Adults, for me, was a book of two sections. It was witty, cutting and caustic and I hugely enjoyed the latter 2/3, when the cleverly linked tales and teasers came together to form a narrative with more plot. In other words, once I was in the swing, I was hooked.

But it took me a little to get there, mainly because the over bearing premise at the start of the book is the lead protagonist’s overwrought obsession with social media; which didn’t resonate with me at all.

I am sure this will be compared to a Bridget Jones (but with added modern day neurosis), but it deserves to stand on its own as a thrilling piece of comedic writing with a big heart. Overall a glowing and amusing 3.5*

With many thanks to #netgalley and Harper Collins for the ARC in consideration of an honest review.

Jenny is a sort of millennial Bridget Jones, although perhaps a bit sillier (to be fair, I can’t really remember how silly Bridget Jones was). She made me laugh, but mostly shake my head and wonder whether anyone actually acts like this. The book was a kind of mish-mash of vignettes, tacked together with emails, texts, and phone calls. In this way, there was little plot, and the last 20% or so felt like a hasty wrapping up of all the subplots. Everything was very convenient, and this meant that it was often also at times widely unrealistic. Perhaps I didn’t enjoy it because I didn’t/couldn’t identify with Jenny, but I really wanted to!

Struggling to grow up and figure out your place and what it means to be an adult? Read this book. This is a no holds barred account of figuring out what it means to be an adult and all that goes with it. A worth while read that many can relate with.

The third novel from the author of the critically acclaimed novel and film, Animals, I came to the novel through chatter on twitter. Oh, I thought, people are saying some great things about this book, I’d love to read it.

I haven’t read Animals or seen the film so I’m probably quite a rare reader of this novel, coming with fresh eyes, though I suspect, from reading a review of the film, that Animals has a similar approach to Adults, one that looks at its female characters not in terms of likeability but in terms of verisimilitude, warts and all.

What I’m going to say next is going to annoy some people. I didn’t always like the main character, Jenny. It’s an irritating thing to say because you could presume that this suggests I think female characters should be likeable. I don’t. I don’t want to read a novel in which I like all the characters, that would be boring, to say the least. However, the irritation I felt was palpable. Jenny is obsessed with her social media standing. She has a column in a magazine in Shoreditch. She has, or had, a very handsome and famous photographer boyfriend. She owns her own house. You just wonder what she has to moan about.

Slowly, over the course of the novel, regardless of any irritation you might feel, it is almost impossible not to be drawn in, not to recognise pieces of yourself in Jenny. Her anxiety about how to present herself online, about what impact that might have on her life, her career, and in particular her happiness, all feels understandable and tangible, especially as she begins to open up about what is going wrong in her life.

You could argue it’s a coming of age novel for the perennially youthful and millennials. You could say it is a novel about self-acceptance or an exploration of that complex mother-daughter relationship. However you look at it, Adults is an honest no-holes’-barred, rush of a ride into one woman’s desperate attempt to grow up. It’s hard not to be gripped by that ride and it would make an arresting film. I suspect it will. In fact, after listening to Emma Jane Unsworth speak at a Byte The Book event recently, I know she’s adapting it into a television series. I hope it will have that Fleabag feel. Listening to Emma made me want to go back to her earlier work and catch up. For those who are already fans of her work, I’ve no doubt you’ll love Adults. You can pre-order your copies now. It comes out in January 2020.

I definitely liked parts of this novel, and I found lots of it funny, but I was so frustrated by the focus on phones phones phones. I get that it was satire, but I read to get a break from my phone and from social media so this just felt tiring to read.

Jenny is obsessed with Instagram, to the point where she's ignoring her best friend Kelly in favour of worrying about who's followed her. Her relationship broke down and her lodgers don't like her much, and her mother has just arrived to move in with her whether she wants her or not.

Initially, Jenny is actually pretty irritating and self-obsessed, but as the book goes on her motivations and worries become clearer and she becomes a more sympathetic character. It was a bit of a trawl to get through to the point where she stopped annoying me, and sometimes she was a bit too much - which I suppose was partly the point. There was plenty to think about in terms of social media obsession and how the image we present is so often very far from the truth. The tipping point for her finally getting a grip wasn't entirely clear but presumably she was meant to have been a decent person all along, just got sidetracked. I'm not sure the snippets of her earlier life really conveyed that very well (and in a brief London centric comment on property - I kept wondering how she managed to have a four bedroomed house - why on earth wouldn't she have bought a flat, or a smaller house if she was in a position to do that?)

Overall, enjoyable in the end but a bit too much of a chore to get through so maybe just not for me.

spoiler alert ** Having recently watched and enjoyed Animals,I was keen to read this book.
It's main character Jenny is self obsessed,phone obsessed,Instagram obsessed and really you'd think not very likeable.
Her best friend keeps reaching out to her,but she ignores her to spend time online,stalking someone she doesn't know.
However,Jenny is very likeable,she's clearly hurt from her relationship breakup,but more so from the reason of the breakup.
There's some great humour in here too... quite often,but not always involving her mum.
This book feels all to real in a world where we live our lives through our phones,and recently Instagram have said they're going to stop showing likes as its not good for people's mental health (I believe that was the story)
Great read.

Adults by Emma Jane Unsworth is a novel for our times about Jenny whose life is falling apart including problems with her best friend, her mother, her ex-boyfriend, her job and her addiction to social media.

The main character, Jenny, is a self-absorbed social media addict who barely has a real job writing thinly disguised autobiographical columns for an online feminist website. Her obsession with Instagram overshadows her friendship with her long-suffering best friend, Kelly, and was the final straw in her relationship with her photographer ex-boyfriend, Art. Yet Jenny barely registers let alone recognises how alienating and selfish her behaviour is, and if anything is engulfed in her own victimhood - she sees Kelly as unsympathetic and Art as having abandoned her. This is implicitly reasoned away as the result of teenage trauma and the unaddressed pain of an earlier miscarriage, but it's not a wholly convincing explanation. Towards the end of the book, Jenny suddenly becomes a kinder, more considerate woman able to resist the bright allure of Instagram but it's never quite clear how this has happened. Amidst this, the book is often sharp and funny, and is tender in its portrayal of a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship - but my overwhelming response to this book was irritation at Jenny.

Jenny McLaine is a thirty-something living a social media obsessed life in London. Her aim is to live her best life, but she’s busy sabotaging every relationship she has, including with her ex, her mother and her best friend Kelly.
Jenny isn’t always a likeable character but she’s quirky and witty. Her story - told in the first person - is pacy and enjoyable and the author uses Jenny’s own messages to herself as well as other emails, text messages etc to emphasise the hold that social media has on her.
In some ways this novel reminded me of stand-up comedy: well-observed, lots of one-liners but ultimate a light confection that’s perhaps more style over substance.
But Unsworth is original and this is a good antidote to more erudite world. Recommended as an engrossing tale of our times.

Adults is a sharp, loud novel about a woman in her thirties trying to escape the thrall of social media and find a way to feel on top of her life again. Jenny is thirty five, writes for a magazine, and owns a house in London. However, since her ex-boyfriend left the house is filled with three lodgers, she's alienating her best friend, and she can't stop stalking people with beautiful lives online. As things start to fall apart for her and her mother turns up on her doorstep, Jenny has to start admitting that something has got to change.

The writing style is witty and Unsworth uses flashbacks and digressions in texts, email, and other forms to build up the narrative in a way that suits the book, particularly with Jenny's obsession with social media. Jenny herself is a kind of anti-hero—a white, well-off woman living in London who is obsessed with her own problems and with finding the perfect Instagram caption—and she works well as a protagonist that people can both dislike and find relatable. The way the plot progresses does feel like it jumps forward suddenly and doesn't quite address the things it has raised (one part felt like it could've been a dream until it didn't end), but that isn't necessarily out of place amongst similar books which often focus on the characters, emotion, and hilarity.

Adults will be enjoyed by people who enjoy novels that feel like properly modern versions of female friendships and life, but with plenty of humour and not necessarily likeable characters. Think a Buzzfeed long read about social media addiction affecting someone's hectic London life turned into a novel about being an adult.

This book is phenomenal. Grown up chick lit for this generation. Poignant, heartbreaking and meaningful, this book will resonate with every woman trying to juggle her own self identity and place in the world.
So glad I read this absolute game changer of a book.

A fiery depiction of what constitutes "the modern woman"; a delightfully arch, witty, neurotic anti-hero.

Thanks to NetGalley and The Borough Press for an early copy of this book.

I really liked the writing style of this book and Unsworth has mastered the art of capturing unlikable characters. I can usually handle unlikable characters if I think they have merit or value in a book but in this case it fell a little short of the mark and felt a bit silly. There have been a rise in books about female friendships in the main stream and perhaps I have read too many lately and that this has impacted my feelings on this.

The premise had a lot of potential and I am sure that many people will enjoy this book but sadly I am not one of them. I will be interested to watch the film and see how the story is captured in a different medium, perhaps it will translate better (for me) on screen.