okay i understand why people don't give this book more stars, BUT i am in love with british authors and actually european authors in general and their style of writing and just the flow of their books. i loved this book and thought it was a smart satire novel as it's witty and very funny. jenny is very unhappy and quite selfish, but she does grow as a person! even though it was maybe from a shitty person to a less shitty one... but i did think jenny is relatable and authentic which made it easy to read. it's a bit dramatic, but i think this book is a great read in terms of understanding how social media affectts people's mental health. overall i enjoyed every minute of this and i just bought it to have a physical copy ( )

If the stardust from Hunter S. Thompson’s burial rocket floated down and landed in the Instagram server room, you would get “Adults” by Emma Jane Unsworth.

The reader follows Jenny, a 35-year-old columnist for an online feminist zine, who finds her real and virtual existence unspooling at a rapid pace. It’s as if life went shopping at a boutique ceiling fan store, just to overpay for shipping, receiving and installation, then tap it off with the obvious tossing of sh*t into the spinning blades (made from sustainably farmed bamboo.) Unsworth’s wit sparks on each page as her main character simultaneously lives off and dies from the feeding tube of social media. It’s a battle we all recognize where we strive to be liked by others while failing to focus on whether we like ourselves.

I find myself doubly lucky because I won this from a Goodreads giveaway and that I have discovered a new literary voice to become (safely, from a distance) obsessed with. ( )

I was looking forward to reading Adults. I really liked the way that Unsworth’s previous novel, Animals, was in your face and unapologetic. While I think you could say the same of Adults, the overall story just didn’t work for me. It felt disjointed and inconsistent, jumping from issue to issue but never quite resolving them. It was also difficult to find a redeeming feature in Jenny, the main character.

Jenny is quite obsessed with Instagram, to the point where a stale croissant in shot makes her quite agitated as to what her followers will think. She starts the novel by appearing to live for likes, comments and influencer followers. She’s also particularly obsessed with one Instagrammer, Suzy Brambles. It appears that her work and social life is suffering due to her social media addiction. She ignores her best friend who is frankly asking for help and checking Instagram during sex seemed to be the final straw in her relationship. Jenny is truly alone, until her millennial boarders desert her and her mother moves in. She and her mother have a very complex relationship and it’s odd initially to see why Jenny would let her mother back into her life. But then the novel starts exploring Jenny’s past and her pain, which starts to explain why she is desperate for attention and wanting to be loved. The problem is that Jenny doesn’t always go about it in the best way, making for a few too many awkward, cringy confrontations. Sometimes it seems like Jenny is deliberately setting herself up for a fall. At other times she seems completely clueless and needy.

The story is frank, raw and honest but it’s rather disjointed. It’s more about Jenny and her character rather than being plot driven. I feel this would have worked better if I could have liked or related to Jenny more. She’s not particularly likeable. She’s a mess. Although she does start to change towards the end of the book and get help, it was too little too late. I couldn’t see why her best friend forgave her, as Jenny was incredibly self-centred. It seems that Adults tried to do too much, taking on social media addiction, relationships, love and loss all in one. It sometimes misses the mark in being funny or satirical and goes into awkward silence territory. I did like the texts and social media comments – love it or loathe it, this is the society we live in.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com ( )

I was super intrigued by the concept of Grown-Ups by Emma Jane Unsworth. The strong focus on social media mixed with the desire for approval from others was timely and in a nutshell, life in the digital age. I ended up enjoying the mixed media style which I wasn't sure would work for me at first.

Unfortunately, I just had a hard time connecting with the main character, Jenny. for much of this book. I understand that this book is party a satire, but the obsession and thought process that went into presenting her life a certain way was funny at first but then I just became disinterested.

As someone who is also in my mid-thirties but also in a very different life stage, I just could not relate. I think some of this would be great in a shorter essay format but it just felt dragged out and sometimes a little cringe-worthy. A lot of this is just my perspective and I can see this being a huge hit for many.

I did really appreciate the inclusion of the dysfunctional family dynamics with her mother, Carmen. This was a great element of the book for me and I enjoyed seeing some of the "why" behind who Jenny is today. For most of the book Jenny was a frustrating character who came across as way too shallow but I think that was the author's intention.

I would have loved to learn more about who she really was and see some kind of self-awareness on her part, but I think part of this is just me expecting more from something that is something to be a light and humorous easy read.

All in all, I have mixed thoughts about this one but I think it is worth a shot!

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an unbiased review. ( )

Funny or frustrating? 2 or 5 stars?

Definitely funny, Obsess..ss..sive moments are scripted as our gal Jenny McLaine decries life and all relationships in general, online. Inventively stealing others stories to make them her own ‘cause her own life’s in tatters even as she possessively clutches her one true prop, her phone—even during sex (and then wonders why her boyfriend Art moved out!)
Working for an online magazine that sounds more like some sort of pop-up than a stayer, adds to the transient, ungrounded feel of Jenny’s life.
Then there’s Jen's relationship with her mother, one that seems to have parented our 35 year old obsessor into being locked into inaction and stuck Alice like in a somewhere-too-young place on the never ending merry-go-round of life.
I felt I was watching Bridget Jones on steroids. The angst and worry is EXHAUSTING!
The urge for recognition, the attention to who’s following you on Twitter, and then maybe not, watching for those little microcosm boosts of acceptance. 👍 Be it likes, or hearts or whatever!Oh my!
I was overwhelmed, as was Jenny.
I really liked the switches between writing modes from descriptive to texting and somewhere in between.
And just maybe in between is how I feel about this novel. I didn’t really relate with Jenny's world but I do accept the brilliance of its description. So depending on your point of view this will be either a two or a five star read.
I’m giving it 2 for my ability to relate (which I suspect is more a comment about me) and 5 for the amusing, frenetic writing style. All that psychedelic energy!So I’ve landed in the in between 3 star zone. Mmmm! There’s that 'in between' concept again!
I did love the piece of writing around The Croissant! Great!! I was actually transfixed! Maybe I was hungry?
I’m sure others are going to just love this book and find it a wonderfully cynical comment on life in the Millennial Lane! or maybe it's just Sex in the City moments updated?
The big question is, "Does our Jenny come of age?"

A Gallery Books ARC via NetGalley ( )