This is a very enjoyable read filled with many humorous moments.
I found the main character very well depicted and could easily relate.
It’s a funny and heartwarming read.

I geuinely had a fun time reading this book. I really enjoyed the book. Perfect for those looking for a fun and quick read

Thank you to the publisher for my eARC copy of this book. Unfortunately I didn’t love this book and therefore didn’t finish, I just didn’t connect with this one. Not for me, sorry.

Adults by Emma Jane Unsworth is about Jenny McLaine hitting rock bottom - she has a social media addiction, a home that she can't afford on her own, a famous ex-boyfriend, and she can't get out of her own head.  

It's a hard book to read in places when Jenny's having so many issues, I did enjoy the story as a whole!

 Adults  was published on 30th January 2020, and is available from  Amazon ,  Waterstones  and  Bookshop.org .

You can follow Emma Jane Unsworth on  Twitter  and  Instagram .

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to  HarperCollins .

Adults was a bit too close to the mark for me! I definitely identified with Jenny throughout. I really loved this book, however my only criticism is that it was a bit one note throughout, and so those darker moments didn't feel quite as dark because the humour was the same. Still a fab book though!

“If you put something on social media and no one likes it, do you even exist?” Jenny McLaine is a social media addict in her mid-thirties. She loses her hipster photographer boyfriend and her columnist job in quick succession, at which point her mother, an exuberant psychic who’d be played by Alison Steadman in any adaptation worth its salt, moves in, forcing Jenny to face up to issues she’s let fester for too long.

This is a lot like Queenie: Jenny is amusingly neurotic, and I liked the mixture of formats (text messages, Instagram captions and comments, drafts of unsent e-mails, etc.). Like Queenie, Jenny gradually gets her life sorted out and trades some unhealthy relationships for better ones. Ultimately, though, there wasn’t a lot for me to relate to and I was relieved to get out of Jenny’s head – the novel could easily have been 100 pages shorter, though I enjoyed her relationships with her mother and her best friend, single mum Kelly.

If you’re wondering whether you want to try this, ask whether you can withstand 15 pages of dithering over the Instagram caption to a photograph of a croissant.

Some favorite lines:

“I’ve told Kelly that we have to respect social media more than the younger generations because we’re not digital natives. We were raised in print. … we weren’t brought up natural broadcasters. We’ve had to catch up, and too quickly.”

“Oh, to be fearless in terrible shoes again, oh so fearless and able to tolerate the cheapest of drinks and the cheapest of shoes.”

“This culture of constant checking, of feeling as though everything can be instantly sorted, and accounted for, and validated, and gratified – that has to rub off on us psychically, doesn’t it?”

Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

A quirky book, with a main character who is parts irritating, parts endearing. Well written, funny and touching. A writer to watch.

Unfortunately not my cup of tea, the writing style wasn't for me and the plot didn't go anywhere for me. Dont let this put you off though as I believe it is a marmite book some love it others not so much

I really wanted to like this book - i had heard really good things about the author's first book. However I really did not get on with this book. It's as if the author has no idea what a millenial is like so guessed - apparently spending hours choosing a hashtag for a crossiant instagram post. I just could not deal with the awful protagonist and the over the top cliches.

I will not be recommending this book.

Jenny is 35, lives in London, has friends, an ex, a job and a mother. And a phone. This is a book about her relationship with all of these.

Jenny is a likeable character - flawed, but with lots of appeal. She tries hard and has had some really bad luck, and it's easy to empathise with her as you follow her through life's dramas.

If you're looking for something easy to read and not too in depth, then I'd recommend this book. The use of reported text messages, emails and social media posts ensured that it was a page-turner which focused mainly on Jenny's feelings. It wasn't quite telegraphic, but did get straight to the point without any lengthy description. And sometimes, I really appreciate that.

I did find the story to lack depth in places, and missed getting different characters' perspectives on the events. Jenny's mother, Carmen, come across as the most well-rounded character as we see her in different situations and find out a little more about her past than some of the others.

Overall, this was a good read if you like modern romances or books about how women relate to each other.

This was hilarious.
I spent a lot of my reading time cringing at Jenny and how she didn't give herself enough credit. And although I didn't always warm to her, I felt myself empathise with her trials and tribulations.
Not quite as wonderful as Animals but a very engaging and funny read nevertheless.
Thank you to Emma Jane Unsworth and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review Adults.

I really expected to love this book but I’m afraid it missed the mark for me a bit and I had to restart it several times to get into the story.

For me, I found the characters unrealistic and found them hard to empathise with. Their experience of adulthood is wholly unrecognisable to me, so I think I’m just not the target audience.

The writing was humorous and I liked the story enough to finish it but it hasn’t left a lasting impression on me.

All the praise that has been heaped on Emma Jane Unsworth’s latest novel is justified. Adults is a sharp, quick witted exploration of digital anxiety. It is a brilliant satire on the social media age of self-promotion - equal parts comedy and tragedy. Aside from exploring digital dependency, Adults delves into more complex themes of personal relationships, including friendship, maternal and romantic.

Oh this sums up today’s obsession with social media and their vacuous lives. I did not like the characters and can’t identify with them at all. Sorry a thumbs down from me#NetGalley#Adults

Right from the start of this book I struggled with it. I immediately found the protagonist self obsessed and flaky and thorougly irritating. I kept with it, often falling asleep out of sheer boredom. Then I found that I could keep vaguely interested by skipping through the tedium of it. It became marginally less dull when the mother made an appearance, but only marginally.

Quite frankly, reading this was a waste of my life. I hoped it'd get better... it didn't! The first star is for writing it and the second is being generous because the spelling was ok... zzzzz

I absolutely loved this book. I started off finding Jenny vacuous and self-centred, she was absolutely maddening! But the more you get to know her the more you can relate, even if not directly. It also confirmed what I feel like we all knew: men are trash. A funny, sad, but uplifting book about life, love, social media, and being a woman in your 30s. Plus she was from the north west and who doesn’t love that!

This book is 100% a book about and for todays society, talking about the stress and anxiety when it comes to social media and technology. In today’s society there is this obsession surrounding technology and social media and the amount of time that we spend on them. How we can be hanging out with friends, family, partners and still have our heads in our phones. (Think about the last time you watched a film, we’re in a queue, or on a public transport and you didn’t go on your phone at the same time). How is can take over your life. This book sums up that obsession brilliantly! This is all done and highlighted in such a funny way and it had me laughing constantly, even more so with how much it spoke to my introverted self in certain parts.

I am not innocent of all this. Especially during Lockdown, I have become increasingly addicted to TikTok, YouTube and Twitter. How when me and my partner watch a movie, at some point during the film, me and my partner will pull out our phone and begin playing a game or googling why the actor/tress looks familiar. It’s got to the point where we have phone free movie nights!

The main character of this book, Jenny, was so self obsessed, shallow, insecure, overthinking and worrying about everything, especially the digital world. Worrying and stressing about every post, every email, every digital finger print that she was putting out there; having her friend double check everything. Having her double check emails from herself to her boyfriend, which should be personal, before and after she sent them, which got me thinking that this was either a great friendship, or a seriously one-sided friendship. The anxiety and insecurity felt suffocating and had me wondering why she was doing it all. Why post all those posts when you're constantly worried about what you're saying, how you've said it and how many likes and replies you're getting?.

This book felt and read like a satirical take on society today, that did have me laughing in parts. However, it made me go from fully on belly laughing at certain points, to not wanting to pick this book back up because I didn’t want to continuing reading from this needy and moany character. This book is 100% character driven with no real plot, other than the constant barrage of messages of how “social media is bad and addictive”. Usually I enjoy character driven books, but Jenny isn’t one that I want to be reading about and I have no interest in how her character develops. I would’ve DNFed this book easily if I hadn’t needed to review it.

Overall, I was disappointed with this book, but it was relatable to a certain degree and did make me take a look at my own relationship with my phone, social media and how I use it while around people.

'I was looking at my phone while we were having sex. I see now how that might have been interpreted as rude - some might even say offensive.'

'Kelly still has a star tattoo on her wrist from when she used to be an anarchist. (She never turned down a cheeseboard, though. I think you often find that with anarchists - they still like the small comforts.)'

Funny, even hilarious in places, but the humour is spotty and the story doesn't cohere. It's hard to believe Jenny is mid-thirties when she acts more like a petulant and insecure teenager. Gags about who ate the last avocado half from the fridge fall limp. It's hard to see what this is trying to say, other than attempting to be a Bridget Jones for now with social media replacing calorie obsession. This might have worked better as a series of columns or blog posts - as a novel it feels directionless. Which is a shame as Unsworth has the potential to be better that this book shows.

Having read the author’s previous two novels I was looking forward to this one and feel that it stylistically follows on from the other two.

However, I wasn’t entirely convinced by the novel’s tone. The main character (first person narrative) was similar to that of her first novel (also a first-person narrative) and the main character’s relationships with her female friends was similar to that of her second novel. Whilst this isn’t a bad thing, I felt as if the novel wasn’t sure of the argument it was making around social media and its effect on modern life. Is it bad for isolating people, or are people fools for taking something so ephemeral so seriously?

Either is a valid argument to take, but the latter would be better served by something more satirical and Adults just doesn’t have the bite to push it over into that category.

On top of all that there is another narrative about a miscarriage. I not sure how this was serving the main theme of the novel and now seems to be the go-to Serious Thing that happens to young women in novels and in screenplays here there and everywhere.

This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy Adults, I did, and Unsworth’s style is highly readable and has a real character all of its own but in the light of the author’s first two novels I didn’t feel that it was offering me anything really new.