Synopses & Reviews
For fans of Fleishman is in Trouble and Such a Fun Age, an electrifying novel about six longtime friends whose tropical vacation is interrupted by an unexpected crisis, forcing them to ask how strong their bonds really are
Clare is supposed to be the grown-up one. Married to the love of her life, with a major deal for her first novel, she has everything she thought she wanted. So then why does it all feel so wrong? When she agrees to a weeklong vacation with five of her oldest friends, she is hoping for an escape with the people who know her best. There is Jessie, who won't stop talking about her new boyfriend; Mac, trying to pretend he hasn't outgrown the group; Kyle, the eternal peacemaker; and Renzo, who brought them all together but keeps picking fights. And then, of course, there's Liam, the guy Clare has barely seen since high school but somehow can't get out of her head — or her bed.
But when a terrifying news alert shatters their peace, it becomes harder to ignore how much the world has changed since they were teenagers. As the resentments and tensions that have always simmered just beneath the surface begin to boil, Clare must ask if their shared history is enough to sustain their friendships, or if growing up might mean letting go.
With crackling wit and emotional fearlessness, When We Grow Up is a provocative portrait of friendship in a world that feels ever more unrecognizable and a searing exploration of what it means to be a good person.
Review
"Will appeal to readers who gravitate toward dramatic relationship fiction, a sort of cross between Hanya Yanihariga's A Little Life and the 1985 Brat Pack movie St. Elmo's Fire."
Library Journal
Review
"Sharply observed, sardonic, engaging, intimate, and evocative, When We Grow Up delves into the ways we try and fail to form and foster friendships, both before and after we know how to love well or thoughtfully. It confronts the damage that we cause, the violences we miss, as we bumble through discovering who we are. An exploration of how impossible it can feel, in the face of a world that seems so often invested in our imminent destruction, to want and know how to be good."
Lynn Steger Strong, author of Flight
Review
"When We Grow Up is novel as anthropological investigation, a study of the class of people for whom adulthood begins at thirty. I laughed, I winced, and I saw much I recognized in Baker's exploration of how the self is forged not only by the circumstances of our birth and family and education but by our peers and friends."
Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Entitlement and Leave the World Behind
Praise for Our Little Racket
Review
"Baker is wildly talented and this debut is her gorgeous opening note."
Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, bestselling author of The Nest
About the Author
Angelica Baker is the author of the novels Our Little Racket and When We Grow Up. Her essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Literary Hub. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, with her husband and two sons.