Amazing Grace Adams: The New York Times Bestseller and Read With Jenna Book Club Pick

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Thank you to the author Fran Littlewood, publishers Henry Holt and Macmillan Publishing, and as always NetGalley, for an advance digital copy of AMAZING GRACE ADAMS. I really liked the concept and idea of the story, especially with the three different timelines. I felt that certain timelines were more engaging than others. Hellie signed me on a partial manuscript, the book I’d been working on during the course, and when I’d finished and it went out on submission to publishers, the response was ‘nearly but not quite’. As with most debut authors, this author too throws in everything plus the kitchen sink into her book. There are way too many themes, and most of them aren’t really necessary for the main storyline. They just end up diluting the main point of the book, which is that of a mother desperately wanting to connect with her teenaged daughter again. I loved the dual timeline format, and how we simultaneously go forward in both the past and present until we begin to fully understand what drives Grace to seemingly lose her mind. Part romance and part mid-life crisis, it’s hard not to become invested in these characters, particularly Grace, and root for them to work out their deep rooted issues.

Amazing Grace Adams follows Grace and her daughter, Lottie. Throughout the whole book, both of them are tested in some of the most heartbreaking ways. Grace is known to be chaotic, and I believe the author used this character's trait to further make the book chaotic. I don’t think I am the target audience for this book. I gave it a go anyway and there were definitely parts I liked. Overall, Amazing Grace Adams was a fine read, with an urge to skim most of the book. Connecting with the characters is key to enjoying this book, but I didn't connect with anyone. I liked Grace and I really identified with her relationship with her sixteen year old daughter. I think Fran Littlewood really showed how relations between mother and daughter at this stage can often be fraught and tense. She doesn't scream or break something or cry or curl into a ball. She simply abandons her car in traffic and walks away.A second narrative strand, covering the prior few months, unspools some of the incidents that have alienated mother and daughter. It’s a chilling but fairly clichéd tale of a teenage girl being lured into what may be a dangerous sexual relationship, getting bullied on social media, cutting classes, and refusing to talk to her mother or school authorities. I'm not always a fan of the stylistic choice to use multiple timelines, but I think it works here because of how often the main characters experience traumatic recall in the course of the story. It honestly makes the pace a bit hectic, but that might have been intentional. Overall, I enjoyed the writing and style. Good mental health rep in here too. I canvassed my kids for this one - of all the wise advice I’ve bestowed on you etc… and my middle daughter came up with this instantly. It’s a story from my early teenage years.

An exacting and brilliantly structured novel about love, grief, hope lost and then found again' MARY BETH KEANE, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes It’s the man in the Audi. He has his window down and he’s raising his voice above the blast of horns starting up. She registers the threat in the pulse of the engines around her, the angry atonal soundscape, but she has the strange sense that she’s somewhere beyond it, that it’s separate from her.

The book takes place in a single day, but is the story of Grace’s adult life. It starts on a hot summers day, when Grace snaps - she’s simply had enough. I was hopeful for a strong newly found confident woman that would find her own solutions to her current life. Women of a certain age, and perhaps all women, are living vicariously through Grace Adams. Without a doubt, these micro-aggressions are not limited to those going through a life change. Fran Littlewood's sparkling debut novel, Amazing Grace Adams both heartbreaking and heartwarming all at once, bottles these micro-aggressions and gives women a champion.

AMAZING GRACE ADAMS is both a story about one woman having to find herself again, and rebuild her relationship with her daughter. How did these facets of the story work together? Did you find yourself rooting for Grace? This book totally surprised me! I thought it would be just a pleasant, fairly predictable read with likeable characters. However as the story progressed, I realised how cleverly the author had written about a woman in mid-life, struggling on so many fronts, losing herself as she becomes totally overwhelmed. Unfortunately, Grace Adams herself is whiny, self-indulgent, and just not likable enough to carry the book. Littlewood, a mother of three teenage daughters, drew on her relationship to inform Grace’s sometimes contentious, always rewarding relationship with Lotte. A woman walks across London to deliver a birthday cake for her 16-year-old daughter, reliving the joys and tragedies of the previous decades.

Three woman who join together to rent a large space along the beach in Los Angeles for their stores—a gift shop, a bakery, and a bookstore—become fast friends as they each experience the highs, and lows, of love.