Wow. This was very long but I enjoyed it a lot. Griffin was such a well developed character and I kept wanting to find out what would happen next. The descriptions were immaculate -- I felt like I was in New York in 1980 and 1981. So well written, irreverent and poigant. Give it a try!!

Playworld comes out tomorrow on January 7, 2025, and you can purchase HERE!

In the fall of 1980, when I was fourteen, a friend of my parents named Naomi Shah fell in love with me. She was thirty-six, a mother of two, and married to a wealthy man. Like so many things that happened to me that year, it didn’t seem strange at the time.

I love coming of age stories and I loved going so deeply into one specific year with Griffin. This is just plain good story telling and character development, no frills. Highly recommend!

Playworld is a lengthy and descriptive journey through a momentous year of a very disaffected high schooler. Griffin lives in NYC with his parents and brother, stars in a TV show about a superhero family, and is very devoted to his prep school wrestling team. His singer dad & dancer mom have a strained relationship, and he's vaguely haunted in being involved in a fire that destroyed his apartment - or at least not acting quickly enough to get his brother out. He has complicated relationships with his parents' friends -- including one being the family shrink and another taking an unhealthy interest that goes very far. He also gets involved with a girl his own age, and uses his part in a film for a Woody Allen-esque director/actor that's shooting across from her school, and she expertly keeps him hanging on while involved with a classmate of his. She provides exposure to a rich Hamptons summer lifestyle, and he comes back determined to make some changes, taking the initiative in creating a D&D universe and also being positively affected by coaching changes. Overall, he's floating through some compelling circumstances and the characters are very well-written and spoken. His contrasts with his brother in general and specifically how they related to their parents' estrangement and their shared past is insightful.

Described as a coming-of-age/historical/literary fiction book, Playworld is a chunky book. Clocking in at over 500 pages, it’s a book that demands attention, and in return, one would hope to have an engaging, pleasurable reading experience.

Unfortunately, this book was anything but pleasurable. While there are vignettes sprinkled throughout that I enjoyed, after finishing, there are just too many things that make this a hard book for me to recommend.

At it’s best, this novel is atmospheric and the writing is great. I highlighted a ton of passages and have caught myself reflecting on pieces of the story. The characters are memorable, and I have no doubt that this is a book I’ll be able to remember next December when I begin reflecting back on my reading year. Poor Griffin…I’d love to know what happened to him as he grew up and how he came to terms with everything that happened in this one year span of the book!
Another aspect I loved was how Ross made New York City SHINE! It made me want to travel these streets like Griffin did in the early 1980s. I can’t fathom sending my kid on a subway or train or taxi without me, but I think New Yorkers are built different. If anything, this book is a love letter to the city and she basks in the praise!

What didn’t work for me was the predatory behavior of the adults. Naomi is a family friend who is 36 years old, a wife, and mother to two girls. She is obsessed with Griffin who is 14 YEARS OLD! in this book. Their relationship doesn’t start out as sexual, but it is wildly inappropriate and I couldn’t understand what the purpose was. In addition to Naomi, Griffin’s wrestling coach is sexually abusive to his players, and again, it was just too much. (I literally read this entire book, against my better judgment to DNF, in hopes that the inclusions of these two plot points would be cleared up for me. They weren’t.)

Since finishing, I’ve concluded that life in NYC in the 80s was something very different than we’re used to now. This is pre-helicopter parenting - where children roamed much more freely than kids do now. Regardless, Ross took that too far for me when the kids became neglected by every adult in their lives - and not just neglected - but flat-out preyed upon and ignored. The parents were so self-absorbed that eventually started hate reading so I could get it finished.

In Adam Ross’s long-awaited second novel, we find what would have happened if John Irving wrote the screenplay for "The Graduate" with a little Gatsby sprinkled in for good measure. An immersive reminiscence, an homage to the bygone, bike riding era of the 1980s that any GenXer - whether raised in NY or not - will savor for quite some time. This book was more than worth the wait.

Roughly 15 years since his last novel, this new one from Adam Ross was worth the wait. Good things take time! I loved this story. Filled with flawed characters and unexpected developments, Playworld is a slow burn, detailed ode to coming of age in a specific time and place (1980s New York City). I thought it was beautifully written. Its 500+ pages shouldn't scare anyone off—by the novel's conclusion, I was wishing it wouldn't end. At some point, I imagine I will read it again.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read the book in advance of its publication. I've already pre-ordered a finished copy because it's one I want to own.

I was originally intrigued by the synopsis for this book, but this was honestly a bit of a struggle to get through. This often felt too wordy, and pages would go by where nothing much happened. I found myself skimming over sections just to move the story along faster. That said, I was interested in all of the dynamics throughout the book. This was such a strange coming of age story, and the plot with Naomi paired with the child acting of Griffin made things all the more interesting. Watching how things slowly (very slowly) unfolded with both Griffin’s family and Naomi was the only thing that kept me interested in this book. This was a fine book but I don’t think it was the right one for me.

Ooooooo, this isn't it.

Maybe I'm tired of predatory stories. Maybe I'm tired of coming of age books. Maybe, just maybe, there are some things that don't need to be written about. I understand the POINT, but felt that the relationship portrayed in this novel was vile. I will never enjoy a story about a sexual predator.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for this advance reader copy, in exchange for an honest review. Playworld is a coming of age story set in New York City about Griffin, through his teen years during the 1980’s. Throughout this book, we explore his relationship with an older woman, his experience as a child actor, his somewhat troubled relationship with his parents, and other struggles that come with growing up.

The author does an excellent job at world building in this book; from the first page, you are gripped and then, firmly placed in Griffin’s life in NYC for the duration of the book. The characters felt realistic and like they could be actual people you know or knew, which made it easy to get into the story. I found the beginning of the book captivating but, gradually I thought that it became more difficult to focus and get through it. There were a number of scenes that felt drawn out or unnecessary and I had to push through them a bit to continue on.

There are a lot of interesting themes covered here and I appreciated the scope of what the author was trying to accomplish through his comments on wealth, relationships, family, and other topics. I think this book will definitely find its audience and readership but, I am not quite sure that it was a right fit for me. I would recommend this book to literary fiction fans, especially those who enjoy a good Bildungsroman or those who enjoy lengthy, languorous novels where you can really sit with the characters and setting. I will be interested to see what others think once this is published!

I love New York love books set there. Playworld is so well written so involving ,I was drawn in from the first pages.read slowly really savoring the writing.Looking forward to reading more by Adam Ross.

Thanks to Netgalley and Knopf for the ebook. In intimate epic of a high school boy in NYC in the eighties. In some ways he’s just an ordinary kid who’s struggling to make in impact as a wrestler, but he's also a teen actor on a TV show and has started an affair with a woman who is twenty years older than him and is a friend of his parents. An amazing portrait of a small family going through a complicated life.

I would like to thank Net Galley and Knopf for the opportunity to read this book as an ARC. I did not like this book. It was difficult to read due to the subject matter. It is billed as alternately Historical Fiction and as an example of bildungsroman( a coming of age story). I am not sure how to classify it excepts as disturbing on many levels. The protagonist, Griffen age 14, is a child actor.He lives in NY with his parents and younger brother. This book chronicles a year-more or less, of his life-1980-1981. It looks at life both in Griffen's world and the world at large- Griffen's relationship with a 36 year old woman, ( a friend of his parents), his attempt to juggle an acting career with school , wrestling, friends and girls, his parents relationship, as well as the Presidential election of 1980, and other world and national events. Griffen is having problems coping with his life. He goes to a therapist ( his whole family goes actually), but he does not tell him any thing that is really going on, and he becomes more and more stressed. It is sad and disturbing and annoying all at once. The writing is good, however,it is slow moving and ponderous at times. I did finish it, but I was tempted not to numerous times. It just isn't for me.

AWESOME BOOK! Grateful for an opportunity to read an early copy. I definitely will be reading more by this author.

Unfortunately I had to DNF, I did not enjoy the book. The concept was engaging, which is why I requested, but after about 200 pages I had to stop.

Playworld by Adam Ross is one of those books that has kind of stuck with me long after I’ve read it. This is the story of Griffin Hurt, child actor, student, and athlete at an elite prep school in NYC in 1980. We witness the mounting demands and pressures put on him with juggling his family and career, and growing up (honestly, isn’t that enough?) Add to this mix a wrestling coach putting him into compromising positions and then Naomi, a family friend, married, mother of two, who becomes his makeshift therapist, and also a love interest. It’s an interesting dynamic, the innocence of Griffin and the predatory behavior of the adult. Interestingly, a woman in this story. 
     The adults in this novel can seem very self-absorbed and blind to their own behaviors, but Ross manages to write them in a way that you can’t necessarily hate them. Yes, they are adults, far from perfect, still figuring out their own lives, going through their own struggles. It’s a great example of how we can all get swept up in our own selves at times. Mix this all together with taking place during the time of excess in the 80’s where they had to run commercials to ask if you knew where your kids were. These adults are not unique in this.  A different time when a generation of kids left to help raise themselves. 
     I don’t want to call this a coming of age story, but more of an unraveling story of a kid trying to hold it all together. There’s laughter to balance out the heartbreak of this disintegrating family. I rooted for Griffin the entire book, and I think you will, too. Adam Ross has written one of my favorite books of the year, and I can’t wait for it’s release in January so you can all experience it for yourselves

Set in the 1980s New York City, Griffin is a total theater kid who's discovering himself as an artist and a person. He is not top of mind for the adults who surrounded him--they're all too busy with their own stuff--and the one adult who seems interested in him will lead him to a place that readers forty years later will find really squirmy. In fact, a lot of this novel will make you uncomfortable.

Adam Ross fleshes out his characters well, and "Playworld" reminds us not to idealize the past. It also reminds us how hard it is for young people to navigate the world with no empathetic role models, and the kind of adult that results.

This is the sort of book that waxes and wanes with me. I was engaged, on and off, but ultimately, "Playworld" was not for me. Do I think there is a readership for this novel? Absolutely.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a DRC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This is a soft DNF for me.

I love the way Adam Ross world-builds, and I think the writing in this is great! But this book is a mammoth for a reason-- in leaving no stone unturned, the pacing ended up being really difficult to get through, in some places.

I think this is an ambitious novel with a unique character, and I love the idea of a male coming-of-age, which challenges the way we view masculinity. It just wasn't for me.

Thank you for the opportunity to read an early copy!

Playworld does an exceptional job of immersing the reader in a very specific time and place. Reading it is an immersive experience. It feels like a modern, more aware and mature version of all those male character centered coming-of-age novels that were so popular in the literary fiction world a few decades ago—and this is a good thing. I really enjoyed this book.

Just fine. The writing was a slog and it just didn’t hit me. The characters felt hollow and absolutely charmless. Just wasn’t for me I guess

I LOVED this book. I have a personal connection to a lot of the details, but I think I would have loved it anyway. Griffin had me by the heart throughout, and although, like Hanya Yanagihara's "A Little Life," John Boyne's "The Heart's Invisible Furies" and Rebecca Makkai's "The Great Believers" (three of my top books of all time--this is up there) it deals with a lot of trauma and tough themes, there's just so much joy and life and, to use the word again, *heart.* Loved it loved it loved. (I also can't wait for the press that comes out about this one--I think it's going to be juicy, which Naomi foreshadowed in our last scene with her.)