoyable read - although it was all a bit silly and the characters are quite irritating! I liked the police reports interspersed through the story as they helped you work out what had happened, and I thought the addition of the daughter's imaginary friend was an interesting way to show how her character developed throughout the book.

I'm not sure I would describe the book as hilarious, but it was a decent and easy read.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

I liked the varied ways the story was progressed and the story did have it's amusing moments , but I was not totally blown away. good but not great.

REALLY loved this funny and heartfelt story about two readjusted families who attempt to spend Christmas together and act like adults

This book promised to be the most hilarious book I'd read all year, but I'm sorry to say it failed to reach the lofty heights it set for itself. I suppose this is a good book for a beach read - easygoing and pretty lighthearted, and a bit fatuous. I wasn't a fan of the characters, and I didn't find it funny.

I enjoyed this book. It was a nice easy read, with Scarlett and her Imaginary rabbit being the true stars of the show.

The Adults was a great book to read, the characters were brilliant, the switches in viewpoints flowed well together. I would definitely recommend this book - there's a lot of humour and a little bit of mystery to keep you intrigued right until the end!

I enjoyed this book. It was so funny, . i enjoyed the most part is when Scarlett (and by default Posey) overhear something about vivisection and decide that Alex who is a scientist is going to murder Posey. The conversations that Posey and Scarlett have about this are simply great.

I am currently working on expanding our school library's senior section after years of a dismal and uninspiring selection of books that our older readers never checked out. My job has been to seek out much more diverse, gripping and modern books that will get them into reading by appealing to as broad a range of readers as possible. This really appealed to me because of its fantastic narrative and sense of atmosphere, combined with believable characterisation and its pageturning nature. It's hard to get young people into reading and if the library is not stocking the kind of book that they might grow up to buy as adult readers then we are not really meeting their needs. I can imagine this provoking lots of discussion after finishing it and a long queue of people trying to reserve it as they've heard so much about it. Will definitely be buying a copy and know that it's going to be a very popular choice. An engrossing read that kept me up far too late to finish reading it. It certainly stood out from the other books that I was considering and I will be looking out for more from Caroline in the future!

A bit predictable and cliched, characters come off as a little two-dimensional, but all in all an entertaining read.

I picked up this book initially because who in the right mind goes to a lodge with their ex, their young daughter and new partners? It sounds like a recipe for disaster.

So let the chaos begin. The antics in this book made me laugh out loud and I ended up with a couple of stitches. Just how anyone can get themselves in this situation?

Caroline manages to explore the relationships of the group in a brutally honest fashion that managed to be clever, witty and at times honestly embarrassing. After all Christmas is when families comes together whether you love them o hate them.

afterall can you really be civilised when your cooped up in a lodge? Well you just have to read to find out.

What a brilliant read. Hulse perfectly demonstrates the intricacies of new relationships when children are involved, as well as co parenting. Clare and her partner Patrick, along with her ex Matt and his new girlfriend Alex all spend the Christmas period at a forest holiday park, so they can all be with their daughter Scarlett (and her imaginary rabbit friend!). Obviously this is a recipe for disaster!! And we see that right at the beginning with a call to the emergency services as someone has been shot with an arrow at an archery activity! Hilarious at points, a brilliant read.

I knew I was in for a treat from the start, the story is that a divorced couple decide to take their daughter and her imaginary friend away to a forest park retreat with their respective partners in tow. It is told from the perspective of the partners and opens with someone being shot with an arrow... Not wanting to give anything away it is really funny and I would definitely recommend it.

Plot: Claire and Matt are divorced but plan a Christmas trip in a holiday village in Yorkshire for the sake of their daughter, Scarlett, but with a twist - the new partners are in tow, and they'll all be sharing a lodge. On top of that, Scarlett's imaginary friend Posey comes along too - a giant purple rabbit. They said they'd all be grown ups, but can it really all work out?

My thoughts: This a pretty light-hearted, fun read, even though it deals with the pretty heavy topic of divorced parents and new families coming together. Told in alternating voices by the various characters, including Scarlett, it was a very unique way of looking at a blended family's trip and the struggles they come across, which are - of course - many. I can't say it was an outstanding book, but it made for something light and easy to read on the plane, with parts that were touching, such as Scarlett trying to come to terms with the new family dynamic, to pretty hilarious - adults who really aren't acting as they should be!

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of my review I want you to do something for me. Yes, you...Reading this now. Ok...Imagine your ex (Sorry! I understand the myriad of emotions that will bring up, but bear with me...) Now, picture that ex, with all their quirky little foibles that you once found 'cute' *shudder* and imagine being in the same room as them for a full twenty four hours. Horrific, right? NOW, imagine going on holiday with them. Not only that, but imagine going on holiday with them OVER CHRISTMAS. The thought would be too horrific to even contemplate for many of us, but for Matt and Claire it is somehow bearable...

Between them they decide that a 'family' holiday over the festive period would be an excellent idea (although they're still not quite sure who had the original idea...) for the benefit of their daughter Scarlett. So Matt and his new girlfriend, Alex, and Claire and her new partner, Patrick, all head off to spend Christmas in a holiday park in Yorkshire (along with Scarlett and her imaginary pet rabbit, Posey...) Not awkward AT ALL.
Things take an odd turn immediately when Patrick discovers a girl that he went to school with (and happened to fancy the pants off, go figure) is staying at the same holiday park with her daughters, and Posey decides that because Alex is a Scientist she must kill rabbits and therefore Scarlett needs to make her life as difficult as possible. Despite being very much divorced Matt and Claire still seem to share a bond that goes way beyond having a shared daughter and tee-total Alex is determined not to turn to drink. The whole escapade comes to a head in the form of a dramatic round of archery and burlesque dancing for a five-year-old. Pass the Christmas cake...

I loved the premise behind this book. We've all found ourselves in awkward situations with our exes but the idea of going away to a remote Yorkshire holiday park with them really intrigued me. Understandably, Matt and Claire had Scarlett's best interests at heart and only wanted to make Christmas special for her, but there was no way that this was going to run as smoothly as they both anticipated...
I was sure that we'd be seeing plenty of humourous situations and mis-understandings, but whilst this storyline was one not to be taken massively seriously - it wasn't quite as light-hearted and as ho-ho-ho-ish as I had imagined. I even found it quite tense and enjoyably awkward at times.
On the whole I really enjoyed the story, but I did have a bit of a problem with some of the characters because I found them particularly difficult to warm to. Matt was a lazy arse and his lack of thoughts towards how Alex was feeling annoyed me at times. Matt is one of those people who seems to sail through life putting in very little effort and yet still comes out on top and there were times when I decided I actively disliked Matt, but we won't dwell on that...
I quite liked Alex and I enjoyed finding out more about her past. Alex is a very logical person who tends to over-analyse things. I really felt for her and couldn't begin to imagine how she felt about spending the festive season with her partner, his ex-wife, said ex-wife's new boyfriend and her step-daughter. Also, she then had to endure her partner signing The Human League on Karaoke with his ex-wife. I mean, come on...
Then there was Patrick. Patrick, Patrick, Patrick. Whilst his heart is undoubtedly in the right place, I couldn't relate to him at all. He did a lot of exercise which is probably one of the reasons why, but he was one of those men who is a complete stickler for rules. I found him boring & quite suffocating, but my opinion of him changed when things got difficult with Claire. I found myself feeling sorry for him, because ultimately he was a good person (albeit a little weird...I'm referring to the whole Nicola thing.) Part of me did feel as though maybe Alex and Patrick would have been more suited to one another, but I think that was me going off on a whole different tangent...
The story is told from both Alex and Patrick's perspectives and I felt as though through this we got to know a lot more about their backgrounds than we did of Claire and Matt. Whilst I liked Claire I did sometimes think she was a little too perfect, but I feel as though I still don't really know that much about her.

The dynamics of this dysfunctional family fascinated me and Caroline has some razor-sharp observations on human behaviour. Her writing is smart and assured and I liked the format in which the book is written; where we hear about an event that has taken place at the start of each chapter but you have to keep on reading until the end until you find out exactly what it was that happened. This really intrigued me and kept me eager to get to the end of the book in order to find out what really did take place and how.

In conclusion I liked The Adults & I’d recommend it if you like reading about whacky family dynamics & slightly outlandish situations. However I definitely won't be going any holidays with any of my exes (or my partner's exes for that matter) any time soon...