Good Reads / Community Library Notes
All Grown Up
Jami Attenberg
Review by Priscilla Comen
All Grown Up
Jami Attenberg
Review by Priscilla Comen
All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg is about Andrea who is single, hates her job, and admires her mother’s work. Her mother, a strong, independent woman, always thinks she needs a man around, and after her husband dies, sleeps with many losers. Andrea sees a therapist, but still doesn’t know who she is or what she wants. Even though she used to paint, now she only goes to gallery openings. She buys a depressing painting by Matthew whom she is seeing. This is a light, delightful book about a realistic person who lives in a real city, Manhattan.
Andrea’s brother has moved to New Hampshire with his wife and very ill baby. It's expected that the baby will die before she grows up, and Andrea’s mom goes to live with her son’s family to help them. Author Attenberg makes the reader care about these people, and shows us how to be more human. We travel with Andrea, from a friendship with Felicia to a funeral for her mother’s best friend. Betsy. Andrea’s mother speaks so well at the funeral that all those present want her to speak at theirs. Andrea decides to love her mother, to appreciate the person she has become. Can Andrea become a strong woman? She fires her therapist and sees this as a way to independence.
At age forty she still doesn’t want marriage or children. She talks about Ingrid’s divorce from her perfect husband, and her friendship with Kevin who is black and must have a black girlfriend. He has one for a year and then they separate. Andrea and he become good friends. Andrea decides to go to New Hampshire for Thanksgiving. Is she finally growing up? Is she realizing that family really matters? The author takes us back in time to Andrea at thirteen, then at twenty years of age. Will Andrea grow to love her brother’s sick baby? Will she listen to her brother’s music and love it? This book glows with love. It’s on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
Andrea’s brother has moved to New Hampshire with his wife and very ill baby. It's expected that the baby will die before she grows up, and Andrea’s mom goes to live with her son’s family to help them. Author Attenberg makes the reader care about these people, and shows us how to be more human. We travel with Andrea, from a friendship with Felicia to a funeral for her mother’s best friend. Betsy. Andrea’s mother speaks so well at the funeral that all those present want her to speak at theirs. Andrea decides to love her mother, to appreciate the person she has become. Can Andrea become a strong woman? She fires her therapist and sees this as a way to independence.
At age forty she still doesn’t want marriage or children. She talks about Ingrid’s divorce from her perfect husband, and her friendship with Kevin who is black and must have a black girlfriend. He has one for a year and then they separate. Andrea and he become good friends. Andrea decides to go to New Hampshire for Thanksgiving. Is she finally growing up? Is she realizing that family really matters? The author takes us back in time to Andrea at thirteen, then at twenty years of age. Will Andrea grow to love her brother’s sick baby? Will she listen to her brother’s music and love it? This book glows with love. It’s on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.