I was a little wary of this book because it was recommended for fans of Fleabag and I've found few books actually live up to that comparison but in the end I preferred Grown Ups! Jenny is a 30-something columnist at an online magazine with an internet addiction. She's obsessed with her instagram feed and how things look to other people and she thinks she has friendships with people she follows online. It's funny and relatable and a really easy read. I found the main character a little frustrating in places but I think that's the point. Would thoroughly recommend!

Grown Ups (also published as Adults) is the third novel by British author, Emma Jane Unsworth.
Meet Jenny McLaine: Single. 35 years old. Radical feminist online magazine columnist.
First impression: Obsessed with social media. Agonises over the image she projects. The epitome of shallow. Overthinks everything. Excessively needy. Endlessly seeks approval. Constantly second-guesses every nuance. Thinks IMPORTANT things in SHOUTY CAPITALS! Begs her friend to proof-read emails to her new boyfriend. Priorities severely distorted. Radiates insecurity.

“I interrogate myself. That’s what the midthirties should be about, after all: constant self-interrogation . Acquiring the courage to change what you can, and the therapist to accept what you can’t.”

All this even before she loses her job, her best friend and her boyfriend. How did she get like that? An unconventional upbringing by quirky single mother may have played a part… By the time the reader reaches the halfway mark, enough interactions between Jenny and boyfriend, Art, and Jenny and best friend, Kelly, have been described for it to be clear why they might want a break from her.

Jenny’s mother, Carmen turns up; she and Jenny don’t have a good relationship, but despite her self-promotional leaflets in the neighbourhood letterboxes (Carmen McLaine— Spiritual Healer and Psychic–Medium. Specialist advice on Love and Relationships , Family Matters, Exams, Careers, Jobs, Luck, Death, and more. 25 years’ expertise in dealing with Spirit. Pay after results) it’s clear her intentions and her instincts are good. “You wonder why you’re anxious —when you constantly stare at a device that beams nightmares into your eyes.”

On rare occasions, Jenny has a flash of insight into her own behaviour: “It’s so hard to be spontaneous and thoughtful at the same time. This is why you’re generally better off staying in and watching TV or interacting safely on the Internet behind a semi-affected persona. The outside world demands too much reality. And I find reality stressful in the extreme. Reality doesn’t give a person enough thinking time. It renders one ill-prepared.”

“I don’t know who to trust because I don’t know who I am. At thirty-five years old, at halfway, I am still waiting for my life to start.” Will Jenny survive the challenges life has thrown her? Will she join the adults?

As well as Jenny’s rambling inner monologue, the format comprises emails and draft emails, Instagram posts, texts, imagined play scripts, letters, tweets, psychology therapy session transcripts, Google searches, and a suicide note. Unsworth has a talent for descriptive rose: “A huge man comes out of the lounge. He has earlobes like medallions of beef.”

Although a little disjointed, this novel has some blackly funny scenes, and some very perceptive observations on today’s world. It will likely tick a lot of boxes, and not just for millennials.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Gallery Books, Better Reading Preview and Harper Collins Australia

I could not get into this book. The story was not compelling enough and I just was not motivated to read beyond the first few chapters. My apologies.

the book was so difficult to get into. There was really just nothing that held my interest for more than a few chapters at a time. Disappointed
Thank you, NetGalley for an advance copy to review.

I received an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

I’m really sad because I had been on an amazing run of ARCs of late, and this is the one in the batch I had been most excited about.
It’s been more than 20 years since Bridget Jones introduced the feckless single city girl to the reading public, and this book makes me feel both decades. It’s that stale and cliché. Every single stereotype of an urban millennial jacked up times 1000. It was hard to finish because of the cringe. Sad.

I was very very invested in the book after the first chapter but was quite disappointed with how it shaped out. The first chapter is about our Instagram-crazy protagonist thinking and rethinking about posting a picture of a croissant—the filter, the angle, the caption, the hashtags. She worries about likes, It was funny. Slightly overdone but the right kind for me to make me laugh out loud and get curious about her life. I love Instagram and I kept thinking—Finally! A novel about people on which Instagram has a huge impact.

But then on, the novel just repeats this scene in various forms. Instead of adding to the drama it becomes tedious. She worries about reception of posts, has an unhealthy obsession with an influencer (I loved this angle but I wish it was explored in a stronger way), she stalks pictures of ex-es and others (like we all do), and is worked up when her favourite influencer unfollows her. The heroine becomes an annoying, unlikeable character. Of course, such characters in books are the best kind because they have so much to offer to a reader. But here, the barrage of text messages with friends interspersed with the actual narrative was jarring.

There isn't much plot, neither is there a strong character arc to grab your attention. This is a book I desperately wanted to like and was very intrigued by the premise but sadly it fell flat for me.

I had a blast while reading this book. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this story and how relatable it is to this technological era we are living in.

Jenny is the perfect portrait of a person who has succumbed to the power and negative side of the internet. She simply can't live without it, being online, checking what people are doing is her main goal in life and also, the death of her.

Jenny's character is this insecure, mid thirties woman, who's life is in crumbles and the only relief she has are her profiles on social media, where she presents to the world a fake version of herself. And it doesn't help, that the obsession with online people and their beautiful manicured lives, only increases her insecurities and her low self-esteem.

However, this is not only a book about Jenny's obsessions and the time she spends on social media and how that affects her. We also follow Jenny navigating through some hilarious and crazy episodes of her life, her interacting with people (or at least, trying), her dealing with the end of a controlling relationship and struggling to accept that she has a very peculiar mother that might have fucked up her life.

I read that is was compared to Fleabag, and let me tell you, it's totally true. From time to time, I would close my eyes and picture Phoebe Waller-Bridge, breaking the fourth wall and giving me some snarky and hilarious comments about social life in general.

I had a great time with this book. The writing was unique and the content, eye-opening. Unputdownable and highly recommended it!!!

A smart, funny exploration of the evils of social media for those of us who didn't grow up with it - and so much more besides. I found the book insightful and was told off by my child for laughing too loudly whilst reading it. I loved the cultural references from Jenny's past, the characters (who each resemble someone we all know) and the sheer honesty of the protagonist. I related to much of this and it kinda startled me. "Grown Ups" is a wake up call and a battle cry. Emma Jane Unsworth is the voice of a new wave of women's fiction, acknowledging that we can all be a bit hapless and hopeless but we are also nuanced and complex characters underneath.