ARC Review: Grown Ups by Marian Keyes

Book 📖

Thank you to Penguin UK – Michael Joseph and the author Marian Keyes for this advanced readers copy in return for an honest review.

Description 🔖

The Casey family is made up of many characters with some big personalities. They’re one of those families that spend a lot of time together and make a big deal of every occasion; often in an extravagant manner.

There are a mixed bag of feelings amongst the Casey family, with some members unable to stand each other and others closer than they probably should be. The dynamics all change when Cara suffers a concussion and triggers an outpouring of all of the family secrets.

General Thoughts 🤔

I like me some Marian Keyes. I feel like every time I read one of her books, I’m on holiday, so it was a change for me to enjoy this book cuddled up on the sofa at home; and this was the perfect book for just doing that.

Every family has its dramas and it’s secrets and I think we all delight in getting all up in the cobwebs of other people’s families. That’s how this book made me feel. I felt like a fly on a wall in every household of the Casey family and it was brilliant.

Characters 👫👭👬

The Caseys are a large bunch so there are a LOT of characters to keep track of. With each character having their own private ongoing dramas there are a lot of moving parts. I struggled at first to know who was married to who, which kid belonged to which adult, but I soon knew them all very well.

My favourite character was probably Nell. She seemed to be the most level headed of them all and by far the coolest.

My least favourite character has to be a popular choice…Liam. What an arse. I love it when authors can make me dislike a character so much. It only proves to me that they’re an author worth reading.

Writing Style ✍🏽

Marian Keyes most definitely has her signature writing style and this book doesn’t disappoint. It’s full of understated humour, heart wrenching emotion and most of all; relatable. I think her strong point in this particular book is most definitely character building. I felt like I was a really good friend of the Casey family, the characters felt so real to me.

I really enjoyed the way that the story started with an event, before going back in time and unravelling everything back to the starting point. I was confused in the beginning but it was a nice “aaaahhhhh” feeling as everything started to become clear.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Would I recommend it? Yes. Will I be recommending it? Yes. I was almost disappointed when everything was out in the open in the story, I didn’t want it to finish. It’s an awesome story, about awesome characters, told through awesome writing.

😍😍😍😍😫