The Adults

A Novel

By: Caroline Hulse

Narrated by: Penelope Rawlins, Peter Kenny, Sarah Ovens

Named One of the Best Books of the Year by Real Simple

"If Love, Actually and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation are your two favorite holiday movies, you’re going to love The Adults." (Bustle)

"Sometimes a nasty family comedy is just what you need for the holidays." (Entertainment Weekly)

Meet The Adults.

Claire and Matt are no longer together but decide that it would be best for their daughter, Scarlett, to have a "normal" family Christmas. They can’t agree on whose idea it was to go to the Happy Forest holiday park or who said they should bring their new partners. But someone did - and it’s too late to pull the plug. Claire brings her new boyfriend, Patrick (never Pat), a seemingly sensible, eligible-from-a-distance Ironman in waiting. Matt brings the new love of his life, Alex, funny, smart, and extremely patient. Scarlett, who is seven, brings her imaginary friend, Posey. He’s a giant rabbit. Together, the five (or six?) of them grit their teeth over Forced Fun Activities, drink a little too much after Scarlett’s bedtime, overshare classified secrets about their pasts...and before you know it, their holiday is a powder keg that ends where this novel begins - with a tearful, frightened call to the police.

What happened? They said they’d all be adults about this....

Praise for The Adults

"A delectable premise...Hulse skewers her characters uproariously, zeroing in on every quirk, and she humanizes them, too." (Entertainment Weekly)

"The ending is worth every page turned in this funny, redeeming wade through the rough tide of blended family." (San Francisco Chronicle)

"Caroline Hulse’s farcical debut is an ode to the big personalities and drama you find in families - unconventional and not." (Real Simple)

"This wry holiday novel will make you chuckle and remind you that nobody’s family is perfect. If you’ve ever sat through an awkward family dinner (who hasn’t?), you’ll relate so hard." (HelloGiggles)

"Brilliantly funny." (Good Housekeeping UK)

"Razor-sharp comedy." (Sunday Mirror)

©2018 Caroline Hulse (P)2018 Random House Audio

Clumsy first novel

Seems more like an aspirational classroom creative writing exercise, not quite ready for publishing, yet not without charm.

Fun holiday read!

I love holiday reads! This one is a bit dark but still funny. Not Christmas with Kranks but still a smile and will keep holiday road rage to a minimum. Not a family listen but if you’re trying to do your regular commute and add holiday errands to the list at least this will keep you smiling 🦄

enjoyable

The plot is a little far fetched for me but people do strange vacations. The writing is very good. I would recommend it.

Worst book. Horrible language. Didn’t even finish.

The title says it all. Don’t read. It’s a waste of your time and hard on the ears.

Hate the characters

Spent the whole time waiting for the one woman to dump the one guy because he’s so awful

Just couldn't plod through it.

I bought this book because I heard an interview with the author on NPR. The interview made it sound as if it would be funny, however I found it just plain dull, The only adult in the book was the invisible rabbit.

Lying book blurb

A complete waste of time. 1.5 Stars. For Posey.

You Can’t judge a book by its cover OR it’s blurb in this scenario.
This “razor sharp novel” (read drawn out & boring)
“A darkly comic twist on Love, Actually and The Holiday”- dark, yes. Comical? Hardly.
And the title- “Adults”? By age only. Especially Matt the man-child. This book was so long and yet the characters are so one dimensional that I can’t understand how he got both of these women.
This could have been so much better if anything funny happened in the various activities throughout the story. Instead it was moping and jealousy and misery.
Any suspense factor was lost, because as time went on I didn’t care enough about any of the characters to even wonder who did it or why. And in the end it was an anti-climactic letdown.

The promise of a holiday comedy with a suspenseful twist reeled me in and now I’m mad I wasted my time and money.

The Audible version would have been much better with one narrator. As the chapters are from varying view points it seems like multiple narrators made sense. But not when you just heard Claire in a woman’s voice and the next chapter Clare’s dialogue is read by a man for example. I lost focus out of boredom & confusion many times. I should not have bothered to rewind or to finish for that matter.