Plenty of fun! The author brings sharp humor and satire to this story. Truth about what addiction to social media can do.
Many thanks to Gallery Books and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

The main character is thoroughly unlikable at first--which is something I love in a book--but she absolutely grew on me. Thirty-five year old Jenny is a magazine columnist, dumped by her boyfriend, with a problematic relationship with her mother, and a best friend who is being distant. The novel is told in prose, text message, email, and social media posts. It was interesting to see a woman so involved in her online life (it interferes with her real life), and much of it not only rang true but occasionally (only occasionally!) hit a bit close to home. The novel takes place in England, giving it that Bridget Jones feel that I enjoy. This is a great book to read in these current days, a lovely escape from our current reality.

This book lacked everything I thought it would have. The protagonist was everything I hate in a person and maybe that is the point of the book... I ended up skim reading the book because I just couldn't connect with any of the characters or plot lines.

While the words themselves were well written they failed to tell a story worth reading.

Witty, entertaining and engaging read. I can see this being popular on book clubs. i would recommend this book to a friend.

I finished reading Grown Ups by Emma Jane Unsworth at the beginning of the month, and I still don’t know how I truly feel about it. This is such a hard review to write, so I apologize in advance if I confuse the heck out of you! Ha! I flew through this book and read it in just two sittings. It was very entertaining and I loved the format. The scattering of text messages, social media posts, and emails was a nice touch. Jenny McLaine, the female protagonist in the story, is going through a major rough patch. Her boyfriend abruptly ends their relationship, all of her roommates unexpectedly move out, her best friend is furious with her and her job is on the line. She’s got a lot going on and the reader is along for the ride. Unfortunately, I found her to be whiney, immature, self-absorbed and even unbearable at times. She wasn’t very likable, but she was funny as heck. I may or may not have snorted a few times at the craziness that flew out of her mouth. Her humor was very much appreciated. So, as you can see, I have some mixed feelings. I’m sure a lot of you will really enjoy this one, and some of you definitely will not. It appears that I fall somewhere in the middle. I give it 3-3.5/5 stars. Meh...didn’t love it, didn’t hate it either. This one comes out next month. Check it out if you’re wondering what the heck I’m blabbing on and on about!

Although I loved the creative approach to storytelling, the protagonist Jenny was a bit too much to overcome. While there were some killer one-liners, and an approach to modern life that was interesting, I really couldn't get over Jenny's life. I ended up skimming to the end of the book.

I received a free copy of this novel via NetGalley.

This was a book that I couldn’t finish. The main character was just too needy and I did not enjoy reading this at all.

Goodness. Forgot to do a review 😱 #grownups #emmajaneunsworth #netgalleyreview #Netgalley #bookreader #booksofinstagram #bookstagram well. This one. It's based on a girl. A magazine writer. A boyfriend. Age 35. Her mother. A therapist. It takes us on her journey to figure out her world and what it should or shouldn't be as she is now a grown up. Or is she

This was blurbed as a cross between Fleabag and Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends, and while I can sort of see what the blurbist was getting at with the Fleabag comparison, it probably gave me higher expectations than was reasonable and didn’t quite do the novel justice in its own right.

Jenny McLaine is in her mid-30s, single, and writes the Intense Modern Woman column for The Foof, an online magazine, but her real life is on her phone and in her head. We start with a several page description of a social media post she’s putting up of a croissant, which she deliberates ad nauseam. Though she is clearly smart and articulate, this constant refining and debating of her online presence and her absolute solipsism make up a good chunk of the first half of the book which I found grating and rather irritating.

It’s only as we start to see what led up to what is in essence a breakdown that I started to find Jenny more interesting and sympathetic. I enjoyed the novel a whole lot more as she moves towards a life in the real world with her recovery bolstered by the help of her wacky mother, her down to earth friend, Kelly, and her own smarts.

Jenny is bright and funny at least some of the time, and I was happy to spend some hours in her company.

Thanks to Netgalley and Scout Press for the digital ARC.

Thanks to the publisher for the netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

I really loved this one. I enjoyed her previous coming of age novel and feel this is the next step in the life of a younger 30-something woman.

Laugh out loud funny, but also deals with heavy topics respectfully, particularly motherhood and failed attempts at motherhood. Unsworth addresses the feelings surrounding loss and what it means to a woman. It is a complex web--contradictory and muddled and realistic and definitely not pretty.

Meh...I don't know if I'm too old for this book or the fact that I can't really get into any book during this crazy time. The characters seemed immature and self obsessed. It was difficult to keep track of timelines (I think she was jumping back and forth in time but it was hard to be sure!). It took some time to realize the of different font with no punctuation was a text conversation but it didn't indicate who was speaking. I was hoping for something light and funny....this missed the mark for me.

The idea behind this book is good and it definitely makes you think about your own social media use. The characters were sometimes annoying.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this book.

This was a rare DNF for me. Jenny, the main character, is far too insipid and obsessed with social.media for me to care about. I truly disliked her from the first page, but I tried to push through. About the time she faked a suicide attempt to get back at her mom, I stopped. Seeing the author throw the topic around so lightly more than once disgusted me, and I could take no more. I'd give this one a hard pass if you find jokes about killing yourself or suicide loathsome.

I DNF this one, I really tried but I think I was just maybe too old for this one as I didn’t connect to the character and I was so annoyed.

Thanks to Netgalley for my advanced ebook copy.

A pretentious novel with unlikable characters and ridiculous situations. The ages of the characters don’t seem to coincide with their actions or behavior making this a very frustrating and unrelatable story. The issues are very much real and important but they are skimmed over and covered in a glossy and sparkly veneer so they seem as superficial as the latest phone case or instagram filter. This might be an entertaining read for someone used to looking at Instagram photos all day.

"Grown Ups" is an interesting novel but it's not thought-provoking or memorable. It also doesn't help that the protagonist, Jenny is SO INCREDIBLY ANNOYING! Her constant whining really got on my nerves. I don't mind if a character is insecure, but it really bothered me when Jenny's main motivation is constantly seeking approval and validation when it comes to strangers (via social media posts). I know the whole purpose of this novel is about how people are too addicted and dependent on social media these days, but I don't think the end result proved successful. Now that I think of it, Jenny's mother was a pain in the butt too. She was written in such a cartoonish way. She was not believable. A very boring, aggravating, and shallow book. Thank you, Gallery Books for the digital ARC.

This book just didn’t draw me in. Perhaps it was the age of the main character, her social media use and her relationships. I simply couldn’t identify and was not drawn in.


Thank you Netgalley for this ARC Every book I read makes life better during this difficult time.

This story follows the life of a social media-obsessed "grown up" who seems to tackle life through her social media account. It calls to mind a certain Black Mirror episode where characters become obsessed with their virtual followers and "likes" rather than their our real life relationships.
The writing is fun and quirky and certainly reads like you are following an Instagram feed - snippets of someone's day to day (without the photos, but the prose brings to life many images in the reader's mind). Modern -entertainment reading at it's finest, certainly not literary fiction.

"Grown Ups" is the light story of Jenny, a millennial whose devotion to social media undermines all of her real-life relationships. While the story has some bright and shiny moments, as well as some smirking wit, I just couldn't get into It. I think for the right audience, this can be a really fun story, I may just be a little outside of the targeted age range :)

Whether you enjoy or not will depend on whether you like the humor of this book or not. I found some parts to be very funny but other parts fell a little flat for me.