I studied English Lit at University and worked as a journalist, and then, after I’d had my children, I decided to do an MA in creative writing in the hope of getting published. And then...we find out about a major thing that happened, and my heart just broke into a billion pieces and 100% understood why Grace, Ben, and Lottie acted and kept acting the way they did. I understand because I have lived it and everything is so realistically portrayed I had tears running down my face. 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.

The sides of the car are closing in on her and she can smell burned plastic. How are they not moving yet? Sitting here like this it’s reminding her of something—a book, a TV show, a screenplay … she can’t remember. She can barely remember her own name these days. Slumping in the seat, she tries to bring to mind the things she hasn’t been able to recall recently. But, of course, she can’t. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so terrifying. Like a part of her brain dropped out when she was looking the other way. If you’re feeling hot out there today,” the woman on the radio is saying, “according to the latest report from climate think tank Autonomy, it’s only going to get hotter…”

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.

My thanks to Penguin Michael Joseph UK and NetGalley for the DRC of “Amazing Grace Adams”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Grace is 45, the unhappiest age you can be, according to the Guardian. How does society erase women over 40? Why do you think that is? How does this story help you see the women in your life differently? 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.A gripping story of joy, grief, stress, worry, love at first sight, parenting...frank, nuanced, and evocative.” In terms of rituals, I usually made chamomile tea before starting work, to calm the creative dread… I finished her story on a plane above the country, so full, and in tears. "Ma'am?" my seat-mate asked, "are you ok?" "Oh, yes," I answered. And gave him this book' SARAH BLAKE, New York Times bestselling author of The Postmistress and The Guest Book Never did I see coming the emotion that permeates Fran Littlewood’s debut novel. I went into Amazing Grace Adams expecting an almost absurdist, satirical portrayal of a middle-aged woman on the verge of snapping, and though I did find some of that, I was also rewarded with a thoughtful and sensitive story of a mother fighting to regain her family and her life.

Littlewood does do a good job with the chaos if this is what she was going for. When Grace gets up out of her car, while on the freeway, it feels like an urge to just put down the book and save it for another day, or maybe not even finish it. Grace and her family feel brilliantly, dramatically real and believable, and she becomes a heroine to take to heart Apple Books

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Told through several timelines, the reader will see just how changed, the charmed life of Amazing Grace Adams really is. Also how careers of men are not always so similarly affected. I was so fed up with the kind of vanilla, sanitized cultural depictions of women over 40. As I was hitting these ages it wasn’t how I felt. This notion that we’re supposed to be downtrodden, over the hill, boring — all these adjectives attached to the middle-aged space. I felt that it needed a rebranding,” she says.