All Grown Up
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4.0 • 9 Ratings
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
'Hilarious, courageous and mesmerising' Maria Semple
'Think BBC's Fleabag set in Brooklyn' Stylist
'I'm alone. I'm a drinker. I'm a former artist. I'm a shrieker in bed. I'm the captain of the sinking ship that is my flesh.'
Andrea is a single, childless 39-year-old woman who tries to navigate family, sexuality, friendships and a career she never wanted, but battles with thoughts and desires that few people would want to face up to.
Gut-wrenchingly honest and shimmering with rage and intimacy, All Grown Up questions what it means to be a 21st century woman:
- What if I don't want to hold your baby?
- Can I date you without ever hearing about your divorce?
- What can I demand of my mother now that I am an adult?
- Is therapy pointless?
- At what point does drinking a lot become a drinking problem?
- Why does everyone keep asking me why I am not married?
Powerfully intelligent and wickedly funny, All Grown Up delves into the psyche of a flawed but mesmerising character. Readers will recognise themselves in Jami Attenberg's truthful account of womanhood, though they might not always want to admit it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Attenberg's (Saint Mazie) new novel is a bildungsroman with a twist, adapting a coming-of-age narrative to a protagonist who is not as young as her immaturity sometimes suggests. In her 30s, New Yorker Andrea Bern is a gifted artist whose talents don't quite extend to mastering adulthood as those around her understand it. While her friends dedicate themselves to building families or careers and her brother and sister-in-law cope with a terminally ill child, Andrea seems stuck in a holding pattern. She abandons the art making she loves, clings to a dead-end job, and embraces drinking and rote sexual encounters; though not making much headway, she sees a therapist for nearly a decade in an attempt to grapple with inner wounds, notably the overdose death of her musician father in the family apartment when she was 13. The novel's darkly comic voice is a delight to read, capturing Andrea's sharp insights as well as her self-destructiveness, while brief chapters that shift back and forth in time effectively convey both the chaos and the stasis of her personal landscape.
