Every once in a while a debut book catches my eye, and the cover of this one is definitely eye-catching! But don’t let it sway you one way or the other, because while Grace is a uniquely grating character, she has reasons why she is the way she is. This book is so affecting that Jenna Bush Hager has chosen it for her September 2023 book club read. This is a novel that has divided my Goodreads friends, it resonates heavily with some people (including me) and others just can’t seem to click with it. I encourage you to pick it up and see where you fall on the spectrum with it.
Amazing Grace Adams is a September 2023 release from Henry Holt and Co.
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book, all opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links, see disclosures for more detail.
About the Book:
Grace Adams gave birth, blinked, and now suddenly she is forty-five, perimenopausal and stalled―the unhappiest age you can be, according to the Guardian. And today she’s really losing it. Stuck in traffic, she finally has had enough. To the astonishment of everyone, Grace gets out of her car and simply walks away.
Grace sets off across London, armed with a £200 cake, to win back her estranged teenage daughter on her sixteenth birthday. Because today is the day she’ll remind her daughter that no matter how far we fall, we can always get back up again. Because Grace Adams used to be amazing. Her husband thought so. Her daughter thought so. Even Grace thought so. But everyone seems to have forgotten. Grace is about to remind them . . . and, most important, remind herself.
My Thoughts:
I gave this book 4 stars
Whew wasn’t expecting this to be as difficult emotionally as it was.
There are some triggers in this book, and if you have some you might want to check out the trigger warnings below (underneath the purchase link) before embarking on this book. I thought from the cover and the description that this would be lighthearted and it is definitely a lot heavier than anticipated.
Told in three timelines, the book takes on a frantic, chaotic feel, but I honestly think that is what the author was going for. Grace’s life is frantic and chaotic, it felt so frustrating to me as a reader to see Grace letting things fall by the wayside, picking some of them up at random times, not caring about things that seemed very important. I honestly almost threw in the towel on the book because I just could not identify at all with the way she was thinking and behaving.
And then…we find out about a major thing that happened, and my heart just broke into a billion pieces and 100% understood why Grace, Ben, and Lottie acted and kept acting the way they did. I understand because I have lived it and everything is so realistically portrayed I had tears running down my face.
I listened to this as an audiobook and Claire Skinner does a fantastic job at capturing Grace and all she is going through.
This is a very powerful book, but you can’t have any preconceived expectations about it and you have to let it come together without being frustrated. It is certainly not going to connect with every reader but it certainly did with me.
Click to Purchase:
Trigger Warning Below:
Trigger Warning (Spoilers Below, only read if you are willing to encounter spoilers)
Grooming, Sexual Assault, Death of a Child
