Has anyone ever told you to grow up and act your age? Tell you that it’s about time you got your act together and settled down before it’s too late? What if you weren’t sure whether you wanted to do either, what if you wanted to go against society’s norms and not be a wife and mother, but to stay carefree and single? Andrea is fast approaching 40, she’s single and child free. She works in advertising, a job she hates, and has her own apartment in New York. Many would look at Andrea and feel envious of her life style. Andrea however, doesn’t really know how she feels. She knows that she is unhappy, but she only wants happiness on her terms. She’s not sure if she is single by choice, or whether she just bores of men easily. Her life is far from straight forward. By flitting back and forth in time, randomly, starting back in her adolescence years, you get to witness why Andrea has such a complex life, giving you a better understanding of how, and why, she feels and acts the way she does today. You get to meet her less than perfect parents (to be honest no-one is perfect). Her mother a very opinionated woman, an activist who fought for what she felt was right. Her father a drug addict. Not only did her family shape her life, her work colleagues and friends played a part too. Her best friend Indigo has settled down, gotten married and had a child. Even her brother has gotten his act together, and now he and his wife have a baby daughter. It is this period in Andrea’s life story that I felt an emotional attachment to. Her niece has a terminal illness, as a mother of a child with a life threatening, incurable illness, this touched emotions in me which I buried deep within the last few years. All Grown Up does contain a lot of humour, but I suppose that would depend on how you define humour. Some may read this book and state that there was no such thing, others may see the humour in all of Andrea’s life. This is what makes this a great book. It’s a bit like Marmite, you are either going to love it, or hate it. It certainly won’t be for everyone. Quite often it felt like watching a movie. One where the main character tries to explain how they became the person they are today, and justify why they behave the way they do via a series of clips delving deep into their past, just so that we can then empathise with them. Though I don’t feel in this instance that Andrea is looking for empathy, she just wants to be understood, whilst at the same time, trying to understand herself. The book, even-though only 207 pages, long did take me a while to get through it. I struggled with the way in which the book was written, there was no chronological order to it. Andrea is also not a character that you instantly like, and if I’m honest, I’m not even sure as I closed the book whether I ever did like her. But there was something about this book that made me want to read it, something holding me to the pages. It wasn’t the characters, though there was a lot that I enjoyed getting to know, nor the plot, it certainly wasn’t original. It was the rawness with which Ms. Attenberg writes. It delves deep into your soul and drags up all kinds of emotions, giving you that need to read, the need to try to understand, and the reality check that sometimes we need to remember that not everyone’s life is easy, and not everyone who seems okay on the outside really is. This is an impressively, moving novel, one that you won’t forget in a hurry. As I said early, Andrea didn’t want empathy, but maybe we need to give it.

This is a fictional but all too real account of one woman’s voyage through life, battered by family, societal pressures and her own inner demons. Andrea, the character at the heart of the book, is absolutely clear that she does not want a child of her own (even though she hits the big 40 partway during the narrative). Her life is spread eagled across the pages for the reader to pick over. Each chapter is a snapshot of an episode in her life, whether it is looking back over some of her chaotic childhood years – Dad was a drug user who died too early; Mum, once on her own again, runs bi-monthly dinner parties in the 1990s attended by only men, who of course try and hit on Andrea, a teenager at the time; or whether it is an examination of her relationships with her friends, lovers and acquaintances who pass through her life now. Her Mother thinks marriage is “a beautiful idea” but Andrea is clear that it is not an institution for her. Her best friend and yoga teacher Indigo has had a baby, lives in a lovely loft apartment but Andrea’s bristling distaste of the set-up is palpable on the page. And that is what this author does really well, she can write, she can conjure up atmospheres, feelings and responses, and she can describe the desolation of someone who is ploughing their way through life, pitted against adversity and against societal “norms”. Andrea also has a brother who in turn has a daughter, only tiny, who was born with a congenital problem and her life expectancy is only around four years. Yet, our self absorbed protagonist (there! I said it at last! Andrea is very much part of single life in the cityof the ‘me’ culture) does not really visit to offer support because she is so wrapped up in her own world. She simply does not have the resources to offer a worthwhile helping hand to others. She is anxiously attached to her Mother (not surprising given her childhood experiences), and she can’t bear that her Mother abandons her in the city, yet conversely longs to have a better relationship with her. She often finds herself spurning the intimacy of others offering the hand of friendship. This is an interesting read, on-point in many ways – it smacks of New York and of lives lived in the city, Freudian Angst, neuroses and all the shtick of metropolitan Manhattan. But I think I would only really like to encounter Andrea on a future occasion once she has regrouped and worked once more with her therapist (who was fired halfway through the narrative) and addressed her growling anger (which must be draining for her, but is also draining, sapping, for the reader too). Towards the end of the book, however, without giving away any spoilers, there seems to be some honing of her sharp and dissonant character, so there is hope of a more accepting and less angry person in the next chapter of her life. Her existence in many ways is portrayed as ‘bitter and edgy” and at times feels rather soulless. It’s all very depressingly 21st Century….