All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg

Publication Date: March 7th, 2017

This review does not contain spoilers.

‘All Grown Up’ seems to have been written as if it is a memoir. The narrator, Andrea who is in her 40’s single, childless, and living in New York City discusses the expectation for women to marry at a certain age, have kids, and settle down. Throughout this book, Andrea takes the reader back in time from her childhood, teens, and young adulthood. We see the struggles that she has encountered in her past relationships with different men, as well as her own dysfunctional family. Her mother, and her friends pressure her to find someone to spend life with, but Andrea is pretty sure that she never wants to marry. She is a failed artist, who has ended up in a dead end job she hates, her father was a heavy drug user, and her brother and his wife have a child that has been terminally ill since the day she was born. Life just isn’t anything like she had hoped for. We see Andrea pick up the pieces that is her disappointing life, and whether she can come to terms with  it.

I picked this book for my March ‘Book of the Month Club’ pick, and I wasn’t sure what to expect from this; however, I really enjoyed this book. Had it not been for college finals, I probably could have read this within a couple days. The flow of the writing is easy and fast paced, not to mention the book is just short of 200 pages. I was always happy to pick the book up again once I put it down, and really enjoyed reading about Andrea’s life. I would definitely be interested to see what else Jami Attenberg comes out with in the future.

I rated this 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

-Carissa