Witty and spunky read exploring the pitfalls of social media.

Recommended for readers looking for a timely, yet well-written and humurous womens fiction title.

Jenny McLaine is a wreck. She is in her 30's, living with roommates in a house she can't afford, losing her boyfriend of many years, losing her job at an on-line magazine, losing friends, and losing her mind on social media. Oh, and her mother with a larger-than-life personality is coming to stay with her.

I liked the writing style, how it was sometimes told through texts and sometimes not. It was humorous at times, cringe-worthy at others. But the thing that keeps this from being a book I truly enjoyed was the fact that Jenny is not very likeable.

Jenny is self-involved and not a good friend. She is obsessed with social media and how strangers perceive her more than she cares about being there for real people. I know that this can be a problem for people - social media addiction is really just keeping up with the Joneses taken to a virtual extreme - but I think that people should have it together a little bit better when they are heading swiftly towards 40. Jenny is still behaving like a person fresh out of school.

By the end, Jenny has redeemed herself somewhat, but I felt it was a little too little and a little too late. I don't hold a grudge, though, and I wish her character well.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

🤍 Thank you @gallerybooks @netgalley for the gifted copy! // I loved this book so much. Thirty something Jenny McLaine is struggling with adulthood and obsessed with her Instagram. I couldn't relate more. She worries too much about her Instagram captions and how many likes her crossoint post will get. Ugh...and Suzy Brambles is the worst (if you've read this then you'll know)

GROWN UPS / EMMA JANE UNSWORTH

SYNOPSIS: Fleabag meets Conversations with Friends in this brutally honest, observant, original novel about a woman going through a breakup…but really having more of a breakdown.

Jenny McLaine’s life is falling apart. Her friendships are flagging. Her body has failed her. She’s just lost her column at The Foof because she isn’t the fierce voice new feminism needs. Her ex has gotten together with another woman. And worst of all: Jenny’s mother is about to move in. Having left home at eighteen to remake herself as a self-sufficient millennial, Jenny is now in her thirties and nothing is as she thought it would be. Least of all adulthood.

Told in live-wire prose, texts, emails, script dialogue, and social media messages, Grown Ups is a neurotic dramedy of 21st-century manners for the digital age. It reckons with what it means to exist in a woman’s body: to sing and dance and work and mother and sparkle and equalize and not complain and be beautiful and love your imperfections and stay strong and show your vulnerability and bake and box.

But, despite our impossible expectations of women, Emma Jane Unsworth never lets Jenny off the hook. Jenny’s life is falling apart at her own hands and whether or not she has help from her mother or her friends, Jenny is the only one who will be able to pick up the pieces and learn how to, more or less, grow up. Or will she?

#deweyrating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I couldn’t get past the first few chapters of this book. I had a hard time following it and didn’t like the language used. I tried to continue but it didn’t keep my focus.

I regret having to give a 2-star rating. In no way is this reflective of Ms. Unsworth’s talents and writing style. She has an eloquent manner of breathing life into her characters and dropping crumbs along the way to nudge you into understanding the viewpoints. I’m just not interested in a book of this context. I think it’s better suited for a younger age group (early 20’s to late 30”s) and I certainly think Emma Jane (I do love her name!) has a very bright future.
(I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. Thank you to Gallery Books and NetGalley for making it available.)

Reading this book was EXHAUSTING. But I loved it. It’s like a millennial stream of consciousness, more a scattered collection of moments forced together, rather than a cohesive story. Like being in my own brain. Or maybe the brain of someone I hate. Most of the scenes were cringe-worthy and uncomfortable. I saw a lot of myself in Jenny (that’s NOT a good thing lol). It’s a commentary on being a millennial woman in today’s world - how sometimes you still feel like a child, but you’re actually, really, really NOT a child. How you can so easily get addicted to your phone, your image online, and overthink your instagram captions (lol at the first scene contemplating for PAGES what to caption a picture of a croissant. Spoiler alert: she lands on “CROISSANT.”) If it’s not a satire in entirety, it certainly has satirical moments. I think it’s really unique and recommend to fans of Sweetbitter, All Grown Up, Normal People, Fleabag, Girls, etc. (you get the idea).

I have a feeling that Grown Ups will be a polarizing story. Some readers will heavily resonate with the main character's ennui, while others will find her insufferable. Truthfully, I vacillated between these two positions throughout the book, finding myself aligned with a multitude of characters at different moments. That is, I believe, the genius of this story--it hit so close to home that it stirred this up for me while reading. I haven't experienced most of what the main character has, and yet it felt relatable. I enjoyed this story and thought it was well-done.

A quirky story that mixes mediums in a way that shouldn’t work- but somehow does. The prose was brutally honest and exactly what I needed in a book about finding yourself amidst the carnage of life falling apart.

Based on the synopsis, I thought I would really enjoy this novel; having said that, I found myself struggling to connect with the protagonist. It may be a novel for a younger audience, since I did not find it as relatable as I'd expected. I did enjoy quite a bit of the humor, and found myself laughing out loud on occasion. I alternated between an electronic version and the audio and the narration is absolutely fantastic!

A break up. A breakdown. A social media obsession. A manipulative ex. A crazy mother. a supportive friend. This was an entertaining story about Jenny 30 something and still trying to figure things out. This is one of those books that I still am not sure I liked or not? I thought it was relevant and humorous. Jenny’s obsessive need to appear perfect on her Instagram feed was cringe worthy. It’s seriously took the girl over an hour to take a picture of a croissant. Her friends added some levity to the story, because Jenny had no self-awareness. Her mom added some laughs, although I’m not certain I would want her for a mom, she was a bit nuts. An interesting timely story.

Laugh out loud hilarious, cringe worthy, brutally honest commentary on the life of a 30 something wannabe instagram influencer.

**i received an electronic ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review of this book.

Known as Adults in every other country (but this is her originally intended title so we win!), Grown Ups is about a 30-something named Jenny trying to navigate her relationships, as seen through social media (including some very funny drunk Tweets and email drafts) and more. I went to an author event this past weekend with her as well and several people discussed how various characters would handle the pandemic. It's a great capture of how people communicate (and don't). Most of it is just fun to discover so I will leave it there.

Grown Ups By Emma Jean Unsworth

Rating - 3 / 5 Stars

Publication Date - 8/18/2020

** Thank you to Netgalley, Gallery Books, and of course, Emma Jean Unsworth, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Emma Jean Unsworth provides a rivetingly real depiction of our world consumed in social media through the eyes of 35-year-old Jenny McLaine. The perfect concept of someone who has it all together on the surface but inside is cracked deeply, Jenny lives a successful life by day and by night crashes due to her being anxious, insecure, lack of self-awareness, with a constant need for validation. After a breakup with her manipulative boyfriend, only for him to find a replacement rather quickly, Jenny fields a bunch of crazy events that turn her life upside down.

In order to avoid these issues, Jenny plunges into the black hole of social media, following those with the idea of living a perfect life and trying to emulate it in her own. Jenny constantly compares herself against these women, finding herself deeper in her darkness.

Grown Ups is heartbreaking while at the same time providing self-deprecating humor for comic relief. The connections I felt to this book on a personal level made me a bit uncomfortable but in the end, I really enjoyed this story.

A breakup. A breakdown. We have all been there – when it rains, it pours.

Life looks great on social media, but that's never the real story. And everything in Jenny's life is falling apart. But she is a combination of everyone I know right now-- troubles with jobs and boyfriends and parents and life. ACK! 

Jenny was the friend I needed, during a time when I cannot see my own and I enjoyed laughing and cringing along while reading her texts and watching her relationship with her mother. She is not the most lovable character, but I saw my life reflected in her story, the good, the bad AND the ugly.

This was a delightful read! The premise of a 35 year old woman that is obsessed with social media and doing well in life except for having trouble getting over a recent breakup. The humor is plentiful and the storyline is realistic, as there are a lot of 30 somethings that compare themselves to everyone they see on social media.

Thank you for letting me read and review this title but this was not for me. I think I had a case of pandemic reading .

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced reader copy of this.

Jenny is a 35 year old columnist who is in a bit of a rough patch. She broke up with her long term boyfriend. Her barista wouldn’t give her the perfect croissant. The Instagrammer she’s obsessed with unfollowed her!

This book is manic. Jenny is definitely spiraling and we are just along for the ride. I had a great time reading this. I loved her friends. I loved her mom. I loved how witty everyone was. “The Scottish restaurant” was maybe my favorite line? I loved Jenny. I hope she’s doing okay. 🧡

Jenny McLaine is 35 and dealing with all sorts of things she doesn't want to--bad breakup, difficult loss, job uncertainty, major ennui, and her mother moving in with her. She'd love to be a social influencer, yet is feeling increasingly unloved, even as she is obliviously brutal to those who care most about her.

Billed as a dramedy, GROWN UPS lives up to that description--alternately hilarious and sad, and at times, plain annoying. It's a common problem for books published this year; sometimes what passed for conflict when the novel was written just seems irrelevant in the midst of a pandemic. But the unique narrative style, with typical prose interspersed with text messages, email messages, and columns, keeps the novel flowing.

But Jenny embodies the sorts of crises that seemed important to intelligent women in their 30s in pre-pandemic times, and shares her experiences with hilarity. As for me, I'm confused by the fact that not only did two writers publish books with the same title in a 2-month span, but one (Marian Keyes) blurbed the other. (I think this book was published as ADULTS elsewhere). Despite the identical titles and the humor that runs through both, the books are very different, each enjoyable in its own way. #GrownUps #NetGalley

Perhaps I should have headed the blurb's comparisons to Conversations with Friends and Fleabag, but I did not finish this book. I found the main character insufferable and I just did not care at all what happened to her or those around her. I am definitely twenty-five years older than the target demographic for this novel, so my failure to finish would not likely translate to those readers.

I read this book described as "Fleabag meets Conversations with Friends" and I cannot think of a more apt description. Funny, crass, relatable - this book will make you laugh, cringe, and nod in agreement.