Grown Ups, Marian Keyes
This is the first Marian Keyes book I have read and I loved it. It also came at a great time for me, facing down the beginning of another lockdown winter with no childcare. Keyes and her honest characters and busy families were exactly the sort of down-to-earth I needed in January 2021, and the story of the three Casey brothers and their wives and children muddling through outwardly upmarket lives in Dublin hit the spot (along with the gazillion units of alcohol I consumed that month).
50-year-old businesswoman Jessie is the ringleader. She has a fabulous food enterprise but is struggling to keep up with the digital world and is up to her eyeballs in children and bills, when she starts to wonder if Johnny is the man for her after all. Warning: there are some bad men and some great women in this story!
I didn’t read Marian Keyes when I was in my twenties because she’s exactly the sort of author my reading education turned up its nose at. I’ve only realised through Twitter and podcasts how loved she is, and how lovely and loving she is to all other writers. Also how smart, open and political she is. Thank you Marian!