User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I've wanted to read this book for quite some time since I often ventured into Korean or Japanese literature books. Hence why I'm intrigued by this one as this will be my first foray into Norwegian literature.
Grown Ups follows lonely architect Ida as she travels to her family's fjord side summer cabin. However, this book centred around the struggle of fertility along with the question of what it takes to grow up. Unfortunately, I do not see the correlation of what the book was trying to deliver with one stuck up, narcissistic character.
Ida is a manipulative, egoistical and impeccable homewrecker. She seeks to destroy whatever happiness that those around her are clinging to, which is rather sadistic. This book evokes all the rages I didn't know had in me. Despite the message forth, I couldn't feel sympathetic to both the sisters' situations as they were written apathetically. Ida doesn't even come close to being a morally grey character because she is just unequivocally horrible.
I also failed to see how the ending is supposed to resolve whatever that's going on between the noxious family; Ida is still awful, Mathe is uncharitable, and the Mother — well, like two peas in a pod. In a way, it almost felt brilliant, to leave readers to ponder as the characters was not offer any growth or development. However, as a character driven reader, this book does not resonate with me.
Love the cover though but still wouldn't recommend this 11/10.
Rating: really liked it
Book Reviewed on www.whisperingstories.com
Single 40-year-old Ida is holidaying with her extended family whilst they celebrate her mother’s 65th Birthday. Staying with them is her mother’s boyfriend, her sister, her brother in law and his daughter. Ida is a jealous woman. She is jealous of how her sister’s life has turned out, especially as she announces she is pregnant after years of trying.
Ida decides she isn’t going to be the odd one out without a family and seeks to take her sister’s husband and his daughter.
I must admit some of the book was hard to digest. At times I wanted to throw it (well my Kindle) out of the window. What type of person gets so angry about their sister being pregnant and feeling like she is no longer going to be needed and will now be left on the shelf that she decides that the only option is to flirt and try to steal her brother-in-law and make his daughter like her better than her sister. Cleary Ida doesn’t think straight or rationally, nor does she have any love for her sister.
The whole family though are unlikeable. They all think of themselves so highly and that the others are beneath them. Whilst I found the plot strange and angering, I also found it inviting and intriguing too. Are there families across the world that really treat one another like this? I just don’t get it. I understand family fallouts, etc but to stay in contact, holiday together, pretending to like one another, and then to be two-faced just doesn’t sit right with me – walk away!
The setting is what makes this book stand out. A gorgeous cabin in Norway, it makes you just want to pack your bags and head there (as long as the family is long gone!!). This is the tale of a very dysfunctional egocentric family. It shows you that grown-ups don’t have all the answers or the knowledge. It was like reading about a bunch of children who disliked each other being put into a house and left to it.
I can’t say that I found any of it funny but I did like the feeling of being a fly on the wall and stepping out of my comfort zone. It left me wondering what Ida would do next and I was always suspicious of her. I loved watching how this family came together for their mother’s birthday and tore each other apart whilst they were there.
Grown Ups is a quick easy read at just 160 pages. I also found the writing style worked perfectly for the plot as you got to be inside Ida’s rather unreasonable head.
Rating: really liked it
3.5 stars
This was my first ever intentional translated book I've ever read.
It was out of my comfort zone and I enjoyed it!
Full video review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj6fb...This is a short read but it packs a punch!
Rating: really liked it
ARC received in exchange for an honest review.
Ida is a single forty year old woman who is still trying to navigate life, dating and her growing isolation from her family. While on a visit to the family vacation cabin for her mother's sixty fifth birthday, events come to a head as jealousy and resentment threaten to ruin the celebrations.
For a short novel, there is a lot of discuss here. Ida in many respects is the stereotypical 'career woman'. All her life she has tried to be the good daughter, the one who gets the perfect grades and the great job. Anything to get the attention of her mother, who she feels favours her younger sister Marthe. Marthe is the spoilt one, the one who always got her own way, and Ida resents that Marthe now seems to have everything she wants. A husband, a ready made family, a perfect home, and a baby on the way. So when she's given the opportunity to ruin it for Marthe, Ida sees her opening to hurt her sister. There's no moral dilemma for Ida - she just wants her sister to feel the way she feels, she wants her to notice the loneliness. And these decisions make Ida a rather unlikeable character.
In fact all of the characters are pretty irredeemable. Marthe and husband Kristoffer are selfish and self centered. Ida is obviously resentful and mean, and their mother and her partner are equally as insufferable. None of them seem to like each other very much, and don't seem to know the first thing about each other. It's all very toxic and complicated, and the sisterly dynamic in particular is difficult to understand and accept. There certainly no love lost between them, with bickering and petty arguments breaking out from the minute the two are reunited.
This wasn't an easy read for me. It's very character focused, and when the characters are all so brazenly horrible as these I find it hard to care about the storyline. Unfortunately that's what happened here, and as the story progressed I grew less and less interested in what would happen. I also thought that the ending cuts off very sharply, leaving nothing resolved.
Interesting insight into certain family dynamics but ultimately I found this lacking in substance and likeable characters.
Rating: really liked it
Life for me is the same as it was five years ago, ten, even; I have a slightly larger apartment, a slightly better salary, slightly more projects to juggle at work, slightly duller skin, a few more grey hairs that I pay my hairdresser two thousand kroner every three months to make disappear. I sleep alone and I wake up alone and I’m alone when I go to work and alone when I get back home, I won’t moan about it, you don’t want to become one of those people who moans on and on about things. But being alone is a circle that only ever expands, and if a boyfriend doesn’t turn up, if no one turns up with whom I can use the eggs in the bank, there might be five or ten or twenty or thirty years ahead of me just like this, all the same from here on in.Grown Ups is translated by Rosie Hedger from Marie Grønborg Aubert's 2019 Norwegian original Voksne Mennesker.
The story opens with our narrator Ida on a bus travelling to the family's summer house, glowering at an annoying child behind her, while she reflects on her visit immediately beforehand to a fertility clinic in Sweden:
The summer holidays were just around the corner, it was lovely and warm in Gothenburg and I’d reserved a table somewhere to savour a nice lunch with some expensive white wine, to toast the fact I’d be spending my savings on having my eggs removed and banked, on opening an egg account.Ida, an architect, recently turned forty, she is single, and went to the clinic to investigate having her eggs frozen to start a family in future. At the family house:
We’re celebrating Mum’s sixty-fifth birthday tomorrow evening, Marthe and Kristoffer and Olea and me and Mum and Stein, we’re all going to eat prawns and drink wine. Mum said it could double up as a celebration for my fortieth too, I told her that wasn’t necessary, it’s three months too late for it anyway.Stein is Ida's mother's new partner (Ida's father left for another woman) when Ida was 13, Marthe her younger sister, Kristoffer is Marthe's partner and Olea is Kristoffer's daughter, aged 6, from a previous relationship. Marthe, who suffers from Crohn's disease, has been trying to get pregnant for some years, suffering a series of early miscarriages, but on arrival tells the family that she is now 15 weeks pregnant, to Ida's shock rather than her pleasure:
I hadn’t believed it, not really. My friends have all overtaken me, each and every one of them, but now Marthe too, somewhere inside I had always believed that nothing would come of it, that things wouldn’t ever change, that Marthe would always be there in need of consolation, that she wouldn’t ever overtake me. She can’t overtake me.Ida sees herself as the "good daughter" and Marthe as lazy, needy, less pretty, and also a poor step-mother to Olea. But the reader may well see things differently, and Ida's main trait, as Stein observes, appears to be her desire to interfere in others' lives, particularly Marthe's.
A short, intense and well-observed character study of dysfunctional relationships. 3.5 stars
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
Rating: really liked it
A story that will resonate with anyone who has reached a certain age and wondered whether life was passing them by.
Ida is a 40yo, single woman with a good, professional job. She's used to being a support for her younger sister who has been struggling to fall pregnant, but just recently she's been dwelling on her own fertility. To leave her options open, she's made the big decision to freeze some eggs. It's a really big deal and she's excited to share her news with Marthe when they meet at the family's holiday cabin to celebrate their mother's 65th birthday. But when she arrives at the cabin it's like she loses her veneer of adulthood. Gazumped by Marthe's own news, Ida allows the petty jealousies of sibling rivalry to take hold and is soon acting more like an adolescent.
A quick read, I thought this was an ok story and am sure it will find an English-language readership as admiring as its original Norwegian one.
Whenever I have a quibble with any translated work, I wonder how much of it is down to the author and how much to the translator. Something that bothered me a lot about this book, particularly in the first half, was the length of some sentences. One* that took my breath away - not in a good way - crossed over 3 pages on my Kindle. I'm inclined to give the author the benefit of the doubt, and assume it's something that worked well in Norwegian and perhaps should not have been slavishly translated.
With thanks to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for an eARC to read and review.*Here's the sentence:
Down by the large juniper bush further along the way I am twelve years old, I’ve got braces that hurt my mouth and I’m wearing a new strappy dress, the straps criss-cross at the back, Mum doesn’t like me wearing it because it shows off so much skin, she never used to care about things like that, and I bump into Vegard on the way down, he’s older than me and stays in the cabin along the road, he’s been swimming with his dad and he sees me for the first time that day, or at least I think he does, he smiles differently, or at least I think he does, and he says hello, he says hello to my strappy dress and I scurry along the final stretch of path leading to the bathing spot on tiptoes, repeat his one-word greeting aloud and feel compelled to leap little leaps with my arms wrapped around me because Vegard from the cabin along the road thinks I’m a grown-up in my strappy dress, and Marthe comes running after me and giggles and says you look weird, what are you doing, even though she’s the one who’s chubby and short and always crying about something or other.
Rating: really liked it
Even though it is a very short novel it is so impactfull and it made me relate alot to all the problems the main character goes trough in the novel. Society does put alot of pressure on a person, that around a sertain age you should be married and have kids and a sucessfull job and a house and basicly a perfect life. This novel shows that life is what you make of it, and it can look exactly how you want it to be.
Alot of family drama that was really on the depressing side but no family is perfect eighter XD.
Grownups by Marie Gronborg Aubert get a 9/10 stars.
Rating: really liked it
I can agree with everything @magdalith wrote about this book.
“Grown Ups” is a novella about dysfunctional family that seems to be happiest without each other but meets up again and again because… of tradition? Because this is how the world is built? Because of the memories of the more or less joyful past? Probably a bit of all of these. The main character, Ida, is an immature woman who tries to become something she perceives as being an adult. The idea doesn’t make her happy but she is scared of loneliness and emptiness. Feeling worst and best in her own company, she channels her frustrations on the rest of the family, especially her younger sister, Marthe. The rivalry and feelings close to hatred made me rolling my eyes, because I hate such depiction of sisterhood in literature and yet, it seems to be really popular among writers. Is it really how sisters they know act around each other?
Yes, this book evoked some emotions in me, because it’s a bit dramatic here and there and Ida’s sadness is infectious. Still, I felt like after a huge self-pity fest, emotionally drained. I assume I did get the idea of the adulthood dilemma, about wanting and despising other people at the same time… But the story left me indifferent in the end. I felt it aspired to be much more than it showed. It didn’t hurt me to read it and despite my slightly harsh review I don’t think it was overly bad. It just didn’t resonate with me and contained lots of ideas used a lot. And here it’s nothing original.
I felt some resemblance to “Polar Summer” by Anne Sward and I liked Sward’s novel much, much better.
Rating: really liked it
Aubert’s spare use of words works really well here and I really enjoyed this! It’s an excellent novella about family relationships. The characters are not clear-cut good or bad, they feel very ‘real’. And all the family stuff , arguments, favouritism etc is so recognisable I guess to most of us. Aubert managed to get in the topic of wanting/being able to have children here as well, a job greatly done. Highly recommended.
Rating: really liked it
Grown Ups reminded me of Anna Hope’s ‘Expectations’ as it explores themes of comparison, jealousy and the goals you should have accomplished once you reach a certain age. It’s a book about the complex relationship between two sisters, which isn’t talked about enough. The narrator’s younger sister has a loving partner and is expecting a baby, and it makes the narrator feel like she’s failed at life. The Scandinavian setting was the icing on the cake, it was the perfect escapism!
Rating: really liked it
This is a short book (around 160 pages) but perfectly formed story. The author is Norwegian and the book has been translated into English by Rosie Hedger. It won literary prizes in Norway.
It’s very much a character-driven tale focused on Ida, a single woman who has just turned forty and feels her biological clock ticking. With a plan beginning to come together to freeze her eggs, Ida heads off to the family cabin by the sea to celebrate her mother’s birthday with the family but simmering tensions with her sister over some unexpected news threaten to boil over as matters come to a head.
None of the adult characters are particularly likeable - Ida herself is desperately insecure and resentful - but the dysfunctional set up and the sisters’ at times infantile behaviour makes for great reading.
I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Ida - I felt the author did a super job of portraying the loneliness of childlessness where it is not by choice.
The idyllic setting on the fjord made me long for far-flung places and there were enough moments of dark humour to make it not completely bleak.
A really enjoyable little novel. 4/5 ⭐️
*Grown Ups will be published on 3 June 2021. I was grateful to read an advance digital copy courtesy of the publishers @pushkin_press via @netgalley. As always, this is an honest review.*
Rating: really liked it
God, how much I wanted to slap every one from that family (Ide included). Toxic family relations, to which many may feel a personal link, was emotionally draining and I really felt I need to put that thin book down. But in the same time parts of the story was a bit cliche, sometimes a bit fake-feeling, like the author tried to use as much dirty family tricks she could.
Rating: really liked it
Grown ups is a rather thin book but still it’s very powerful. Marie Aubert tells the story of Ida who is 40, successful in her job but she has never managed to find a partner to stay with for longer... now that she realizes that there’s not much time left to get a child, she decides to go to Sweden to freeze her eggs.
Around the same time she goes to the family’s summer house in nature. Her sister Marthe, her boyfriend Kristoffer and his daughter Olea are there as well. Later her mum and her boyfriend Stein are coming in order to celebrate mum’s 65th birthday.
What should have been an annual family get together ends in a tragic scenery.
The story is told from Ida’s perspective. She has always felt second behind Marthe who has been sick as a child and has received more attention (at least that’s how Ida perceived it). It seems that at 40 she still hasn’t found her place yet. Instead of accepting others the way they are, she seems to try and destroy it for everyone...
It’s hard to really like Ida and also Marthe has her difficult sides... but what I loved about the book was how Aubert is telling the story. She managed to touch me on an emotional level and made me think a lot. In a way there’s no right or wrong.
Every character seems to have some kind of burden and maybe that’s true. Everyone has a story, everyone has sth to endure in life. It might not always be obvious. You may never get to know what other people’s hardships are but it’s wrong to assume you are the only one who doesn’t have a perfect life. Maybe that’s the big mistake Ida made and I wonder if she regrets it...
Rating: really liked it
Sisters Ida and Marthe have planned to spend some days together at their cabin close to the sea where they will be joined by their mother and her partner. Ida is reluctant to go there, with her 40th birthday only a couple of weeks ago and still no father for prospective children in view, she knows that her window of becoming a mother is getting closer and closer. This is why she decided to freeze some of her eggs. Yet, it does not hinder her from negative feelings towards Marthe who, now pregnant and stepmother of beautiful 6-year-old Olea, seems – as always – to get everything she wants. Hard feelings accompany Ida and slowly turn their holiday together into a catastrophe.
I totally enjoyed Marie Aubert’s novel as I could easily sympathise with her narrator and protagonist. Additionally, there is some fine irony and humour in the text which make it a great read. The relationship between sisters quite often is all but easy and even as grown-ups, hard feelings and emotional injuries from the childhood can sit deep and hinder them from ever having a healthy bond.
Ida obviously is envious, her sister not only has a living husband but also a lovely stepdaughter and she’s pregnant. Even though Ida is a successful architect, she has never managed to establish a functioning relationship with a partner and feels lonely and somehow failed in life. Always being second, this is how she has grown up, no matter which achievements she reached, there was always Marthe who was ill and thus spoilt those rare moments of joy for Ida. Their mother does not seem to be aware of the difference she makes between the girls – yet, one has also to take into account that we only get Ida’s point of view which quite naturally is not only limited but highly biased.
“It’s not right That it should be so easy for others and so hard for me, I don’t get it, if there’s some sort of formula, a code that others know about, one they’ve known since they were young but which I’ve never quite grasped.”
Ida gets worked up about her sister and is willing to destroy her sister’s life when she is drunk one evening. This is rather tragic to observe and Ida turns into a pitiable character who does not realise that she will be even lonelier if she loses these last persons around her. She is aware of this but cannot act differently.
Marie Aubert’s debut is elegantly narrated, yet, the story leaves you with mixed feelings. It is joyful at times but the dysfunctional family is also an emotional challenge.
Rating: really liked it
Marie Aubert wrote a novel which can be chiefly read as a family drama. It could be used as a social commentary on the social standing of childless middle-aged woman but the author preferred to narrow down the perspective. However, the quick falling apart of family appearances and hidden tensions are shown the novel stands out any way. And the protagonist joins the not so large group of well-written unlikable characters.
