All Adults Here

A Novel

By: Emma Straub

Narrated by: Emily Rankin

Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's Summary

An Instant New York Times Best Seller

A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year

A Parade Best Book of 2020

A Good Housekeeping BEST BOOK of 2020 

A Today Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick!

"In a time when all we want is hope, it’s a beautiful book to reach for." (Jenna Bush Hager)

“Literary sunshine.” (New York Times)

"Brimming with kindness, forgiveness, humor and love and yet (magically) also a page turner that held me captive until it was finished. This is Emma Straub's absolute best and the world will love it. I love it." (Ann Patchett)

A warm, funny, and keenly perceptive novel about the life cycle of one family - as the kids become parents, grandchildren become teenagers, and a matriarch confronts the legacy of her mistakes. From the New York Times best-selling author of Modern Lovers and The Vacationers.

When Astrid Strick witnesses a school bus accident in the center of town, it jostles loose a repressed memory from her young parenting days decades earlier. Suddenly, Astrid realizes she was not quite the parent she thought she'd been to her three, now-grown children. But to what consequence?

Astrid's youngest son is drifting and unfocused, making parenting mistakes of his own. Her daughter is pregnant yet struggling to give up her own adolescence. And her eldest seems to measure his adult life according to standards no one else shares. But who gets to decide, so many years later, which long-ago lapses were the ones that mattered? Who decides which apologies really count? It might be that only Astrid's thirteen-year-old granddaughter and her new friend really understand the courage it takes to tell the truth to the people you love the most. 

In All Adults Here, Emma Straub's unique alchemy of wisdom, humor, and insight come together in a deeply satisfying story about adult siblings, aging parents, high school boyfriends, middle school mean girls, the lifelong effects of birth order, and all the other things that follow us into adulthood, whether we like them to or not.

©2020 Emma Straub (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic Reviews

"Emma Straub's warm-hearted fourth novel confirms her reign as a patron saint of delayed adolescence." (NPR)

"'Literary sunshine' is a good way to think of Straub’s work. Her writing and tone are consistently bright and straightforward; her approach to character is warm and generous.... The main pleasures of All Adults Here come from Straub’s wry comic instincts (a pair of hyperaggressive twin toddlers are hilariously appalling) and her gimlet eye for cultural observation.... Her wit extends out from the individual characters into a larger commentary on the difficulties of becoming an adult, making this an especially rich addition to the author’s body of work." (The New York Times)

"Undeniably pleasing...a kind of thinking-person's beach read that's maybe all the better for arriving in these strange, landlocked times." (Entertainment Weekly)

What?!

The book starts out with the main character witnessing an accident near her salon. She goes on to her appointment where she and the hairdresser start to makeout. WTF?

Terrible

Could not finish this book. She’s all over the place with each character’s sexual preferences. Tedious. Could not finish, what a waste👎

Family

I Love reading a book where I fall in love with the characters and hate for the book to end. Straub did a great job of exposing the faults and strengths, not only of Astrid the main character, but of all of her family as well.

Ridiculous story

The story is so predictable and ridiculous. I could not handle the metaphors in almost every sentence. As still as the beefeaters in front of Buckingham Palace; holding on the way a queen holds the edge of a king's throne; it made as much sense as hiring a sky writing airplane and puffing the words out in smoke; the way a fighter might take off her earrings before a sidewalk brawl; like a piece of unbuttered wonder bread, like she was testing for bad breath, it felt like she was trying to audition for the ninja warrior course, she felt like a 10 foot tall dragon, like godzilla, like she was walking through the Hudson River. These metaphors are so contrived and unnecessary. I found myself just waiting for the next one and the next one. Really unbearable. So many cliches and preposterous story lines.

Escape

what a wonderful escape during this quarantine! Loved every minute of it! A Great Book!

A look back

It took me a while to understand where this book was trying to lead me, as a mother with a daughter and grandchildren the last chapters just hit home. We all make mistakes as parents some big, some small. This is a great book for all mothers.

Good but not great.

This book was good but not great. I didn't really ever get to the point that I cared about the characters. Some parts of the story I thought were underdeveloped, other parts drug on somewhat. Too many characters whose stories were basically dropped and never woven into the end .

SAPPY!

So politically correct it was impossible to believe!Book clubs consisting of retired women and stay at home moms will love dissecting this, but don’t bother spending your time and money on it.

Great book

I can see why my 2 book clubs recommended this as the pick for the month. Love the characters and storyline...great read!

a lot of characters, but not a lot development

Not bad, but not good. Nice lead up to something, but fell flat and very rushed.