All Grown Up - Softcover

Attenberg, Jami

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1328915328 ISBN 13: 9781328915320

Publisher: Ecco, 2018

Synopsis

A National Bestseller

“I read it twice, laughing, cringing, and even tearing up.” — Judy Blume, New York Times

“Powerful . . . All Grown Up is so intimately [and] sharply observed.” — Vogue
 
“Bravo to Attenberg, who, with hilarity and honesty, tells the story of an adult woman who wants what she wants, not what she’s supposed to want.” — Marie Claire
 
Who is Andrea Bern? When her dippy 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 a different idea of what it means to be an adult, though. 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 powers as a storyteller and a whip-smart examination of one woman’s life, lived entirely on her own terms.

About this title

Review

An Amazon Best Book of March 2017: A friend came to my apartment for the first time recently, frowning at the futon in the living room. “A futon?! You’re not in your 20s anymore!” Evidently a couch, an actual couch, is an indicator of adulthood—as is marriage, and the requisite 2.5 kids. By those standards, thirty-nine-year-old Andrea Bern, the unapologetically single and childless protagonist of Jami Attenberg’s bitingly funny and heartrending All Grown Up doesn’t fit the bill, and she’s fine with that (if her mother and much of society is not). But while living a life according to one’s own playbook has its perks, it also has pitfalls, and Andrea isn’t immune to a little existential crisis. Cue the passive aggressive trips to her therapist, a revolving door of unsuitable suitors, and the near-abandonment of one of the true loves of her life: her art. So steeped in ennui is she that Andrea (almost) fails to register when life tries to yank her from it; Her best friend’s seemingly perfect marriage is imploding, as well as her brother and sister-in-law’s—the result of trying to cope with their child’s precarious, and incurable illness. And they need Andrea, something that takes a little while to sink in, but once it does, she realizes that the road to adulthood is not paved with “real” furniture. It’s an epiphany that will punch you in the heart, and Attenberg has perfect aim. --Erin Kodicek, The Amazon Book Review

About the Author

JAMI ATTENBERG is the New York Times best-selling author of seven books of fiction, including The Middlesteins and All Grown Up. She has contributed essays to the New York Times Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times, and Longreads, among other publications. She lives in New Orleans.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1328915328
• ISBN 13: 9781328915320
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224