All Adults Here $26.25 RRP $32.99 (20% OFF) By: Emma Straub

A funny, uplifting and big-hearted novel about family - an instant New York Times bestseller

The New York Times bestseller 'A gorgeous and witty storyteller' Elizabeth Gilbert, author of City of Girls 'Hugely talented' BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour __________ Coming of age isn't just for kids. Astrid Strick has always tried to do her best for her three children. Now, they're finally grown up - but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Elliott doesn't have any idea who he really is, or how to communicate with his own sons. Porter is, at last, pregnant - but feels incapable of rising to the challenge. Nicky has fled to distant New Mexico, where he's living the bohemian dream. And Astrid herself is up to things that would make her children's hair curl... Until now, the family have managed to hide their true selves from each other. But when Nicky's incorrigibly curious daughter Cecelia comes to stay, her arrival threatens to upturn everything. After all, when it comes to family: can you ever really keep a secret? Witty, astute, and irresistibly readable, All Adults Here is a novel about how to survive inside a modern family from New York Times bestselling author Emma Straub. __________ Staff Review by Olivia Fricot Do we really need another novel about a semi-affluent yet dysfunctional white family? If it’s as good as All Adults Here, the new novel by Emma Straub, then the answer is an emphatic yes. Straub proves this trope to be the gift that just keeps on giving with a witty and perceptive novel about the complexities of modern family life. The plot of All Adults Here unfolds in Clapham, an idyllic town in the Hudson Valley which has been home to the Strick family for decades. Matriarch Astrid is a widow in calm control of her life who has found love again in the form of a woman named Birdie, but who can’t quite manage to connect with her adult children. Eldest child Elliott seems to have the perfect life, with the job, the wife and the kids to go with it, yet he is miserable and resentful. Handsome teen screen idol Nicky is too busy living in a bohemian New Mexico fantasy to properly deal with his daughter Cecilia after an incident at school. And the lone daughter Porter, who has always marched to the beat of her own drum, has decided to have a baby while remaining single and running her goat farm. For years the Stricks have lived at arms length from each other, but their carefully calibrated existence is upended when Cecelia arrives in town to stay and Astrid decides to reveal the truth about her late period of sexual self-discovery. As you can imagine, small town family chaos ensues. All Adults Here is incidentally funny, in that Straub is very good at drawing out the humour of a situation with subtlety. After all, there’s often nothing more ridiculous than a group of adults playing at being grown ups in dire situations. But there is a bitter sting in the humour’s tail, as the characters struggle against the walls they’ve built between themselves and their family members. Straub explores each individual character and their story with patience and the omniscient love and care that only an author could have for their creations. The result is a wise and warmly funny novel about how hard it can be to be your truest self around the people who are supposed to know you best. Whether you’re looking for your next book club read or a literary companion for your Saturday afternoons spent curled up on the couch, All Adults Here is the perfect thing. Praise for Emma Straub: 'Funny, poignant and beautifully observed' Jojo Moyes 'Witty and big-hearted ... leaves you smiling for days' Maria Semple 'Intimate, epic, beautifully observed' Jennifer Egan 'Smart, compelling ... irresistible' Liane Moriarty 'Has all the pleasures of Anne Tyler's compelling family portraits . . . with a Lorrie Moore-like sense of the absurdities of contemporary life' Michiko Kakutani, New York Times