Grown Ups

Based on the snippets that called this book funny, whip-smart, etc. I was ready for some darkly humorous sibling rivalry, but finished this book disappointed since those things never materialized. There was nothing sympathetic about any of the characters, except for maybe Kristoffer (who had a lot of his own issues, but at least he wasn’t objectionable), Olea (who was a child so hasn’t grown into her problems yet) and Stein (whom we didn’t see enough of, IMO). I could sympathize with Ida in the beginning - it can’t be fun being single and childless at forty if what you want is a husband and offspring. Especially when her sister, Marthe, is making such a big deal about finally being pregnant. That sympathy felt misplaced by the time I realized that Ida was no better than her sister. While Marthe was manipulative and bratty, Ida was bitter and vindictive. Honestly, what she needed was a good dose of therapy and shadow work. I suppose engaging in a string of one night stands with unavailable (i.e., married) men and hoping they’ll leave their SOs instead of getting off Tinder and trying to find an available man would make a person bitter after a while. But the problem with Ida was that she never changed. This could have been an issue with the structure. This was a novella that, at my estimation, only hit about 40,000 words. The story ended right where Ida’s redemption arc should have begun. Perhaps if the author had fleshed this out into a full novel, I’d be able to rate this higher. But that’s not how this work is written so in the end, I had to wonder what the point was. Without that redemption/inner work, all I got was a story about two bickering sisters, neither particularly happy with their lot in life, and the MC passive aggressively trying to undermine her sister’s marriage at every turn. Then wrapping up the train wreck of a weekend by kicking her mother out of the cabin. For what? I don’t know. Honestly, I thought Ida was going to commit suicide and then at least I’d have an ending (a tragic one, but still a resolution). Instead, we’re left hanging with no idea if she’s going to fix anything or continue on in the same bitter vein, except now she’s isolated her sister and brother in law. This one left me flat and I rated it 1.5 stars. I do want to thank NetGalley and Pushkin Press for providing the ARC copy and I’ve left my review honestly and voluntarily. But I probably should have read other reviews before requesting this one.

The cover and “Venomous. B**chy. Brilliant” pull quote on the cover drew me in and I enjoyed the novel very much! Ida, our protagonist (or antagonist, depending on your perspective) is a 40-year-old architect. She single and thinking about freezing her eggs. Grown Ups takes place over a few days at Ida’s family cabin where she is joined by her mother, her mother’s partner, her younger sister, her sister’s husband and his six-year-old child. Ida was as venomous, b**chy, and brilliant as the pull quote promised, and was also sympathetically portrayed as someone struggling with loneliness and feeling overshadowed by her attention-grabbing sister. Read this if you are looking for a compelling novel about a flawed/human character trying to figure out her life.

So I actually really enjoyed this short book about Ida and her family. I thought that it was interesting how none of the grown ups in the book, actually acted like grown ups. It was a very character driven story with not much happening in terms of a plot. But learning about everyone from the point of view of Ida was really interesting. I'm just not sure I like how the story ended. I was kind of looking for something surprising to happen at the end or a more formal ending to wrap everything up. I felt like the story just ended, when I could have used another couple of chapters.