A fun, frenetic and heart warming rendition of a day in the life of a menopausal woman trying her best to make things right between her and her daughter and estranged husband. Many relatable issues, but written in a fun way.
Trying to make this stage of a woman's life less scary and making readers like me, going through a similar period in her life (without the estranged family) that things happen that are sometimes out of our control.
I'm glad that Grace Adams gets her life back on an even keel. A fantastic read :)

Amazing Grace Adams by Fran Littlewood is about a woman whose life is unravelling and how she has got to this point.

The author manages to infuse a thoroughly evocative atmosphere into a page-turner plot The overall feeling from reading this book is like being enveloped in a warm hug from that special someone in your life.

To tell the truth, I was disappointed by this debut novel of which I had heard good things. Although inspired by 'falling down' ( wish I'd known as I do not enjoy that movie) it has none of the narrator drive even of that. The story is mainly told over a day in the life of Grace who has reached an extremely low point in her life and we get flashbacks Into her past and how she has got to this point. But not enough is revealed until the last part which drew sympathy from me and Grace on the whole is a very unlikeable character ( as are her husband and her daughter).

Sadly, although I really wanted to like this book it was merely 'okay'. It had nothing on other novels about 'women on the edge of a nervous breakdown'. I doubt I would read another by this author. Apologies, I do not like giving bad reviews

A funny but poignant story about the realities of motherhood and being a woman in 2022. I did find the structure confusing to start with, as there are a few different timelines told through flashbacks, but once the structure repeated a couple of times I was fully immersed. Perhaps the climax of the present day storyline is a little far fetched, but I was happy to suspend belief.

I saw some reviewers said they found Grace unlikeable. I wonder if this could be linked to the fact she is just very real. She has good qualities, and she also has some awful ones. I found that aspect of the book to be great, and very believable.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publishers for an advanced copy of this book.

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing this ARC

Amazing Grace Adams is a commentary on victim blaming, parenthood, abuse and being a woman. I choose to read this one based on the synopsis.

The action of this story happens on a single day, with several flashbacks on different periods (sometimes years, sometimes months) to difficult situations. I found this very confusing and could not follow through. Felt very convoluted although I understand that the flashbacks would drive the present actions, but jumping from present to 20n years and then last month ALL the time was unnecessary.

I usually love these types of protagonist but I could not tolerate Grace. Like the writing and flashbacks, Grace was very frantic and not a very likeable character. I understand we are witnessing a rough day of her life where everything falls apart, but I found particularly the ending to be dramatic to the point of being too fetched. Someone on a previous review compared to Fleabag type of humour: I can see why the comparison, but the way it was done here was simply too much. Grace is a linguistic and I swear that at every paragraph there is a pun about languages or a silly little story about a far fetch situation involving languages.



I hope until debut there is a bit editing on the structure of the book. I would definitively attempt another read if so .

A bittersweet read which is totally enthralling. I found the beginning took a little getting used to but once involved I was totally engrossed. The story jumps between different time lines and follows relationships around one family including trauma and not dealing with the fall out at the time. Well written with excellent characters to empathise with. Sad at times even somewhat desperate but there's hope too with a certain realism.

Amazing indeed! What a fabulous story! Grace appears to be almost a superwoman, proficient in a number of languages, good job, loving Husband and daughter yet She appears to have lost it all.

I love that Grace, Ben and Lotte all go through their own personal growth whilst they learn about themselves and each other.

The book expertly tackles tough themes such as greif, inappropriate relationships and dealing with the menopause.

You can't help but root for Grace and you won't be able to put this down!

Struggled at the start, but once i got to grips with Grace, her husband and her daughter, I couldn't put it down. Will admit it's a hard read in some places, as it tackles mental health, but all in all it's a story of how mother's survive lifes ups and downs

Brilliant! From the opening chapter (which the author admits was inspired by Falling Down) we follow Grace as she tries to understand her relationships with her daughter, her husband and herself. Funny, thoughtful and heart-breaking, this is one of the best things I've read recently.

What an amazing debut novel this is!
Amazing Grace Adams, polyglot extrordinaire, television personality, peri-menopausal wife and mum.
The book plays out during the course of one day where Grace tries to get a cake to her daughter's 16th birthday with flashbacks to other important periods in her life. It is a slow burner that picks up about halfway through to a sizzling end.
Being a woman of a certain age I can relate to Grace and I think many other women will as well. It is a story of family, love and loss. It is well written with great characterization and I predict it will be a well talked about book in 2023.

This book was incredibly well written. However, I could not get into it at all and had to force myself to pick it up and read it. I think part of the problem was the jumping around of timelines - which always confuse me. I also didn’t really like Grace and found her quite irritating. I can see why so many people liked it and it was not predictable

There is a lot of food for thought in this book and I can see it being discussed by book groups all over the land. Grace Adams used to be amazing and she doesn’t understand what happened to change that. There is so much anger and sadness and ferocious bewilderment In this novel - ultimately you see how the words and actions of parents have such a huge effect on their children. The book started slowly and jumped from past to present and back again at first but settled down into the second half and then fairly galloped toward the ending. I was riveted and couldn’t put it down until I found out how it all resolved and haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

Grace Adams has a lot on her mind. Along with being peri menopausal, her home life is definitely in the doldrums. On her daughter Lottie’s sixteenth birthday, matters come to a head and events unfurl that take on a life of their own.

This books starts as it means to go on! Captivating and absorbing, we follow a day in the life of Grace Adams, with flash backs throughout of her earlier life - meeting her husband, the birth of her daughter, the tragedy that befalls them all. As well, there is the more recent past, where Lottie is becoming a young woman, with all the trials and tribulations that brings when she gets involved with a totally unsuitable character.

A lovely, fresh, thought provoking story, that is both sad and perceptive. The issues raised are dealt with carefully and with compassion.

I loved Grace, even when she was on the road to destruction, and I was willing for her to get a grip! Anyone of us could end up as a Grace.

Superbly written, lovely narrative, a belter of a book.

Thank you NetGalley.

The story of "Amazing Grace Adams" is a bittersweet exploration of trauma and how it affects familial relationships.

The novel by Fran Littlewood begins on a light note so as readers we do not quite understand, why getting the "Love Island"-themed birthday cake for her daughter is so important to Grace. Then, as her journey to the party progresses, we uncover more and more parts of Grace's story, which makes her more sympathetic character, although not necessarily likeable.

The anger, longing for "what ifs" and deep sadness that Grace experiences, exacerbated by her permienoupause, are believable. However, I found myself wishing for more exploration of Grace's husband side of the story, as I felt there was more to add there.

A great story but a tough read at times recognising the challenges in mental health and how they can impact on people and their behaviour.

I found myself confused at time during the early part of the book as I didn't understand what was going on. The constant references to the past at different times fragmented the story. Gradually as the book progressed, I began to understand more about the traumas that were causing a lot of Grace's behaviour in the present time frame in the book. I felt that there was too much going on. The story of what was happening to her through her mental health issues and her unresolved trauma coupled with menopause was enough. The story was resolved at the end but it was too confusing.

Read and reviewed in exchange for a free copy from NetGalley. I struggled somewhat with this book as I found the protagonist unlikeable, and I felt that the title of the book did not fit the events of the story. Whilst Littlewood created a lot of sympathy for Grace and tacked difficult issues well, it took awhile for me to engage with the book. That said, I became more invested towards the end.

There were so many moments when I felt seen by Grace Adams and her creator, Fran Littlewood.
Grace Adams has had enough of the micro aggressions of daily life that a woman has to endure: the builders' catcalls, the man on the tube who presses into her, the blank sneer of the woman in the cake shop. But there's more going on in Grace's past and Littlewood takes us back to key moments in Grace's life. The book is spread over the course of the hours in one day, but during this day we travel back in time so that we understand how she has come to this point, lost in her career and losing touch with her 16-year-old daughter and her husband.
There's plenty of wit and humour and it was a joy to read about menopausal symptoms tackled with such frankness. But the loss at the heart of this book is what has stayed with me, and the way that Grace's unravelling is deftly revealed to us.
Grace is a woman who needs to be heard: as a 47-year-old woman who has missed out on opportunities (while her husband's career flourished) and also as a woman who is carrying a heavy load. I can't wait to see Grace's entrance into the world in 2023.

I felt this was really well written and the central story about grief and loss and Love was compelling and moving. I felt the whole narrative arc would have been more powerful in its simplicity if it had stuck to Grace, Ben and Lotte though.
There was a lot of disparate material surrounding the main plot which never seemed to come to anything or be important to the story.
For instance why did her sister need to live in California? Why did Ben‘s family need to be minor aristocracy? Why did she need to have a horrible menopause? None of that really added anything and if anything detracted from the gut-wrenching trauma at the heart of the novel. It felt like it times you were wondering how much misery could actually happen to one family? Dysfunctional extended families, sexual abuse, infidelity, mental health issues, physical health issues, death, crime, inability to order a birthday cake properly … ;)