4 Dec 2024

Grown Ups, a review by Joanna

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Grown Ups

Marian Keyes

656 pages

Published in February 2020

Penguin

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Grown Ups is a recent standalone novel by the Queen of Irish Chick-lit, Marian Keyes. I found it in a Little Free Library and while I wasn’t so keen on the last of hers I read, decided I wanted to try again because I did used to love her older books. This one is about the sprawling connections between three brothers and their blended families, and how everyone’s secrets blow up during one excruciating dinner party.

Johnny Casey is celebrating his birthday surrounded by his family. His wife, a successful businesswoman, loves nothing more than to treat the whole clan to extravagant parties and holidays, and his brothers, their partners and kids all get swept along for the ride. This time though, his sister-in-law Cara, after suffering a head injury, decides she’s had enough, but how and why did they get there?
At the beginning of the book is a family tree to show how all the characters connect, and I was glad to be reading this in paperback, as I found I had to refer to it often – the cast of characters is huge! It’s quite long, like most of her books, and took me over two weeks to finish. I quite enjoyed it but was disappointed by the ending which left many characters’ fates unresolved.

Like many of Keyes’ books, there are some serious issues covered here, from relationship breakdowns to the plight of refugees to eating disorders, but with plenty of light hearted moments delivered mostly by the younger Casey kids. There are some wonderfully awful characters, and others’ who grow on you quite sneakily, but I wouldn’t want to spend any more time with many of them! Not her best work but enjoyable enough if you’re a fan.

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