The Adults

by Alison Espach

In her ruefully funny and wickedly perceptive debut novel, Alison Espach deftly dissects matters of the heart and captures the lives of children and adults as they come to terms with life, death, and love.

At the center of this affluent suburban universe is Emily Vidal, a smart and snarky teenager, who gets involved in a suspect relationship with one of the adults after witnessing a suicide in her neighborhood.  Among the cast of unforgettable characters is Emily’s father, whose fiftieth birthday party has the adults descending upon the Vidal’s patio; her mother, who has orchestrated the elaborate party even though she and her husband are getting a divorce; and an assortment of eccentric neighbors, high school teachers, and teenagers who teem with anxiety and sexuality and an unbridled desire to be noticed, and ultimately loved.

An irresistible chronicle of a modern young woman’s struggle to grow up, The Adults lays bare—in perfect pitch—a world where an adult and a child can so dangerously be mistaken for the same exact thing.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Coming Of Age, Audiobook, Book Club, Literary Fiction, Novels

336 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2011

About the author

Alison Espach grew up in Trumbull, Connecticut, where she lived for most of her life. She earned her BA from Providence College and her Masters in Creative Writing from Washington University in St. Louis. Her writing has appeared in McSweeney's, Five Chapters, Glamour, Salon, The Daily Beast, Writer's Digest, and other journals.

She is currently teaching in New York City.

Reviews

[emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

you like one book by an author and suddenly you're reading their entire backlist.

it is so crazy that this novel, which to me is the embodiment of the forgettable 2010s edgy-books-about-nihilistic-children lit fic epidemic, is by the same author as my most pleasantly surprising read of the year.

but it's a testament to the power of personal growth.

this is not necessarily a bad book, but it's both about a topic i find uninteresting and overdone and extremely uneven in quality.

if i hadn't loved a very different book by the same author, i would say, "i might give this author another try." but i obviously am going to because at this point i love her regardless, so.

bottom line: even and especially the biggest wedding people fans can skip this one.

(thanks to the publisher for the copy)

[Ilenia Zodiaco · Rating 4 out of 5]

L'adolescenza è un'età paradossale che richiede una scrittura biforcuta: comica e drammatica, realistica e visionaria, brutale e immaginifica. Allison Espach, scrittrice dalla verve malinconica, è la regina della battuta inaspettata, apparentemente fuori posto e fuori tempo. Ma il linguaggio è uno strumento imperfetto, lo usiamo in maniere inopportune, come degli adolescenti goffi. Eppure non è tutta colpa delle parole. L'incomprensione e l'ingarbugliarsi della comunicazione è lo specchio perfetto dei nostri cedimenti ad un reale troppo sfocato, molto più grande di noi, che non siamo mai pronti ad affrontare davvero. Quindi lo nominiamo, sperando che le parole ci facciano da scudo e da incantesimo contro il mondo.

[Beatrix · Rating 5 out of 5]

by Alison Espach was such a nice read for me. Now that I’ve finished it and I’m thinking about it I realize how good it is.

I’ve seen a lot of negative reviews for this book and I can understand why some people wouldn’t like this. The writing takes getting used to it. I personally thought it was beautiful (created a special shelf just because of this book), but it is unusual and it took me first 20% to get into the book. For example, Emily is in the middle of a birthday party, then she starts describing something completely unrelated, e.g. trees. I got lost a few times amidst her thoughts. Let me tell you, don’t start this while you’re tired. This is the kind of book you need to be fully present for. However, pretty soon I was caught up in it, Espach’s writing just captured me and it’s the main reason why this stands out to me.

“Children’s lives are always beginning and adults’ lives are always ending. Or is it the opposite? Your childhood is always ending and your adult self is always beginning.”

Basically it’s a coming of age type of story. And generally I’m not a big fan of those, I usually find them pretentious, trying too hard to prove a point and teach us something. BUT, I loved this book. I loved how Espach captured the teenage spirit, confusion of growing up, being caught up in the adult world while you’re still not quite ready for it. Moreover, the humor – it’s funny while not trying to be, I’d read a serious scene, then catch myself laughing. That’s Emily, our narrator – ironic and witty.

The novel begins when Emily is 14, then we see her at 18, 22 and finally 26. And with all those ages we see the differences in her. To me is an example of the perfect first person narrative. The way Espach portrayed Emily’s essence is superb. All the while we’re observing the world through Emily’s eyes. Things might be this way or that, but that is how Emily sees them and that is how we see them too.

“There is nothing better than this,” he said, and I worried he was right. I worried that once something had entered you, it would never leave—he would plant himself inside me and grow and grow until I was nothing but him.”

Obsessive teacher student relationship is a big part of the novel. Relationship between Emily and Mr. Basketball aka Jonathan begins when she’s 15 and throughout the years they seek each other. Surprisingly, I didn’t root for them. I really can’t talk much about it without spoiling, but I’ll just say I loved how it was described – the obsession, the need, the destructive love. It might have been wrong, it might have been right – regardless, it shaped Emily in a certain way, as all relationships do. And to me this book is primarily about that – human relationships and bonds we share with others. For example, at the beginning I was bothered by Emily’s relationship with her mother, she seemed so detached and cold, but in the end it all fit into its place.

Overall, is a unique and witty story I’d wholeheartedly recommend and I’ll definitely be on the lookout for Alison Espach’s next book.

[Jessica]

This book confused and upset me a lot. At the beginning I was like, "This is the greatest, most hilarious thing ever! People should need to be granted a license before they're allowed to write any books, and I should be the official in charge of deciding who can obtain such a license, and I will not give one to anybody except this Alison Espach." I was stunned and amazed and just thought it was the greatest (contemporary American) thing I could remember having read in years.

Then things started to happen in the book, and I liked it a little bit less, though was still on board and cheering... But then it got to around the second half, which I just fucking hated. I mean I really loathed it. A lot. I couldn't believe how much.

Not sure, but part of this might have had to do with the problem of plot. What is this obsession writers have with making things happen in their books? I get how it sounds like a good idea in theory, but this book was so mind-blowingly awesome until it was ruined by all these dumb, boring things happening. Why did anything really have to happen? If this novel had been content to stay how it was at the beginning -- a hilarious and brilliantly written fourteen-year-old basically just hanging around and not up to much -- it would've continued being the greatest thing ever. As it was, though, it wound up being an extremely tiresome book about very tiresome people undergoing dramatic yet thoroughly uninteresting life events. I mean, I felt emotionally exhausted just reading about people and events I cared so little about, if that makes any sense, which clearly it doesn't.

I hope the very talented Ms. Espach keeps writing and I hope her next book doesn't have any plot and is just her great writing without any of the awful letdown midway through. Moreover, I wish this larger mania for things happening in fiction would blow over and we could enjoy a renaissance of spectacularly written books in which not much ever happens at all, because I'm starting to think that's the kind of thing I'd most like to read.

[rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

As far back as I can remember, I've had a preoccupation with older men. Adults. I can remember being 13 years old and putting on a nice skirt to "impress" a friend of my parents, who I now realize would have been in his thirties at the time and married with children besides, a wildly inappropriate choice for a schoolgirl crush. There have been crushes on teachers in high school, professors in college, middle-aged law enforcement officers who are married with teenaged or adult children, now that I'm nearing 30 myself and working tangentially with men.

If I had to guess what the attraction is, it'd probably be stability. Thoughtfulness. The ability to talk about interesting things with women and listen to them, not thinking about whether or not they're attractive. The sense of having independent curiosity and hobbies, and also helping their wives or girlfriends (if applicable) keep a home. But -- and this is very important -- if he responds overly eagerly to a younger woman's flirtation, the fantasy is broken. If he's addicted, if he parties, if he wants a car he can't afford or cheats on his wife, I'm done with it. The sort of man who would indulge the fantasy is the sort of man who is not the fantasy.


The Adults is the "be careful what you wish for" of the older man fantasy scenario. It's the needle that punctures the balloon of precociousness. Main character Emily starts to see the cracks in the facade of adult life at her father's 50th birthday party when she catches her father kissing the neighbor woman, the prelude to her parents' divorce. At 15, she begins sleeping with her 24 year old English teacher. The book follows the changing dynamics of her relationship with him as they move in and out of each others' lives over the next ten years. Unsurprisingly, he really does not have it together, and Emily finds herself in an endlessly arrested development.

You already see what might be problematic about the book: the moving in and out of each others' lives for ten years part. One of the major themes of The Adults, which Espach also states in the book's post-text material, is how we cope with the grief of the fact that we are always losing the people around us, as they change and become different than we remember them or want them to be. I absolutely love that theme. I love it as it pertains to Emily and her relationship with her parents, as her parents meet and settle (or don't settle) with other people. But it doesn't sit well with me to normalize a sexual affair between an adult and child so as to make it the focus of a book about grieving what gets lost in relationships over time.

It's not that I think Espach herself thinks Emily and her teacher's relationship is a-OK. But I really couldn't think of the guy who'd actually sleep with a 15 year old, repeatedly, as anything other than a 1-D creep, and that's not how Emily sees him, so, not how we see him through her eyes. Not even when she's an adult for real, even though she knows what he did with her was wrong. I don't think it's wrong of me to not be OK with their relationship being a complex one. Espach has a keen wit and a talent for snarky observation among the privileged set -- early on in the book, one of the adults is having an adult conversation and apropos of nothing, a horsefly flies out of her armpit -- but I'd love to not have that "I am not fully on board with what is happening here" mental block going on.

So, this is a very conflicted three stars I am giving. I'd love to read another book by Espach. To her credit, I think this one is beautifully smart about the fact that the clearest way to see that adults don't have it all together is to prematurely involve yourself in adult affairs.

[Larissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

(Yes, there are spoilers.)

I heard about Allison Espach's debut novel, The Adults because, as a resident of Fort Greene/Clinton Hill, Brooklyn herself, she was going to be reading at my local bookstore. Her novel--and its heroine, the disenchanted fourteen-year-old Emily Vidal--seem to promise a fresh take on that oh-so-recurrent plotline: Rich Girl from Connecticut Isn't Buying It and Rebels. So I went down to the bookstore and grabbed a copy off the shelf, just to give the first page a test-read, of sorts. And within several paragraphs, I was sold:

"They arrived in bulk, in Black Tie Preferred, in one large clump behind our wooden fence, peering over each other's shoulders and into our backyard like people at the zoo who wanted a better view of the animals.

My father's fiftieth birthday party had begun.

It's true that I was expecting something. I was just fourteen, my hair still sticky with lemon from the beach, my lips maroon and pulpy and full like a woman's, red and smothered like "a giant wound," my mother said earlier that day. She disapproved of my getup...but I didn't care; I disapproved of this party, this whole at-home affair that would mark the last of its kind.

The women walked through the gate in black and blue and gray and brown pumps, the party already proving unsuccessful at the grass level. The men wore sharp dark ties like swords and said predictable things like, 'Hello.'

'Welcome to our lawn,' I said back, with a goofy grin, and none of them looked me in the eye because it was rude or something."

It's a good start, right? To me, the kind of start that promises crisp prose and creative dialog, and a young character who, in typical bildungsroman fashion, is going to learn that society--and the adults who live in it--haven't figured everything out, and are (as she already thinks) frauds and just muddling around themselves, but she can still find an acceptable place for herself--either in or out of this world, as she chooses.

For awhile the book holds to this preliminary promise: Emily is told right before the party that her parents are getting divorced and her father is moving to Prague for his job. This is delivered, again, with great aplomb: "'Your father and I are getting a divorce,' my mother had shouted at my back that morning as I went upstairs to bathe for the party. My mother believed that...bad news felt better when it came at you fast, from behind, like a bullet."

But if that piece of news doesn't upset Emily's world enough, her father is discovered to have been sleeping with the next door neighbor. And then the next door neighbor's ailing husband kills himself--while Emily watches, from afar--and then the next door neighbor ends up being pregnant, with Emily's half-sister.

This all happens within the 75 or so pages, and is, I think, an extreme overloading of Dramatic Plot Elements. One--maybe two--of these elements can start a book, can be the genesis of a character's growth and development. More, and it sort of becomes like watching a soap opera, and the elemental punch of all of these emotional events diminishes until the author really starts losing credibility.

But Espach doesn't stop here, she keeps piling things on. She creates a few semi-horrific scenes exemplifying the cruelty of high school students (as if we forgot), such as an attempted nose job in an unattended science class on a universally mocked and hated teen girl. And then, Emily--at 15 now--begins a sexual affair with her 26-year-old English teacher. This affair will be recreated throughout the novel, at four year increments, as Emily gets older. And while she seems to recognize that their 'relationship' constitutes statutory rape, she romanticizes this man throughout it all and continues to be manipulated by him well into her late 20s in a rather disturbing fashion. And we're not dealing with a psychological masterpiece on par with Lolita here, so really--it's just kind of ridiculous. She introduces the teacher to her father in her mid-twenties as her boyfriend, and when the father recognizes him as a teacher from her high school, the whole thing merits some tears, but really gets shrugged off rather quickly.

All of this is unfortunate, because one can easily see that Espach has talent. She has a great way of compressing and mixing chronology--allowing Emily to drift into memories of the past while going through something in the present, or pausing in the middle of a present event to fast forward into a character's future. And she has a real sense for teenage characters--their speaking patterns, their simultaneous fascination and horror with sex, their vulnerability and the ease with which they are frequently written off or ignored by adults. As a great example of both, look at the Halloween-in-Spring dance scene: Emily dresses like a "super-hot kitten" and another girl as a "slutty banana." One of their friends is taken to the hospital for drinking too much vermouth before the dance, but Espach assures us mid-scene that her life will go on and still be rich despite this troubling episode:

"An ambulance was sent for Martha, who would eventually be fine, who would never drink that much vermouth again. She would become the president of the Spanish Club and get into the University of Rochester, where she would lose her virginity to a thirty-year-old from Cork, Ireland."

In the end, however, everything comes full circle, and this is the most irritating thing of all. The book begins at a party, and ends at a party (of sorts) in the same house in Greenwich. Nothing much seems to have changed. Which just makes the whole reading experience that much more exhausting.

[Rebecca · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't ever write reviews for books, but this was such a disappointment that it seems necessary. The Adults did have the potential to be a good book - unfortunately, Espach did not realize that potential. It is a pretentious and exaggerated book that had an unrealistic protagonist. As a fellow young adult, I thought I would at least be able to empathize with Emily, but she is such a caricature that this is impossible. The author attempts to shock you at every turn with how grotesque yet meaningful life can be (see: Augusten Burroughs' "Running with Scissors"). This book is unforgettable only in how much it disappointed me.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love everything Alison Espach writes with all my heart.

There's something about her prose that I can't really put my finger on but I love it and I love how her stories span years so we're following these girls through different phases of life(Emily in this one, Sally in Notes). I never get tired of hearing what she has to say.

I just miss them once it's over. 🥹

[Chiara Basile · Rating 5 out of 5]

Non so perché tutto ciò che scrive Alison Espach fa sempre così dannatamente male

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Debut novel about an upscale Connecticut town in the 1990s-2000s. Based on reviews, my expectations were not in line with the reality of this book. I expected a tale of the misdeeds of wealthy adult suburbanites as told through the eyes of a fourteen year old girl. While the novel starts this way it goes in a vastly different direction.

There is no concise through-plot here. Things are told as an aside, with flashbacks popping up in the middle of random paragraphs. At first this works and is consistent with the narrator. A teenage girl would tell these stories as an aside, wouldn’t she? Overall the first part is delicious, rich, and absolutely engaging. I actually thought several times it should be a Young Adult novel. Then, things started to go off the rails a bit.

Suddenly the first part ends and Emily reappears post-college, living in Prague. The entire Prague section dragged and felt unnecessary to the plot (whatever “plot” there was). It was such a letdown compared to the out-of-the-park beginning. This author is brilliant with words, no doubt about it, but the story took a drastic left turn and then limped back to the beginning. The change of setting and age was not necessary. The first part was genius and it should’ve lasted the entire book.

[Blackjessamine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ho un problema con questo libro.
Mi è piaciuto al punto che vorrei scrivere una recensione "vera", per mettere in luce cosa come e perché mi sia piaciuto tanto, ma credo non ne sarei capace.
E allora direi che posso anche smettere di fingere di sapere che cosa sto facendo e dare il via a un commento-fiume (in quanto a disordine dell'esposizione, non perché si tratti effettivamente di un commento particolarmente corsposo).
Alison Espach è l'autrice che mi ha svoltato il 2023. L'ho scoprta con "Appunti sulla tua scomparsa improvvisa", è stata capace di farmi preordinare "Questi adulti" non appena ho saputo che quei santi di Bollati Boringhieri (l'ho già detto che volo ogni volta che guardo la loro sezione di narrativa?) avrebbero tradotto anche questo, mi ha costretta a sottolineare una frase praticamente una riga sì e una no.
Non so dire perché mi piaccia tanto. Forse perché sento che il suo respiro (il respiro della sua scrittura, il suo modo di dare una cadenza alle frasi e di mettere insieme piccoli pezzi di mondo e di prendere in mano cose minuscole e farne arte) è qualcosa che sento molto affine a me. Non so come spiegarlo, è come se la sua scrittura avesse l'accento della mia famiglia, è come riconoscere in lei qualcosa che semplicemente riesco a capire molto bene, perché è anche il mio modo di sentire, il mio modo di mettere in fila i fatti del mondo (non che io sappia scrivere o pensare come lei, assolutamente, ma io la leggo e sento risuonare le sue parole come se finalmente stessi sentendo qualcuno esprimersi esattamente nella mia lingua).
Mi piace soprattutto come, nei suoi libri, non succeda poi molto, a parte il dispiegarsi di un'esistenza. Succede che un personaggio vive, è concreto e reale, è tangibile, cresce, affronta cambiamenti, ha rapporti complessi con gli uomini e con la propria famiglia, ma tutto semplicemente esiste. Esiste come si esiste ogni giorno, ma c'è una bellezza e una delicatezza tale in questo tipo di esistenza che, davvero, ogni cosa assume un significato profondo senza mai essere simbolico.
Bellissimo.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rarely have I read first novels that are truly captivating, with memorable characters and settings that will endure long in my memory. Even rarer still are those first novels that represent the emergence of a truly original literary voice replete with memorable, truly exceptional, prose. Over the span of two and a half decades, only four first novels have I found quite captivating and notable as exceptional debuts by their authors, who have become since important writers of modern Anglo-American literature; William Gibson's "Neuromancer", Matt Ruff's "Fool on the Hill", Jeffrey Eugenides's "The Virgin Suicides", and Jonathan Lethem's "Gun, With Occasional Music". To this list I must add Alison Espach's "The Adults". Like the writers of these novels, Espach excels as a riveting storyteller who relies on a compelling character-driven plot notable for the superb literary quality of her prose and a keen ear for both language and detail.

At once Espach has become as important a chronicler of dysfunctional suburban American family life as the finest living American writer of my generation, Rick Moody, has been, most notably, in his novels "The Ice Storm" and "Purple America" and short story collection "Demonology". In "The Adults" she offers an often terrifying, but still mesmerizing, account of the trials and tribulations of adolescent girls as they mature into adulthood. It is all too easy to refer to her tale mistakenly as a fine example of suburban dystopia, but her novel is not a classic example of near future science fiction, but instead, a near classic one that is set in the recent past and the present. Indeed, by offering well-defined characters and realistic situations, Espach offers the reader a dismal view of adolescence that is often as starkly bleak as the uniquely macabre portrait rendered by Jeffrey Eugenides in his "The Virgin Suicides".

Readers may find themselves discovering in "The Adults" ample recognition of their own lives so miserably lived, in those of protagonist Emily Vidal, her family and friends. Emily is an unlikely witness to her own family's marital strife culminating in divorce, and of tragedies both great and small, ranging from a neighbor's suicide to being ostracized by her high school girl classmates. She engages in an illicit love affair with her high school English teacher, who will, years later, as a successful attorney, reappear and disappear in her life, most notably during a tumultuous three week visit to Prague, the Czech Republic, where Emily, now in her early twenties, attempts a career in interior design while reconciling herself to her father.

"The Adults" opens with a memorable sentence that is, in its own right, a most vibrant artistic echo of the opening sentence of William Gibson's "Neuromancer". With barely a false step, Espach continues keeping the reader amazed with a razor-sharp wit and a keen ear for adolescent girl dialogue recounted via elegantly crafted prose. She has wrought a vivid tale that I found almost impossible to put down. Her debut novel is definitely a literary home run of Ruthian proportions that bodes well for her subsequent literary career. Hers is such a fresh literary talent that she could become one of the finest American writers of her generation.

(Reposted from my 2011 Amazon review)

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I pretty much got back on Goodreads because of this book. It is so amazing... !!

The Adults touched me [whoa... there's a sentence right there] the way that Extremely Loud and Incredible Close and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius did. And yes, maybe I do love "every stereotypical book that twenty-something white people like" [as my friend puts it], but turns out I am a twenty-something white person... and I la-huved it.

Espach's raw interpretation of middle school brought me right back to writing the most cruel things I've ever scribbled into "the notebook" that my group of "friend" kept. It was like she was reliving my most insecure days. And then she transforms into this co-part to a forbidden relationship that is all too much of a perfect affliction that you can't help but praise her for the beauty she portrays in such wrongness... all throughout the book... it's incredibly moving.

The familiar beatings that Espach delivered to my chest kept me dreading the end of the book. As soon as I finished, I flipped to the beginning like it was an eternal, on-going entity. It's not. It's over. You should read it.

[Jacqueline Toce · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I could give this book 2 1/2 stars I would. I think the author did a good job of developing the characters and the plot, I just hated them all. I found the story to be very disturbing. The description on the jacket said it was supposed to be funny. There were a few funny scenes in the book but on the whole it wasn't funny. Without giving away too much of the plot, the main character, Emily, has an affair with her high school English teacher and it seems to be because her father has left the family. So, a classic Daddy-issue girl. I would have liked to see more about how the character became her own woman and made good choices instead of being obsessed by this idiot teacher. My book group is reading this book because we are from Connecticut. Some parts of the story were pretty unbelievable. Like the main character's Dad is in important financial guy at Lehman Brothers but she goes to public school? The characters in the book didn't behave like they went to public school.

[Alessia | Talee Letterarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

le mie recensioni su goodreads dei libri che mi sono piaciuti si riducono in genere a "voglio un po' piangere" e anche in questo caso voglio un po' piangere quindi direi missione compiuta

[Dest · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though the writing was witty and the plot kept me interested, I was ultimately a little disappointed at the end of this. How is Emily different at the end of this book? What's going to happen to her? It's kind of unsatisfying for a book to follow a character from age 14 to 30 and then just stop when the character's on the verge of maybe figuring some stuff out. Hmph.

I did like the twist with Mr. Basketball at the end. It almost made me wish the book were from his perspective, but I guess that would just make it a kind of modern day Lolita, right? The part where he said, "I didn't want a child or a wife and I got what I wanted," was like a gut punch.

The things I'll take away from this book:

1. It horrifies me how fast some kids grow up. Stay young and innocent as long as you can, friends. Do not enter into some tragic romance when you're just a kid.

2. Prague sounds really cool.

3. Don't leave a plastic spoon by the stove.

4. The "What can you do with a _____?" game Emily and her dad played.

[Laura T · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. I dunno. I see what the fuss is about--this book is weird, the author says things in a unique way. Woohoo. It's just that I didn't like or understand Emily, not even when she was a little girl at the beginning of the book. I felt like Emily, and everyone in the book really, was just written to allow the author to show off the fact that she writes surprising sentences. Nothing actually connected for me. I felt sad for Emily and many of the characters, but not...as sad as their pathetic circumstances and life choices should make a person feel. The book did not feel like it was written for a reader, it felt like it was written for the author and all of her very clever buddies. It's not that I didn't understand the language or the prose. I did. I just never felt like I was meant to CARE about any of it, and so I didn't.

[heather | booksbyheath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laughed my ass off!

[christa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I no longer actively seek out books I know I will hate. The anaerobic thrill of speed reading through adjective abuse and gender stereotypes has lost its thrill and now I simply prefer to read things I like and not read things I don’t like. Goodbye, Tao Lin. Adios, Stephenie Meyer.

On the other hand, I will still commit to something I’m dubious about. Meet Alison Espach’s “The Adults.” It has a real chick lit walk and talk, as though chick lit was stopped in the bathroom by a tall woman with an British accent who licked a Kleenix and scrubbed at chick lit’s excess blush. This is my presumption from staring at the cover and reading the jacket flap.

“You need to read ‘The Adults,’” said a friend I prefer to get music advice from more than book advice. “I think you will either love it or hate it.”

The verdict: Love. Or, love-ish.

This is one of three coming-of-age stories I’ve recently crossed with, a bundle that includes a young God-fearing Jewish boy torturing himself in the face of pornography a young Iranian girl getting lippy with the man, a financially unimpaired Connecticut girl with an ever-shifting family life. They’re all different and they’re all good. “The Adults” is the most traditional of these three, the standard sassy lass, witty banter, sexual awakenings, crises modes, early adult onset ennui. But, “The Adults” is also an example of how a story can be about anything and a real writer, a writerly-writer, a clever writer can make it work. Espach has such a great voice.

It all starts with a backyard party for Emily’s father who is turning 50. Her father is planning to move to Prague for work, a move that is coinciding with her parent’s looming divorce. They are keeping things status quo until that happens after the holidays. Emily, 14, has hot pants for the next door neighbor boy, Mark, and they’ve taken off into the woods for the kind of secret language verbal play that besties have. She’s pretty sure he’s leaning in to kiss her, but instead he has noticed that some other party-goers have snuck off for some heavy petting. Emily is practically puckered when they realize that it is her dad and his mom and they are going at it. In that instant everything changes. Mark, whose father is struggling to medicate his depression, resents Emily and her father; Emily wants to scream about what she knows while riding in the backseat of her parents car with them. Soon after, young Emily witnesses Mark’s father’s pretty public suicide because she happens to be looking out the window when he hangs himself from the tree. And then Emily begins a sexual relationship with one of her teachers.

The story is told in three parts: Emily as a high school student, Emily after college living in Prague with her father, Emily living in New York City with her boyfriend. It is the high school setting that packs the biggest punch and is the most unique and fully developed, while the other segments are less fine-tuned, but better than passable.

Espach’s strength comes in moments of chaotic dialogue, an area in which she crafts funny one-liners, but infrequently so each one really stands out. A student has posted fliers around school for a forum in which black students can talk about attending a predominantly white school.

“‘Everybody is invited,’ it said. ‘Even white and Jewish people.’ Jewish students walked by the signs offended, explaiming, ‘What, are we not white? Are we not black?’

Martha walked by and said, ‘I don’t get it: Is being Jewish the opposite of being white? Is it?’

One of the girls said we should start a white people club.
‘Our whole life is a white people club,’ one of them said.
‘Sometimes I wish we had a black friend.’
‘Guys,’ one of them said, ‘I’m black.’
‘Shit.’
‘Sometimes we forget.’
‘It’s not like you’re, like, black, you know. I mean, you wear Sketchers.’
‘And you want to be a pastry chef.’
‘And you take French.’

[Federica Colli Vignarelli · Rating 2 out of 5]

Questo romanzo è un po' la riprova che delle recensioni sensazionali di NY Times e WSJ in quarta di copertina non ci si debba necessariamente fidare. Questa volta ho ceduto, ho pensato che se qualcuno che per lavoro recensisce romanzi, con quel che è abituato a leggere, si sbilancia con un "uno dei libri più appassionanti che abbia mai letto" forse potrei fidarmi. E invece. Non che sia una lettura faticosa o noiosa, ma da un romanzo di formazione mi aspetto di percepirla, la formazione. Mi aspetto che in un arco temporale di dieci anni la protagonista evolva. Mi aspetto che una certa superficialità e insensatezza e autolesionismo emotivo adolescenziale diventino altro. Invece mi è parso che Emily sia rimasta sempre un po' lì. Mi è parso che la superficialità abbia un po' pervaso tutta la narrazione degli eventi, anche i più traumatici, così come le loro conseguenze. Mi è sembrato che le cose le accadessero come se fossero buttate lì, tanto per riempire le pagine, in maniera fine a sé stessa, senza che provocassero alcuna introspezione o mutamento o qualsivoglia effetto che non si esaurisse nelle due righe dell'immediata reazione a caldo. La cosa strana è che nonostante senta vicina gran parte delle cose narrate, non ho sentito per niente vicina lei. Nonostante possa comprendere bene il tipo di relazione sessuale e amorosa a tratti ossessiva che viene descritto, il perché inizi e il perché prosegua, nonché la situazione familiare e amicale non molto rosea della protagonista, non sono per niente riuscita a empatizzare, né con lei né con alcuno dei personaggi. Forse paradossalmente un po' con il padre. Magari era voluto, il libro ha avuto molto successo dunque è sicuramente la mia percezione a essere sbagliata, ma mi aspettavo un arricchimento che non è arrivato. Lo stile viene dipinto come estremamente ironico ma mi è risultato al massimo sarcastico, di un sarcasmo in cui, di nuovo, la superficialità e il caos prevalgono sulla reale capacità di ironizzare (anche) delle piccole e grandi tragedie. Mi ha ricordato un po' Persone normali di Sally Rooney, ma in quel caso ho potuto dire che se avessi avuto qualche anno in meno, o se l'avessi letto in una fase di minore "strutturazione" personale, mi avrebbe in qualche modo colpito. In questo caso credo che neanche a 15 anni l'avrei ritenuto "uno dei libri più appassionanti che abbia mai letto". E a 15 anni avevo letto forse Harry Potter e Twilight. Sarei molto lieta se qualcuno mi aiutasse a capire cosa mi stia perdendo di questo acclarato successo editoriale. 

[Heather Colacurcio · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is precisely the kind of novel I consistently look for, but rarely find. Protagonist Emily Vidal is caught between two worlds - the world of her teenage existence and the world of the adults. Emily's previously carefree, childish existence is complicated when she witnesses a suicide and begins a confusing relationship with a teacher. We follow Emily as she struggles with her quickly changing family life, barely understanding her parents and grappling with how their decisions affect her. Espach creates a strong, narrative voice, which is both mature and immature, hysterically funny and terribly tragic. The novel's pace is by no means fast, yet I couldn't put it down for a second, savoring every detail of Emily's tangents. This is a coming-of-age novel for the 21st century, where generations of twenty-somethings are still struggling to find themselves, feeling quite the same as they did as teenagers and wondering when and if their "real lives" will begin. As a portrait of a female youth coming into her own, this novel succeeds. Espach gets the fact that much of who we are is shaped during our teen and early adult years. Thus, we often spend our entire lives searching for that time, nostalgic for the people and places who have since become ghosts of their former selves, existing as mere shadows in our adult minds. "The Adults" is a beautifully crafted novel, showcasing Espach's ability to write witty, meaty prose. I have a lot of praise for this one - it's a novel you shouldn't miss.

[Pamela · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just because the NY Times gives a book a stellar review, does not necessarily mean the book is worth the read. I downloaded this want-to-be diamond in the rough onto my NOOK because of such a review. I wanted to see what earns high praise from the Literati. After reading this fictional tell all with TMI (Too Much Information) written all over it, I felt like I needed to be bathed in bleach. Perhaps it's my Christian sensibilities that turned me off from this profanity riddled read or maybe it's the simple fact that I don't feel like a 14 yr old turned 26 yr old's perspective on dirty sex is good literature. Plus, I found the writing to be disjointed. The protagonist kept switching time sequences in the same LONG paragraphs. It made me dizzy. The theme of the book is terrific. I can get on board with a teenager's disillusionment with surburbia; however, the tale could have been told in more PG, succinct prose.

[Court · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am 57% finished with this book on my Kindle, and although it goes against my book-reading and movie-watching philosophy (that if you're more than halfway through it, just keep going until you've finished it whether it's good or not because you've devoted enough time to it already), I am putting it down. I do enjoy the way Espach writes, but the book and I just don't see eye to eye. Maybe it's too provocative, maybe it's just that I have not seriously liked a single charater in this book yet (including the narrator/main character), or maybe I just know there are still 70-something books out there that I still want to read calling my name. Either way, I am calling it quits- better luck to the rest of you who attempt this one! It seems to have received rave reviews from everyone else, so there has to be something enjoyable about it.....

[Juliana · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is the third of three currently existing books i’ve read by alison espach. i loved her other two books so much i thought this would have to be a letdown, but it wasn’t. a coming of age story about a girl who is so often treated more like a peer by the adults around her. espach’s storytelling around family dynamics has been so moving to me in this book as well as NOYSD. espach has such a gift for writing in a way that makes the characters and the emotions so real. i cried through the last thirty pages of this book lol

cw below:






suicide, adult/minor relationship

[Helen Rhys · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bunch of self-centered people that tried their hardest to fuck up their offprings lives.

[Ilana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m very happy that Alison Espach has grown tremendously as an author since this book was written. I’m sad for myself that I had to discover that fact by reading the book.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I felt like I had to read this book just because I’d wanted to months ago but could never find it. I expected a well-written novel of manners, relatively enjoyable but a bit on the cold side. That’s more or less what I got, though the writing wasn’t quite as good as I expected, and it was more of a coming of age story. Though the storytelling is a bit weird; time jumps before tracking back were gratuitous, and the characters felt pretty flat and unreal, obviously constructions in a novel rather than feeling like people. I was a bit bored sometimes but at those moments I would quickly skim through pages before the pace picked back up. There’s not really a “point” to the book, and there weren’t any passages that really popped out at me, nor any particularly original sentiments/ideas/plot strands. I wouldn’t say I regret reading this, so there’s that, but I don’t know who I would recommend this to either

[Kathleen Maguire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I almost gave this book 5 stars, but I'd like to reserve that rating for books that changed my life. However I loved loved loved this book. I read some of the bad reviews just to see if I was completely off the mark, and it seems like the people who didn't like it took the book way too literally. Reading the first couple chapters I thought, ok, precocious young narrator is smarter than all the adults around her, blah, blah, blah. By about a third of the way through I was making many highlights (love the Kindle), and loving the story more with every page. It's extremely dark, but I somehow understood all of the characters' really bad choices and could sympathize with them. I loved the relationship between the narrator and her father. There are a couple of annoying coincidences, but I still completely loved it.

[cass krug · Rating 5 out of 5]

whew i loved this book. i feel like it combined so many aspects of all my other favorite books - the darkness of the virgin suicides, the high school drama and confusion of the perks of being a wallflower, the change in setting of the idiot. strained relationships with parents and love interests. i read a lot of reviews that didn’t like the second half of the book, but i loved following emily’s journey into her twenties. i just wanted the best for her and i like to believe that she was heading in the right direction in the end. so glad i stumbled across this at half price books and picked it up on a whim, and apparently alison espach’s next book comes out in may, so perfect timing, super excited for that!!

[Emily Pittsley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay story, told very pretentiously. Looking at the back cover to see who this author is, I see she is quite young. I'm guessing she tried to "wow" us w/her debut novel, but I wasn't that wowed. Tries to be a coming-of-age type book, but done w/a little more provocativeness than was necessary to tell the story.