This novel has plenty of things going on, all centred around the Strick family and Astrid, mother of three grown-up children. She and two of her children live in a small town in the Hudson Valley. Astrid witnesses an accident involving a woman she knows and this gives her a jolt reminding her our time here is limited and she sets out to be honest from now on. Her granddaughter, Cecelia, comes to stay.with Astrid and Astrid tells her family her big secret. The reader meets all Astrid's children and each of them has issues around parenting and being adults. One has two young children and has purchased the vacant shop in the centre of town, another is pregnant and having an affair with a married man and another is struggling to support his daughter. Cecilia also has stuff going on and with her friend August. As I said there is a lot going on. Not all the ends are tied by the finish of the novel so if that is important to you then it isn't the read for you. I found it to be a solid read that kept me interested, I never got lost with who was who despite the big cast and it has a cosy family feel. ( )

A witty, romantic novel that follows the matriarch of the Strick family, Astrid, as she navigates the complexities of family, love, and identity. When Astrid witnesses a bus accident that forces her to confront her own mortality, she begins to reexamine her relationships with her adult children and the secrets that have been kept within the family. Straub's distinctive style and voice make this both a poignant and humorous read. ( )

The author hits a LOT of hot button issues, and there's a lot going on in this story (infidelity, gender, sexual orientation, abortion, and more). Some of it I found infuriating; some of it was just not that exciting. As an audiobook, it kept my attention enough to keep going, but the sheer number of issues kept the author from going very deep into any of them. ( )

Great character-driven book about a dysfunctional family with lots of intertwining stories. ( )

All Adults Here is a book about a grown-up family in country New York, all with secrets from each other that make things more complex. There are multiple characters and issues here, and it took me a while to warm to some characters and understand their motivations. But overall, I enjoyed the story which reminded me of Anne Tyler’s novels (but with more characters, who were messier and fewer resolutions at the end).

The story revolves around the Strick family and their own families and friends. Astrid is the matriarch, who knows their small-town Clapham from one end to the other. Her family has been there for generations and Astrid doe not want any change. Yet Astrid has a secret of her own, and after witnessing a tragedy on the main street, it leads her to start considering revealing her own secrets, some dating back decades. For Astrid’s children, they both love and tolerate their mother’s ways. Elliott feels secretly like a failure, but holds the key to changing the small town forever. Will his mother forgive him if he does? His wife is bored and their twins are more than rambunctious. For middle child Porter, she’s pregnant on her own but has taken up with her high school boyfriend – despite his marriage. Nicky is the only one who doesn’t live in Clapham, but has sent daughter Cecelia to live with Astrid after an incident at her school. All the Stricks appear to be running away from something that they need to face – and face it they will by the end of the book.

There is a lot going on in All Adults Here. It’s not just Astrid and her children that have significant page time devoted to them, but Cecelia and her school friend August and their teacher Rachel (who happens to be a high school friend of Porter’s) amongst others. Not all the plot threads are tied up- for example, we never find out if Rachel chose forget it or forgiveness and what did Elliott do with his plan to revolutionise the town? Nicky appeared to have an epiphany in realising he had been a poor parent, but did he do much about it? Did the twins finally destroy everything in their path? What happened to Cecelia’s local nemesis? It’s the power of the characters, who are not all likeable (Astrid especially was quite annoying in her righteous ways for the first half of the book) that gave me enjoyment for this novel. The plot carried perhaps too much for one novel, touching on many topics, but not exploring them all fully. Perhaps fewer topics would have made the story focus on the Stricks more rather than half the townspeople. The plot isn’t overly fast paced, but the characters made up for it. The novel is easy enough to read, but sometimes I just wasn’t drawn to read more. It’s a book better read in big chunks so the characters and their issues can be kept straight in your head.

Enjoyable, but I would recommend Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures over All Adults Here.

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