But eventually I managed to get all the relationships straight in my mind.Īnother thing that I adored about Grown Ups is the absolute Irishness of it. Now, to be absolutely fair, there is a family tree, but because I have a digital ARC of Grown Ups, in which the formatting is less than wonderful, I couldn’t make sense of it. Because there are a lot of them, and I struggled to keep them straight, who was married to whom, and where all the children belonged. There is an absolutely wonderful cast of characters and paradoxically, they are one of the problems.

But it took me a little while to get there. MY THOUGHTS: I loved this mad book about this absolutely mad family. One careless remark at Johnny’s birthday party, with the entire family present, and Cara starts spilling all their secrets.Īs everything unravels, each of the adults finds themselves wondering if it’s–finally–the time to grow up. Still, everything manages to stay under control–that is, until Ed’s wife, Cara, gets a concussion and can’t keep her thoughts or opinions to herself. While some people clash, other people like each other far too much. Under the surface, though, conditions are murkier. Johnny’s wife, Jessie–who has the most money–insists on it. Johnny Casey, his two brothers Ed and Liam, their beautiful, talented wives and all their kids spend a lot of time together–birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, weekends away. Once more, the jigsaw of her life had been thrown up in the air and she had no idea where the pieces would land.ĪBOUT THIS BOOK: They’re a glamorous family, the Caseys. She didn’t want it to be true, but everything had already changed forever. But this – tonight – was as bad as Rory, that same light-headed combination of disbelief and stone-cold certainty: something terrible had happened.

Over the years, whenever a big drama had blown up, her second or third thought was, I’ve already survived the worst thing that could happen. But nothing had ever come close to the visceral punch of Rory ceasing to exist. Giving up on having a sixth child had, for a patch, been oddly unbearable. The wound of having been cut out of the Kinsella inner circle had taken a while to heal. EXCERPT: When Rory died, Jessie’s one consolation was that she’d never again have to live through something as bad.

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