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.