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Release Date: Expected 19th January 2023
Publisher: Penguin Michael Joseph
Things are not so amazing for Grace Adams right now. She's jobless, loveless and hopeless. Her husband is divorcing her, her sixteen year old daughter wants nothing to do with her, her sister won't stop calling and her day just keeps getting worse.
And now she's had it. She's done. When she abandons her car in the gridlocked traffic that was trapping her, it looks like the start of a breakdown - but it's something else entirely. She's not breaking down, she's breaking out and she's going to get back everything she's lost.
She's going to get to her daughters sixteenth birthday. She's going to fix her marriage with Ben and be a better partner. She's going to finally face all the warnings that have been screaming at her all these years, trying to tell her that she's losing control of her life.
Because Grace Adams was amazing. And she will be again. She's reached rock bottom, and there's nowhere else to go but up.
"After the before and Before the after is a diabolical no mans land."
Grace Adams was quite simply a joy to behold. And much like the old song, she once was lost but she's ready to find herself again. She was painfully human - she made awful mistakes, took people for granted, lost her temper - she was living like a background character as her life fell apart around her. But underneath all the flaws was a woman full of heart, so genuine I couldn't help but root for her. She was a truly authentic portrayal of someone lost in their life and didn't know until it was too late; didn't see her daughter struggling or her husband drifting away, who is struggling under the pressure of being a woman in a mans world but is desperate to be better.
Fran Littlewood has a way of evoking deep emotional responses; the way she can draw out such intense discomfort and frustration is evident from the first few lines as she draws the reader into a unbearably hot and sticky day stuck in endless traffic, with all these little details that just add something so visceral to an otherwise normal scene.
Told between the present day, the months leading up and decades in the past when she first met Ben, we slowly peel away the layers of Graces life to understand who she is and all the little moments that created who she is now. The time jumps around erratically at first but gets easier to follow as the story moves forward and we get to spend a little bit more time in each moment. Our main storyline carefully sets out the events of one fateful day - the day Grace Adams changes her life and takes the first step towards it.
Despite the main storyline just being a single day it's a manic, absurd and larger-than-life day - it isn't just a journey towards a birthday party, it's a journey to fight for her life and for herself. It's somehow both down-to-earth and over-the-top all at once, with moments of quiet contemplation and soap opera worthy drama. At times, it almost felt a bit 'too much' - but life is so messy and complicated at times that this is a lot more relatable than it first seems on the surface.
I usually don't like a cliche, but this is the kind of book that really does tear you down and builds you back up again - packed full of tender emotion, witty observations about the absurdity of life and a lot of heart.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
I was gifted an advanced reviewers copy of this title in return for an honest review.
cw: anxiety/underage relationships/grooming/family dramas/loss of a child
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