Thanks so much for the arc!

I saw this book advertised by Jenna (Read with Jenna) on the Today Show. I was psyched to get a chance to read it!

Grace is a bit of a mess. The book has a slow build. We meet Grace in current day when she’s buying her daughters 16th birthday cake. But her daughter doesn’t live with her and we get the vibe that she’s not even speaking to Grace. We follow Grace on quite a wild and unhinged journey across town to get said cake to said daughter.

While she basically unravels on this journey so does her story. We’re transported back to her youth, back to when her and her husband meet, back to her daughters childhood, and only a few months ago when things really took a turn.

I will admit I struggled with this book. It was hard to keep track of all the timelines even though I knew the stories were each clues as to who Grace is and why. It had a slow build. A lot of the stories didn’t really impact me… until about 75% of the book. That’s when I feel the story got me. So many heavy things were unveiled (& I did not see coming.) It made the reader really get a better picture of why Grace unravels. As a mother, some topics were hard for me. I’m glad I saw the book until the end. It was worth the read but definitely a drawn out build up.

I was so excited for this book based on the description and it was very disappointing. It moved slow and the multiple timelines were confusing. I was expecting a lighter story with humor related to mid-life and menopause and that was not this book. This book needs several trigger warnings and includes darker themes than I was expecting.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Oh, Amazing Grace,
I really wanted to love you. You and I are in similar phases of life, and I'd hoped we'd have a connection.
Alas, I'm not really sure what to think about you. I'm not sure we would be friends IRL.
Grace, you really had your life together for awhile and WOW has absolutely everything gone wrong!
Your dual/triple/quadruple timeline story was a bit hard to follow at times. The narrative jumped around so much I often forgot about your little trek on foot through London...
And, why on earth did you include some details about your life, like that weird doctor's appointment, and then never mention it again in your story? SO random, Grace. I'm not even sure why that was in your story.
My main question for you, Grace, is: are you actually suffering from mental illness? I have great empathy for those who are struggling, and I might suggest you get yourself some help, Grace,
All in all, Grace, I hope are able to move forward with your life after all that's happened. But frankly, I"m glad to be finished with your story. Wishing you the best.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a complimentary ebook in exchange for my honest review.

Just ok for me

I'm sure there are readers who will simply adore this book, unfortunately it fell flat for me. The premise was good, and so was the beginning, but then it got a bit off track and felt desperate to me. I appreciate that this was a debut book, and that the author put her heart and soul into it, and I thank her for it. Wishing her good luck in the future.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book, but my opinions are my own.

This book started out strong and then it was just a solid 2.5 overall. It was confusing jumping back and forth between different months and years and even though I typically like books written like this it was just terribly confusing at times. There were some high points and good descriptions of a woman aging and in menopause but overall I was so happy when crawled to the finish line to have this one over.

I'm not sure why this was advertised as funny and hysterical because that was misleading and set a different expectation. Once I put that aside, I found it to be a wonderful and painful story of a very messy menopausal woman trying to connect with her sixteen year old daughter. Yes, Grace is funny and the circumstances she finds herself beyond ridiculous injecting humor into the story, but I think I teared up more than I laughed. Poignant and verbalizing some of the fears and tight rope walks mothers of teenage girls try to navigate. I really liked all the characters in this family and that's what made some of it so heartbreaking.
I have seen mixed reviews, so I would say if you put it aside go back with a different expectation, and I hope you will find it the worthwhile read that I did!

The September Read with Jenna pick, Amazing Grace Adams is a wonderful, funny, well-written, empathetic story about a woman who has reached her breaking point, with her daughter, her husband, her work and everyone she encounters on that fateful day in which everything that can go wrong, does. The relatable story is filled with emotions everyone can relate to, anger, embarrassment, mistakes and a love so deep and desperate you would do anything to try and fix it and make it better. It’s about never being able to come back from loss, but at least trying to live and deal with the sadness openly. It’s about the good, the bad and the ugly of life and finally saying enough is enough.

Grace Adams is having a very, very bad day. She’s stuck in traffic trying to get to a bakery across town so she can pick up a 16th birthday cake for her daughter Lotte who does not want to have anything to do with her anymore, let alone see her.

So, feeling she has no choice, she gets out of her car, leaving it in the traffic and begins the long walk to find the bakery and make it to a birthday party which she is not wanted at. As she tries to maneuver through the different and difficult moments getting to the bakery, she begins to relive her life and assess what she has done right and wrong. At 45, and being perimenopausal, sweating at the drop of a hat, she relives what has led up to her husband wanting a divorce, her daughter moving out to live with her father and being fired all because she can’t seem to open her mouth. She can’t explain her feelings, so she just shoves them deeper and deeper into a vault she has never opened before.

As her life during the walk explodes around her and as she explodes on everyone she unfortunately encounters, Grace realizes she has become a person she does not know or understand. How and why did her life take such horrible twists and turns.

But by the time she finally makes it to the bakery to get the cake and brings it to Lotte’s birthday party, a party she was told NOT to attend, she is a new Grace, determined to make up for the mistakes she felt she has made , to love more deeply especially to love herself and try to be the woman she knows she wants to be, not the person who everyone around her wants her to be.

Amazing Grace Adams will make you smile, tear up but also make you realize how human everyone really is and make you admire Grace Adams for what she was able to do during that long difficult day, and perhaps we all could learn from her how to react when we make mistakes, or when we don’t speak out mind. She teaches us that no matter what you need to pull yourself up, experience the feelings, learn from them and grow. This is peace…

Courtesy of HOLT Social Media, here are some cute mobile backgrounds for your phone to fit the fun mood this book brings out, along with a delicious cake recipe!




Thank you #NetGalley #HenryHoltandCo #FranLittewood #TheAmazingGraceAdams for the advanced copy.

I received this book free of charge from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I really wanted to like this book. It started off ok but it was hard to keep the multiple timeline straight. The current timeline felt too over the top and I kinda lost interest in it. I could relate to the menopause symptoms. The whole golf course encounter was where I started skimming thru that timeline. I loved the older timeline of how Grace and Ben met. I would have loved to see that expanded on. The ending was good. I liked who she did wrap things up and while not perfect was good.

I really liked the premise of this story, especially as a mom of multiple teenagers. We've all been there — wanting to leave the vehicle in traffic when we are running desperately late — and a lot of what Grace went through and much of her behavior throughout that day were completely relatable. That being said, the flashes forward and back became very difficult to follow. I would probably reduce some of those in order to increase the enjoyment of reading the story.

This book was hilarious, and it really hit home for me in a lot of ways and gave me hope. I’m not the biggest fan of this genre, but I was very pleasantly surprised!

DNF at 37%. As a woman in her mid-40s, I was drawn in by the premise of this book about Grace Adams - a 45 year old woman who is having an incredibly difficult day. It’s told in three different timelines - today (her daughter’s 16th birthday), 4 months ago, and then going all the back to before her daughter was born and moving up to now. I was really into the beginning and especially learning about the language competition where Grace met Ben. But then this story really lost steam for me as it went along and ultimately I decided not to finish. Thank you to the publisher for the free book to review.

This was slow to start but compelling enough to keep me reading. Grace is a complicated woman with a complicated life and she is having a very bad day. Going through “the change” while trying to parent a daughter she‘s lost touch with and come to terms with a loss she‘ll never get over is a lot for anyone and today is the day she‘s had it. I related to Grace in so many ways but this was not a easy read.

All of the hype around this book definitely sucked me in. And I loved Eleanor Oliphant, Meredith, et al. But this book didn't have their heart and ultimately, wasn't for me.

This started out with a great premise but slowly declined. The storyline was hard to follow with the alternating timelines. I found a lot of it just unbelievable and boring. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for this copy for read and review

𝚁𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐: 3.75⭐️
𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: contemporary fiction📚

𝙼𝚢 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜:
I enjoyed this one and found it entertaining but it was too all over the place for me

𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎:
Three timelines
Relatable reads
Family drama
Powerful stories
Stories about family and healing
Quirky characters

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎𝚍:
The different languages
Mental health rep
FMC in her 40’s

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗’𝚝 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛:
It was very exaggerated at times

Grace Adams is a debut novel that’s funny, touching and unforgettable. Grace Adams has had it. She’s tired of parenting a teenager on her own, tired of feeling invisible to the world and tired of getting older. Intent on getting a very special birthday cake for her daughter, Grace leaves her car in standstill traffic and proceeds to walk across London in order to reach her.

Littlewood’s debut provides a relatable and flawed character struggling with issues of parenting a teenager while struggling with her marriage and getting older. Three timelines are used throughout the story to portray Grace in her 20s, 30s and 40s. The author creates suspense by not revealing the underlying issue and keeps the reader wanting to read more. An emotional and moving story with a realistic view of all the joy, worry and stress of watching your child grow up while recognizing your own youth fading.

Thanks to Henry Holt & Company for the opportunity to review this title.

I requested this book based solely on the cover. I thought it was going to be a light and laugh out loud funny book. It was not funny at all. It’s a story about a complicated mother and daughter relationship and grief. Told via three time periods – current, a few months ago and the early 2000’s by Grace. Grace is a messy flawed character and the current time plot was a little exaggerated and unbelievable with ALL the mishaps that were happening. I really struggled getting through it, it just wasn’t for me.

This was an okay book. The ending was good, but getting there was a chore!

Grace Adams is a multilingual word nerd. She is married to Ben, who also is a linguist, and they have a beautiful daughter, Lotte. The book jumps around Grace and Ben's timeline, from present day (when Grace is trying to deliver a cake to her daughter's birthday party, at her dad's house) to when she and Ben first met, when Lotte was young, and when everything started to go badly several months ago.

There is a reason for Lotte being at Ben's house, and Grace and Ben no longer being together, and for Grace to be coming undone, but the reason isn't revealed until way later in the book. Even after that, there are things I take issue with as being unrealistic and not fitting to the characters.

I skimmed for a good portion of the middle of this book, because I was bored with it, and it was actually painful to read. I'm not sure if it was painful because I, too, have a child turning 16 soon, and I hope he makes good choices, or if Grace's unraveling was just too much to take as a middle-aged woman.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy of this book.

Thank you NetGalley and Holt and Company for the ARC in return for my honest opinion of this book. Grace Adams is basically a hot mess. She lost her job, is in the midst of a divorce, and has a messy relationship with her soon to be 16-year-old daughter. On top of that, she is perimenopausal. The story goes back and forth between timelines, and it seems to be a bit confusing to me the way it is written.
I didn't really enjoy the book. I kept waiting for something more to come out of it. People compare it to Elinor Oliphant is Completely Fine. I didn't finish that book so it could be the case.

I really liked this story as it went in directions I didn't expect. A relatable premise of a middle aged woman being fed up, with just about everything. It also deals with some heavier themes that deal with deeper relationships and love. I laughed at some points, and intensely read through some parts that stayed me. Definitely more than I expected.

Copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley