Grown ups: Another dysfunctional family saga by Marion Keyes

Even though Grown ups was published four years ago at the time of writing this post, it's Marion Keyes's most recent standalone novel. The book is written in a similar vein to her Walsh family saga in that it explores another complex and dysfunctional family, addressing a bunch of important topics amongst all the mayhem and Irish humour.

Check out my reviews of other Keyes novels, The brightest star in the sky and Sushi for beginners, and Lucy Sullivan is getting married.

Grown ups | Published February 2020 | Read December 2024

You know a book is going to be complicated when the author provides a family tree at the beginning! Grown ups tells the story of the Dublin-based Casey family. Everyone in the Casey family gets on famously on the surface, but of course they don't, really. Things start to unravel when Cara, one of the Casey brothers' wives, suffers a bump on the head and in her concussed state, she lets out all the family secrets.

Here's a rundown of the Casey family. There's Johnny married to Jessie, his brother Ed married to Cara, and another brother Liam recently married to Nell. Then there are Johnny and Jessie's five children, the older two of whom Jessie had with her first husband, Rory, who tragically died of an aneurysm in his early thirties. Rory was Johnny's best friend so their marriage has caused all kinds of family drama. Cara and Ed have two boys and Liam has two girls who live in the US with their mother. The Kinsellas, Rory's family, are loving and kind, but the Casey patriarch and matriarch are just mean, authoritarian and completely self-absorbed.

Confused yet?

It's actually not so hard to keep up with all the people once you get into the story. It takes some thinking initially, especially since many of the characters have hard-to-pronounce Irish names, but I found it worth the effort. That said, the Casey family spends A LOT of time together and as an introvert I found their closeness quite suffocating. But funny. Very funny.

The book is LONG (650+ pages) but there's plenty going on. It's witty in true Marion Keyes style, superbly Irish, and full of bonkers goings-on that made me tired just reading about them. It took me a while to lean into the story - and I actually had to give it a second read after an earlier failed attempt - but once I was settled in, I was hooked.

Jessie has built a successful gourmet grocery business and she splashes her money about on madcap family parties and weekends away. I didn't much like Jessie. She uses her money to control everyone and make people like her. I get that this is the outcome of her traumatic childhood where she struggled to fit in, but she was kind of annoying. Johnny, the hot brother, was OK, but mostly in the story to show how difficult the family situation was after his friend, Rory, died, and he married Jessie.

As far as the characters go, Cara was easily my favourite. She's a decent human - hardworking, smart, and capable - while secretly battling bulimia. I thought Keyes handled Cara's storyline with lovely sensitivity and I enjoyed reading Cara's journey. Ed, her husband, is the sweetest of the brothers and his characterisation helped me warm to Cara and her family.

I also liked Nell, the bohemian of the family with a strong social conscience. She made a terrible decision in marrying Liam in a whirlwind as he was a sleazebag and a complete arse. I found reading his selfish and gaslighting behaviour towards Nell made my hackles rise.

Bridey, one of Jessie and Johnny's daughters, was my favourite of the children. She was absolutely hilarious, taking the whackadoodle Casey antics on the chin, throwing out witty one-liners and sounding like the only true grown up of the whole bunch. Bravo to Keyes for Bridey and the not-so-subtle message about what it means to be a mature adult.

The book opens with Johnny's birthday party where Cara blurts out the family secrets. The book's blurb and that opening chapter made me think that the rest of the book would be about the fallout from Cara' revelations. That's not what transpires. The story goes back six months to a family holiday and works it's way back to Cara's outburst. There is an Easter get together at a posh hotel, the wedding anniversary of the hideous Casey parents, a murder-mystery weekend gone wrong, a family holiday in Tuscany, and a festival. Whew! The reader learns more about all the family members, their personalities, their resentments, dirty secrets, and grudges, all hidden behind the façade of a big, boisterous, happy family.

There's a lot to unpack in all of that. I was completely immersed in the family for all their flaws and dysfunction. Putting aside their madcap antics, the book felt very authentic. Keyes creates a genuine and heartfelt story of how adults negotiate their way through life, sometimes making bad decisions. She deftly explores the personality quirks, the emotions, the past behaviours (and mistakes) and personal issues that shape the decisions we make.

My only criticism, and hence my four rather than five star rating, is that I think Keyes is trying to say that the adults are not very grown up and that they need to face up to reality and...well...grow up. As I mentioned above, I thought from the blurb and opening chapter that the adults WOULD face reality and grow up after Cara unwittingly revealed their secrets. I loved working my way through their backstories, but I would like to have seen less of all that and more of the consequences of Cara's revelations. There was a bit of stuff post-reveal, but not enough for me. I especially would have liked to have seen Liam get his comeuppance.

Keyes has written an entertaining, witty, and realistic picture of being a grown up that had me entertained from the outset. She broaches the subjects of refugees, body image and eating disorders, gaslighting, grief and loss, infidelity, jealousy, and family dysfunction with aplomb. You might be exhausted at the end of it - I was - but it's certainly a wild ride.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐