All Adults Here, Emma Straub

My first Emma Straub experience and it was a good one. This review needs to be broken into two parts: the book and the writing.

Part One: All Adults Here.

There are no giants in this book and no villains. Nothing will stand out as an ah-ha moment, and you won't be haunted because of shock value after reading it. There is an abundance of truth and openness about how the family is generationally dysfunctional in ways, perfect in others, closeted and open simultaneously, and just as crazy, unpredictable, and loyal as yours.

There is a lot of head nodding, mm-hmm moments where you will recognize yourself, your siblings, or even your parent in one or another character. You will see that what you thought was uniquely off about your own family isn't. And that what you thought was remarkably special to your relationship is also noteworthy in others.

In other words, All Adults Here will help you open your eyes to family, its imperfections, and its constraints. You will watch Cecilia be sent to live with her grandmother at age 13 because she did the right thing but was bullied because of it; it was easier on her parents to remove her than deal with it. You will see Astrid, the matriarch, find love in the arms of a woman after being a widow for decades. As the firstborn, Elliot will finally be able to express the pressures of the same. Porter, the unwed, pregnant by choice from a sperm bank, still having an affair with her high-school sweetheart middle child, sees she is loved by her mother and both her older and younger brothers. And Nicholas, oh, precious, last born, never at fault, Nickey shows his downfalls and fears just like his siblings.

Set in small town USA, the townspeople are just as nosy and awful and loving and loyal and plagued with turmoil as in any other town; we all hate to love where we are from and couldn't imagine wanting to be from anywhere else if we were being honest. You will fall in love with some of the ancillary characters, root for Robin to find herself, and hope that Sidney falls off the float.

That is All Adults Here. I love this book. It is a book about nothing and everything and is an important book to read if you belong to a family.

Part Two: Emma Straub.

What an insightful writer Ms. Straub is. She captures the tiniest of nuances in grand ways without making a spectacle. In one stroke she can paralyze you by seeing your deepest secrets and open your mind while allowing you to feel okay about all of it. She is a rare writer that requires you must read every. single. word. Because if you don't, you might have missed something. Scratch that; you will miss something.

Take your time, read every word, and think about it. Put it into the context of your own life and come out the other side knowing you are not alone with how upside down according to the perfection on social media your life is. You are okay.

Thank you, Emma Straub, for writing truth.