Thank you #Netgalley for the advaced read!

As someone who has loved the show "Younger" since the beginning, I love this book! I want to see it play out on TV :) I enjoy following Liza Miller and she navigates her "mom" life and her career. I think the ending also leaves for another book, I want more!

In the sequel to Pamela Redmond’s novel “Younger”, “Older” has Liza Miller at a crossroads in her life as she nears turning fifty. After writing her novel “Younger”, based on her own experience, Liza is planning on moving back to New York near her daughter Caitlin, who is expecting a baby. Liza’s old co-worker Kelsey has since moved to Los Angeles to work in television, and she is interested in turning Liza’s novel into a TV show. Liza finds herself torn between New York and Los Angeles, and what the next chapter of her life should be. After meeting debonair actor Hugh Fielding in Los Angeles, Liza also feels torn between this new man, and her old love with Josh. Liza is faced with decisions to make to determine where her life will lead.

As a huge fan of the television show “Younger”, I was excited to read this book as it would blend the novel with the creation of a television show, just as they did for TV Land. I was happily reunited with some of the characters I had grown to love from the show, and I think their depiction on the show helped to allow me connect with them more in the text. The one character I failed to connect with was Liza’s adult daughter, Caitlin. I found her to be incredibly selfish and annoying, as she behaved like a spoiled child. The novel is a quick read, and if you watched and enjoyed the television show “Younger” it is worth reading “Older”.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

Liza's realization that she was merely a hologram of herself as she never really considered what she wanted and how she needed to find herself was the defining moment of the novel. She too often had changed to please others (including her own age) without determining what actually made her happy. Isolating herself in Maine wasn't it nor being the child minder to Eloise. I applaud that she surrounded herself with a supportive group of people that enabled her to love herself again and therefore was able to find true happiness with Hugo.

This is a tricky book to review (and it was probably trickier to write). It's a follow up to the book Younger, which was later made into a TV show. Some of the characters' names and identities from the original book were changed for the TV show, which is perfectly normal. However, it means anyone who is a fan of the show that picked up the books would be totally lost since the names have been changed and characters have been added/deleted. The author came up with an interesting workaround- the previous book was a fictionalized version of life, so therefore names were changed to protect their identities. But this book is about the characters' real lives so they all have the same names as the characters on the show- also real life. Confused yet? If you haven't actively watched the show, it's a lot to process. As a fan of the show, it was a fun albeit quirky read. But overall, I don't know why this book needed to exist. It comes across more as a piece of fan fiction where someone tries to link the book and the show, but it doesn't do much other than offer Liza a happy ending- though, who knows if the show will even try to stick with that- and then, does it matter?

If you watch Younger on TVLand, you're going to easily enjoy this summer read! I loved that from the first page I already knew the characters and their personalities--made the book that much more enjoyable. A few new characters are thrown into the mix as well. You won't find Charles in here FYI. This was a super quick read and a perfect match for my beach vacation. Didn't require much effort--just pure fun!

I was hoping the book would be different from the tv show, as Younger had. But I feel that this book isn’t a good sequel to the book or the show either one.
1. The book is suddenly more like the tv show than the first book. This is explained by Younger being a fictionalization autobiography that Liza wasn’t brave enough to make an actual biography.
2. Frankie’s they/them was never explained
3. Seems like the author is trying to write more to the tv show audience than her readers
4. About half way through this book I had no motivation to finish reading, but I did.
5. The writing didn’t seem to have a consistent tone.
6. I didn’t really like any of the characters in this book.

I’m giving this book 2 stars because I finished it.

This was a delightful sequel to “Younger” that I literally couldn’t put down. The characters made me laugh and cry, and the storyline was well developed. Highly recommended!

I've been so so so excited for this sequel to "Younger" since I first found out about it, because I loved the book and the popular TVLand series based on it. Here, we pick up some five years post-Liza's big lie and wow, so much as happened for her. The writing style and language is so descriptive and captivating, I just can't put it down. Oh what a laugh, with the Sutton Foster, TV show references: it's so brilliant to tie in the show and pay homage for the fans. Ok, like holy sh*t, I'm actually OBSESSED with everything by just chapter one alone. So, Hugo Fielding is the perfect choice for any Team Charles fans from the show, don't you worry. He'll bring the romance, and so will Josh for quite the love triangle (erm, square?). Hugo even says a line that implies that he finished this book at 3 in the morning, and hey, that tracks so well, because, same. I'm absolutely in love with this book and Pamela Redmond does the world of Liza and her perspective so much justice, and I just need to keep reading. It has to be a five-star read, like I'm actively clapping, squealing, and I'm just obsessed. I really liked the script parts and the show connections are fun, especially as a TV fan. There's so much drama, and I'm living for it. A romantic connection for Team Hugo is a bit of a slow burn, and then it comes in hot, hot, hot. Seriously it's so descriptive, I can't stop reading: it feels like a movie in my head, I can see it all clearly. Also, it may seem silly, but I really appreciate the non-flowery, cutesy monikers that you'd find in other romance novels, and thank goodness, this makes it so much more realistic. In the end, everyone does get their HEAs, but in a way that feels authentic and justified, and about damn time. In the end, it comes full circle to the show and it's a nice way to pay tribute to that world and fans.

This book has frothy romance and melodrama, core friendship bonds, odes to both LA and NYC, plenty of heart and vulnerability, independence, and so many meta ties to the show and real actors. It has everything. I loved it as a sequel and on its own, though it does help if you know the story already whether from the first book or series, it certainly helps you connect to the world right off the bat.

I flew through this book. Before I knew it, I had finished a book that is so important for all women to read. The idea that growing older makes life easier is so prevalent that we forget to deal with the reality of the fact that we still need to make choices as homemakers, mothers, professionals, and women. This book comes to terms with the guilt we as women feel after any choice is made.

Ready for Liza's next chapter? It's here in Older. When we first see Liza she has been secluded in a cabin in Maine trying to finish her latest book... Which just happens to be a "fictionalized" autobiography. The next few weeks move quickly as Kelsey works to turn the book into a movie and Liza preps (mentally and physically) to become a grandmother upon the birth of Caitlyn's baby. Maggie (my fav character in the books and on the show) is very present; also still the fabulous and witty bff that she's always been. With the aforementioned events and as Liza approaches her 50th birthday, you begin to see an interesting arc in her character that transgresses from her mostly carefree 'younger' self, to an 'older' and more worrisome adult.

This is great for fans of either the show or previous book. However, if you are coming to this straight from the show, keep in mind that the show adaptation is a bit different than the book (something they kinda poke fun at in this sequel). There are some new lovable characters that aren't in the show (Hugo ❤️) and some from the show that aren't in the book (Charles 😍). Overall, if you are looking for your Younger fix in-between TV seasons, this is a great option!

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

This book is . . . bad. It is just bad. I have spent far too long staring at the empty review window, trying to think of an eloquent way to explain its badness, but really it's as simple as: every element is bad.

Let me back up a moment. (Like an uninspired episode of TV following its dramatic tease with "24 Hours Earlier. . .") I really enjoy the TV show <i>Younger</i>, based on Redmond's previous book of the same name. I read <i>Younger</i> the book and found it not great, but still imbued with enough of the TV show's charm for me not to hate it, and for me to be grateful for what it spawned.

This sequel claims to have an amusing premise: that protagonist Liza had also written a book about her experiences pretending to be younger to get a job in publishing after her divorce, and that book is now being made into a TV show by her BFF Kelsey -- a TV show with a lot of amusing meta-connections to our world's <i>Younger</i> show. Then, when she goes to L.A. to work on the pilot, Liza finds herself falling for the actor who's playing her character's boss on the TV show, which is a reference to the real world TV show, time is a flat circle, etc. That sounds fun! Silly! Bring it on!

Except what this book is actually about is how every character is actually a deeply horrible person. I think Redmond wanted it to secretly be about how motherhood is hard and the choices women have to make vis-a-vis having children and maintaining their careers are incredibly difficult -- important topics. But exploring this takes up much more time than the fluffy rom-com the description promises. Worse, it requires, at various points: Liza to be a selfish, awful friend; Kelsey to be a selfish, awful, friend; and Liza's other best friend Maggie to -- you guessed it -- be a selfish, awful friend. These characters spend more time fighting than in any way seeming to like each other. Do you know what's one of the things I like best about the show? The women's friendships.

Worse, though -- Liza has apparently raised a complete monster in her daughter Caitlin, who fully expects her mother to be her new baby's unpaid, live-in caretaker. Liza repeatedly tells Caitlin she doesn't want to do this and patiently explains that Caitlin <i>and her husband</i> -- yes, she's married -- have other options, even if they both want to keep their jobs. Oh, but daycare or a nanny are out of the question, Caitlin says -- she could never trust her child with a stranger!

W
H
A
T

When Liza goes to L.A. for work, she's presented as the bad guy for "abandoning" her daughter in the later months of her pregnancy, despite her daughter being, you know, an adult, with a husband and a support system. After the baby is born, Liza <i>is</i> coerced into being the unpaid help (and at one point thrown shade by Caitlin when Caitlin comes home from work and Liza hasn't also made dinner). Eventually, after giving me a coronary, this plotline peters out so Liza can have her textually unsupported and unsexy affair with a movie star, which ends in a marriage proposal after two seconds. Caitlin decides to have a second baby right away, to like . . . get it over with. And Josh, the only character in the book (and in the show's later seasons) who is consistently likable, is written off as unable to have a happy ending -- but it's cool for Kelsey to use him for his sperm though, lol.

W
H
Y

I hated this book. The writing is bad: at one point early on, Liza is so surprised, that, she says, "My stomach dropped into my vagina." So I guess some of this is on me. But just--<i>yikes</i>. I don't know what else I can say. I'm getting too old for this shit.