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Book Review of Back When We Were Grownups

Back When We Were Grownups
reviewed on + 106 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4


This was a very thoroughly enjoyable book-- not fluff fiction, but a wonderful and easy read anyway. This book shares several themes with Tyler's more recent book, Digging to American-- including older women searching for love and companionship (subtheme: widowhood), the wackiness but comforting aspects of extended family, and stepchildren. The characters in this book are incredibly deep and often moving, including an elder who turns 100 (and has a vividly described party), a daughter obsessed with making gourmet food (she's a caterer) that most of her family would rather not eat (and her resentment around that), and a very creative but weird preteen boy. It's a book that you will want to keep reading until you find out what happens in the end-- but then you realize that the book's main value was about how it made you think about your own life and family.