All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg
All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg
"Hilarious and insightful this is Attenberg at her best! This terrific novel is about what some would consider a fate worse than death: being single in your late 30's. Is it possible to be 'all grown up' without marriage and children? Of course it is! And we're along for the ride with a hot-mess character who has her ups and downs, but does all she can to live her best life... or not. Really fun! " - Recommended by Greg
Who is Andrea Bern? When her therapist asks the question, Andrea knows the right things to say: she's a designer, a friend, a daughter, a sister. But it's what she leaves unsaid--she's alone, a drinker, a former artist, a shrieker in bed, captain of the sinking ship that is her flesh--that feels the most true. Everyone around her seems to have an entirely different idea of what it means to be an adult: her best friend, Indigo, is getting married; her brother--who miraculously seems unscathed by their shared tumultuous childhood--and sister-in-law are having a hoped-for baby; and her friend Matthew continues to wholly devote himself to making dark paintings at the cost of being flat broke.
But when Andrea's niece finally arrives, born with a heartbreaking ailment, the Bern family is forced to reexamine what really matters. Will this drive them together or tear them apart? Told in gut-wrenchingly honest, mordantly comic vignettes, All Grown Up is a breathtaking display of Jami Attenberg's power as a storyteller, a whip-smart examination of one woman's life, lived entirely on her own terms.