I had to give up on this one. I was hoping for a nice, easy British chic lit read, but the main character in Grown Ups was just so vapid and absorbed in her phone she was completely unlikable and unrelateable.

This book is so witty and well written. Thirty five year old Jenny is addicted to social media and is so relatable to today's society. I just couldn't stop reading I had to know what happens. I would recommend this to a friend. Very good!!

This book delighted me. It is funny, witty, and crazy. It has heart and insight. The pleasure comes from the words themselves, the wildly creative use of ideas and thoughts. The characters and their own demons and desperations make the story as real as an Instagram or Facebook post

Jenny Maclaine tells her story in the first person. Life as a grown up was ok in her twenties, but now she is thirty-five and she’s experienced a painful sadness that she hides. She lives in London, and works for an online feminist magazine. She lives through social media. Every photo, post, tweet is born of her creative angst. Through her emails, texts, phone calls and conversations we piece her life together.

Her relationships with her wacky but lovable and somewhat wise mother, her close friends Kelly and Nicolette, and her former lover Art are revealed to us in flashbacks. All are modern, clever, somewhat wounded people that you will enjoy getting to know.

Wry quips are just like breathing for Jenny and her pals. She and Nicolette get their burgers from the “Scottish Restaurant”. Jenny tells Kelly in an email she has been an “oubliette of self-regard”. Nicolette points out that having to buy a phone and pay for data is the modern version of the Window Tax.

Jenny is an approval junkie and she’s scared. Does she change, grow, learn? Do any of us? Still, readers will enjoy getting to know her. This book will stick in my mind’s oubliette for a long time. Thanks to Net Galley and Gallery/Scout Press for an advance review copy. This is my honest review.

Thank you for the chance to review this galley prior to publication. Please refer to my goodreads profile for a full review.

An attempt at a blistering evaluation of the good and (mostly bad) effects of our obsession with cell phones, social media, online dating and the unsatisfying loneliness even with a million followers. However, in reality, it was hard to read and the characters lacked the depth to truly care about. I did appreciate some of the sorrow and panic that comes with being in your mid 30s and not having the life you thought you would have but also not knowing what that was exactly.


ARC from publisher via NetGalley, but the opinions were my own.

A story that centers around the narcissism of social media influences and influencers. How do our obsessions, ie phones, art, having a baby, play out in relationships. Great snappy dialogue and memorable relatable characters. A fast read that captures the love between others in the electronic age. I especially liked the mother daughter scenes. Fun, hip and still poignant.

Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

Interesting premise, but I just couldn't identify with Jenny. She was obnoxious to start and I never ended up liking her or caring about her experiences. She was a self-absorbed, overly dramatic woman from beginning to end with no aha realization that she couldn't continue living that way. I had a hard time understanding why her friends or boyfriends would even want to have a relationship with her as it was all about her.
She had a humorous quips along the way, but overall just not worth a read.

GROWN UPS by Emma Jane Unsworth delivers on its promise: a FLEABAG-esque romp through London via a thirtysomething woman obsessed with how she is viewed on social media to the detrement of her relationships with friends and family. The book opens with Jenny, our protagonist, in an Instagram comment conundrum regarding a photo of a croissant she wants to post and we are off to the races after that. I think as unlikeable as Jenny can be, and how much her life is in disarray, we can all see a little bit of ourselves in her and that is what makes this book a cannot miss.

Jenny has recently broken up with her famous photographer boyfriend Art after failing to get pregnant. Soon after, her unstable mother moves in with her and her relationship with her best friend Kelly starts to fray. There is certainly some well trodden road here, a millennial who lives life over text and social media starts to wonder what's the point to life as things start to crumble around here. It's a popular narrative arc as of late, but Unsworth's writing (and the way this book is broken up by traditional writing, emails, texts, etc) make GROWN UPS stand out on its own. It's a fast and fun, at times, read. I think it will make a big splash when it's released in August!

I just can’t get into this book. She spends way too many pages discussing a croissant and her social media post about that. I just can’t! This is not my kind of book. It’s very much about a generation that is not me and how they obsess about how they come across to everyone. I don’t get it, and just can’t with this book.

The premise of this book caught my attention but sadly I couldn’t get into it. The writing is witty & funny but could not sustain me.

I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

Hilariously awkward book revolving around growing up as a self focused millennial. It was equal parts laugh out loud, cringe worthy and almost brought me to tears. Personally had a very strong correlation to me to the show girls on HBO. Would strongly recommend. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Jenny is thirty-five, and it seemed a stretch that she could still be so self-absorbed. The most important things in the world to her are: posting the perfect picture to Instagram, how many likes and comments she gets and looking at her phone. I do understand that there are many people addicted to social media. How spending so much time judging your own life or lack of, based on the acceptance or rejection of mostly strangers can play havoc on your self-worth. But for Jenny, it is all-consuming. She will lose real-life friends before she will admit that she has a problem.
Jenny annoyed me, and then as the story progressed, I felt mostly sadness for what she had made of her life. Her relationship with her mother is strained, she loses her boyfriend, and her real-life best friend has had enough of Jenny. The story is told through social media posts, emails, and text messages, and the flow does work. Jenny can be funny, but she can't seem to try and lead a more authentic life.
This is a hard book to review. I think some people will relate to Jenny's life and love this story. I can also see it going the other way based on your age and life experiences. I fell right in the middle, I didn't love it or hate it. There are some reading friends that I would recommend Grown Ups to, but I feel like it a hit or miss story.

Grown Ups by Emma Jane Unsworth..... Hmm. Well, it's not as funny as I had hoped, but it's was still enjoyable?

I don't know. It all feels a bit navel-gazing in the same way that "Girls" was. Like, great - this is your life and you clearly need to grow up and that's the point of this story but to get there - it was almost annoying. Jenny's obsession with social media and her own life and anxieties got to be a bit overwhelming. The way she treated her 'friends', 'coworkers' and 'flatmates' was exhausting. I know many people like Jenny - and we are not friends.

I feel that this book will be a hit or a 'summer read' for a certain sect of the reading public - just not mine.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Jenny was hands down one of the most frustrating characters I have ever read. She was stubborn, selfish, rude, self-absorbed, and an all around bad friend due to her total self involvement. And yet, Jenny was also a character that was so painfully self-conscious and (at times) relatable and (usually) very funny and ridiculous, so much so to the point that I found myself rooting for her to succeed despite her numerous flaws.

Jenny is a 35 year old woman who struggles to see beyond the phone in her hand, preferring to submerge herself fully into the world of social media rather than fully engaging in the world around her. She has superficial relationships with the people around her, and struggles with her self esteem on a near constant basis. She has lost her job, her long time boyfriend, and her mother is moving in. Nothing in her life is as she imagined it would be, but rather than letting Jenny off the hook, Unsworth makes Jenny face her problems and do some major growing up.

This book was a solid 3.5 star read for me, and I found it equal parts enjoyable/funny and also infuriating.

This book was a very humorous look at the downsides and effects of social media. While the book had some good points, there have been a lot of books recently like this, about arrested development adults. While this book didn't stand out, it was good for other people who like the same genre of book. Jenny is very unlikable in the beginning, which worked well to drive the point, but I didn't connect with her. I did though that some of the things she deals with her easy to relate to one some levels. While this book wasn't for me, I will recommend it for people looking for stories about being 3o and still having to grow up.

I’m about 20% through this book and have to DNF it. It’s already so long and the MC is annoying. I really wanted to like it. I work in PR and Social Media so I thought I would enjoy it. I do not. :(

I received Grown Ups by Emma Jane Unsworth as an ARC from NetGalley. I started reading this book but I was unable to finish it. I did not enjoy the story. It didn't hold my interest and I found the main character unrelatable.

Unexpectedly moving in a delightful way! Starting out, I thought I had this book pegged as a silly Sophie-Kinsella-esque read (nothing wrong with that, I enjoy those!) To my surprise, this tells a much more tragic story of a woman with a modern-day addiction and the impacts it has on her life. Heartbreaking and hilarious, I loved this.

Emma Jane Unsworth has a truly unique writing style. The text bounces from stream of consciousness to standard prose to modern email and texts to scripted dialogue and back again to drive the narrative forward and backwards, as she sees fit. It's all over the place stylistically, but somehow it all works and is a fast-paced read. Unfortunately, I didn't find any of the characters likeable and I wasn't emotionally invested in the plot. The protagonist, Jenny, was a tragic, self-absorbed, insecure, social media addict and I expected a much larger character arc that didn't deliver. I was more fascinated by the narrative structure, than the plot, which is why I rated this as high as I did: 3.5 stars out of 5.

ARC provided for an honest review.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Funny novel about an awkward woman trying to find a place for herself both online and in the real world.