Book info

• Title The Adults
• Author Caroline Hulse
• Year 2018
• Genres Christmas, Contemporary, Humour

Claire and Matt are divorced but decide what's best for their daughter Scarlett is to have a 'normal' family Christmas with them all together. Claire brings her new boyfriend Patrick, a seemingly eligible Iron-Man-in-Waiting. Matt brings the new love of his life Alex, funny, smart, and extremely patient. Scarlett, their daughter, brings her imaginary friend Posey. He's a rabbit. Together the five (or six?) of them grit their teeth over Organized Fun activities, drinking a little too much after bed-time, oversharing classified secrets about their pasts and, before they know it, their holiday is a powder keg that ends - where this story starts - with a tearful, frightened, call to the police... But what happened? They said they'd all be adults about this...

Review

You know I hate it when you ask me what I’m thinking. You think I’m having deep thoughts, and I’m actually wondering which would win in a fight, an owl or a badger.

I don’t always like comedy fiction because it can be quite hard to get the right tone coming across in the written word. This book, though, grabbed me straight away with relatable and funny characters getting themselves into all kinds of mishaps. Quite quickly, you realise that someone has been shot with an arrow at a holiday park, and then we spend a lot of time seeing how events led up to that, whilst also keeping an eye on the police investigation into what happened.

The fun comes from a handful of sharp and sparky people being thrust together over Christmas - ex-partners and new partners and people who by all rights shouldn’t spend this much contained time together. I really enjoyed the way the book was structured, how the story gradually unfolded, and seeing it all from a variety of different perspectives - even the kid’s imaginary friend.

Great story about people just trying to be adult enough to get through the holiday season, without killing each other, despite relatively easy access to bows and arrows.

Rating: 5 / 5