I absolutely adore Marian Keyes. I read her first novel when I was 17, and here I am, at 42, still reading and loving her work. She has an amazing way of developing wonderful characters, and brilliant comedic timing. And of course, her stories are always relatable, hilarious, but also very true to life. In life there are good people and there are terrible people, but for the most part there are those in between, erring somewhere along the bad to good spectrum, and Marian Keyes does so well at creating these real people who could be you, or me, or anyone we know. 

Grown Ups is a family saga that starts in the middle of a dinner party kind of out of nowhere, and then leads us backwards, untangling the intricate knots of the Casey family along the way, before ending up right back at the dinner party again. There are the three brothers, Johnny, Ed, and Liam, and their wives, Jessie, Cara, and Nell, as well as their children. While the novel kind of revolves around Jessie, who has put herself in a type of matriarchal position, corralling everyone into partaking in all-expenses paid family weekends away, we get to know all of the others well enough. And everyone seems to have something to hide, or something they are ashamed of, something they just can’t keep hidden forever. 

I personally didn’t have much time for Jessie or Johnny. I am very much like Nell and it would have driven me insane to feel forced to attend over the top holidays away from my own life all of the time. But I did understand why Jessie was the way she was, and by the end she had grown on me. I loved Nell, and I also loved Ed and Cara. And even Ferdia, who grows up a lot through the narrative. But what I loved most of all was how the story just worked. I thoroughly enjoyed becoming an invisible part of the family through the glimpses that Keyes gives us, glimpses that become a puzzle that you slowly put together in your mind. 

I had been holding out on this one for a few months, knowing that I was in for a treat, and I definitely wasn’t disappointed! 

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.