The book was okay but didn't live up to the hype that people have put on it, thought it was sad and emotional and the characters could be annoying at times. But it was well written and I liked how different chapters were told from different characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery/Scout Press for the e-ARC of this title to read and review. Since I'm in my early thirties myself, and previously come from the world of celebrity entertainment magazine journalism in a big city, I thought this one was going to be a relatable and effortlessly-readable easy smash hit. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a tough one.

There are definitely parts of this book that are going to linger with me and that's a great sign, to be thinking about passages later. But ultimately I felt there were just too many characters to keep track of, and they are all *so* tangentially related to one another's stories, that at times it felt like starting over with new mini short stories throughout the book. Then I'd have a small lightbulb moment later when they more clicked together, but it wasn't a very satisfying discovery. More like an underwhelmed, "oh." The structuring doesn't help, because some character names are titles, and then some are assumed to be Victor's own main story POV, so they feel woven in without much explanation as an interruption to the lead's plot. It's a character-driven story for sure, but there's not enough room to get to know these characters when new ones keep popping in for distractions. Then there's also a ton of time passage, but it's just mentioned rather than felt.

The one thing that all the characters have in common is that they all feel like they're just going through the motions of things -- their jobs, their relationships, their friendships, etc. I think that could be beautiful and a capital-V Vibe all on its own, as that's a perfectly 30s experience sometimes. But I don't think the book really made it an intentional and poignant point, so we saw characters briefly floating around who didn't really seem that invested in their lives or careers or the people they were talking to, but they still wanted others to be impressed by them. In my reading, sometimes I'd think this was a great narrative technique, and other times I'd just be like... if they don't care about what they're doing, why should I?? It feels less like characters navigating their 30s as the characters happen to be 30, and they tell their stories as recaps rather than us witness them really going through it.

3/5 Stars

BLURB: A hilarious and painfully relatable debut novel about two thirtysomething best friends’ messy search for connection and love in New York, perfect for fans of Rebecca Serle, Gabrielle Zevin, and Dolly Alderton.

This book felt like if Love Actually and A Little Life had a book child. It hit in some aspects and lacked in others. I think overall I enjoyed it but I don't think it has been described/marketed properly. Some characters are relatable and others quite jarring. For the most part, I think there will be people that LOVE this book, and I hope it reaches them!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I hated this.

I'm giving it two stars because I made it to the end without DNFing and the end was *kind of* okay but, man, was it a struggle to get there.

This book was comprised of a whole bunch of wildly unlikeable characters and their petty problems. It started out okay with just Victor and Zoe, but when we started introducing several other POVs of characters that are somehow distantly connected by crossed paths it just became a mess.

None of the folks in this book actually seemed like friends or even acquaintances. Admittedly though I am older than the characters so this may be a generational thing. But they all pretty much treated each other like trash found on the street and then were surprised to get the same treatment themselves. Lots of self wallowing, pity, lying, and other such things. The writing was good but the subject(s) just didn’t work for me.

This was not at all what I expected! I went into this thinking it was going to be a light romantic comedy, but maybe that was just my misinterpretation of the summary. What I got was a thoughtful, dark, reflection of the absolute horror show most young adults go through during their late twenties and early thirties- also known as the "quarter life crisis".

In one night, careers, relationships, and lives in general are blown up. Years pass before the dust settles and life begins to feel stable once more, or maybe for the first time. I loved Victor's POV. His voice was genuine and honest without being totally self-serving. I was surprised when Zoey's chapters weren't in first person, and I do wish they had been. While I love that the story hooked me with the dramatic first scene, I also wish that we had gotten a deeper peek into Victor and Zoey's early friendship and what built their foundation to begin with to juxtapose the cracks that formed from the rock-solid start.

Lastly, the ensemble cast was a little distracting for me. I didn't find most of the additional characters to be relevant enough in their own right to have such large parts of the story, and they were difficult to keep straight at first.

Overall, I enjoyed the opportunity to read this new debut author and will look forward to what he does next. Thank you so much, NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary ARC in exchange for my review.

Early Thirties by Josh Duboff was meant to be the beginning of my fiction era and get me out of almost exclusively reading romance and fantasy, but unfortunately, it was not the book to do that. While I did think it was a really interesting book and premise, I found myself thinking less about this book even while I was reading it and more about the other books I had on my TBR. I think it is very indicative of how much I did, or rather really did not enjoy this book, based on how long it took me to actually finish this book.
Interesting premise, just not for me!

This book was not for me. There is a mix of POVs, only one of them is written in 1st person, and the rest are in third person, and the new POVs come out of nowhere with no context, so it's a bit odd. It seems they eventually all cross paths, but it's a slow journey. I gave up at about 50% then skipped through the remainder, and it didn't get any more interesting to me. Most of the characters are deeply unlikeable. I know that can make for a compelling story, but it just didn't resonate with me.
The writing isn't bad, but the characters and story did not interest me.

This book wasn't for me, but it may be perfect for someone else. I'll give it 2.5 stars.

I read an advanced copy of this book, and these are my honest thoughts. Thank you to NetGalley, Gallery Books, and the author for the advanced copy.

I feel like I shouldn't be rating this book because I requested this ARC thinking this was going to be a friends to lovers romance, but instead ot turned out to be a Genfic (nothing wrong with it) with so many characters & plotlines that doesn't make any sense. Especially the opening scene? Like what?

Well... it's just not for me. And it's literally my fault to have requested this without knowing what genre it belonged to.

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Early Thirties is perfect for you if you like approachable contemporary fiction that leans literary and you are a millennial in your early thirties. Bonus points if you have 1-3 mental illnesses. There are some intense topics like self harm, abortion, trying to conceive and some other things I can't remember at the moment so if those things are hard for you, I wouldn't recommend this. The way those things are handled can feel visceral. I wouldn't call the handling disrespectful by any means, just human.

Victor and Zoey have been best friends for a decade. When one faces a difficult breakup and then a tragedy, fractures start to appear in their once-solid relationship. As the two dive into their careers, relationships, and grappling with their dream futures, their friendship begins to suffer more and more strain.

This book is nothing like what I expected from the description. I thought the book would focus only on Victor and Zoey and how their friendship changed over their 30s. Instead, the book alternated chapters between many different POVs, which got a bit confusing at times. I also could not understand why all chapters were labeled aside from Victor's and why all chapters were in first person except Zoey's. This made reading it even more confusing. I also wish chapters were at least labeled with a month or something to help guide how much time had passed. Some things felt out of left field until a casual "it had been six months since..." was thrown in to help shape how much time had passed. That all said, I did like seeing the realistic flow of how their relationship changed over time, but I wish the pacing, chapters, and tenses were a lot more consistent for better readability.

Thank you NetGalley for an arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book has some real moments of poignancy, and I liked the writing style. It’s also slow, meandering, and unfocused in some pretty significant ways.

First, there are too many POV characters in this. The book clearly wants to be a character study, but aside from central protagonists Victor and Zoey, all of the POV characters feel interchangeable in terms of voice, and can really only be adequately distinguished by their jobs, which are all the same jobs always assigned to the characters in one of those “single pals trying to make it in the city!” sitcoms.

I’m also a bit fuzzy on who the audience is for this. In terms of tone and the references it uses, it seems to be aimed at elder millennials. But that doesn’t line up using either how old the characters are in the book (early thirties, obviously), or in terms of references that set the book in a year in the past (Cava, for example, didn’t exist yet when we elder millennials were this age). I guess all of this would imply that the book is aimed at a younger generation, but again, the tone and references don’t match that.

It’s a bit maudlin for my taste, and not quite accurate enough to be relatable (even to someone like me who lived in New York at this age and worked in a similar industry as the central characters). The book also has absolutely no sense of humor, which I think is fine but important to know if you came to this looking for a fun and frothy early adulthood tale or a RomCom.

I thought Victor’s character was both very well-written and also intriguing, and that is the highlight of
this book. Zoey is a lot thinner and seems to exist only as a tool to help flesh out more of Victor’s thoughts and actions.

Not a bad read by any stretch, and Duboff definitely shows talent as a writer. But this type of book isn’t rare, and there are a lot of them out there doing this particular theme better than this book does.

This book is for the girls that just want the chisme. Messy people with messy problems making messy choices. Very character driven, and no /real/ plot, just vibes. Most of the characters were annoying but in a way that made them real rather than unbelievable and unbearable. We all know someone who fits into the characters in one way or another. I feel like this books is definitely for mid 20 somethings upward. The pop culture references were done well, and it’s a lot for me to say that because I hate contemporary pop culture references in my books.

I liked it, but I didn’t love it. Some of the POVs and chapters just felt random and meandering and I hated that Victor’s were never introduced with his name at the beginning of the chapter like everyone else.

Taking place over a series of years, two best friends navigate their early thirties, life in New York, & all of the messiness in-between, from love and divorce, to careers and death. The story primarily revolves around Victor and Zoey, though other stories of those intertwined in their lives are eventually woven in, sharing their own stories. Being in my early thirties, I so badly wanted to like this book, but it missed the mark for me. The chapters of other stories popping up randomly and some in first person without saying whose chapter it was, made things hard to follow.
Thank you to Gallery & Scout Press for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

2.5 ⭐️- This is one of those books where nothing in particular happens & you’re just kind of following the characters around in their day to day lives/getting a glimpse into the inner workings of their brains. I don’t mind those types of books, but I didn’t particularly care for either of the main characters. I honestly struggled to pick up the book or stay focused on it for a long time when I did pick it up. I thought they were horrible people… I don’t know if that was purposeful(?) I understand & love a good flawed character, but I just couldn’t find anything to really love about either of these.

There were also so many different POVS and I’m not sure all of them were necessary, it was a bit confusing at times. Some of them were straight up bizarre & random and then the character disappeared as quickly as they appeared. Also, like the main characters, most of the side characters who we get POVs from are also horrible (so basically, the moral of the story is everyone in NYC is the worst lol).

I did enjoy the humor and it had a few impactful moments. It also had good insight into what friendships can be like as you move out of your twenties into your thirties. Sometimes figuring out how someone you were once close with fits into your life as you evolve post-college can be a rough. It was interesting watching Zoey & Victor try to navigate that. It reminded me a bit of The Rachel Incident, so if you enjoyed that book, I think you may like this one!

Thank you to NetGalley & Gallery Books/Scout Press for this ARC!

this just wasn’t for me! i didn’t relate to Victor or Zoey at all, and felt the plot fell flat as nothing really happened. the writing style in general was good, i just felt bored the whole time!

This was interesting but pretty dark, in my opinion. I think it is supposed to be an irreverent portrayal of several people navigating their early thirties in New York and, ostensibly, it was but it just made me sad. It was perhaps too realistic? The human condition is down bad. If you're looking for a book that describes that - this will be for you!

Early Thirties comes out next week on March 18, 2025 and you can purchase HERE.
I picked up an Us Weekly while the guy rang me up.
Paparazzi photos of Cameron Diaz now depressed me. They made me think about what once was, the passage of time. Leave the woman alone! She did what we wanted for decades; now she just wants to hang out with her Good Charlotte husband and do some gardening and enjoy a glass of sauvignon blanc. Why couldn't we all just agree to stop taking pictures of her "entering a doctor's appointment in West Hollywood" or "meeting gal pals for brunch in Montecito"? Why were we all so disgusting?
That train of thought was the last memory I had from the night.

Early Thirties tells the story of best friends Victor and Zoey trying to navigate their friendship as the landscape of their lives has changed in, you guessed it, their early thirties. Victor has just broken up with his longterm boyfriend and is trying to break into the business of writing about celebrities and pop culture. Zoey is engaged to a man who doesn't really get along with Victor and is navigating working for a fashion startup in New York City. The book follows their personal and professional struggles and triumphs over the years and really explores how their friendship changes over time.

This is a book that will be appealing to people struggling as they transition into adulthood, whether that be struggling with changing friendships, professional struggles, or personal struggles. No matter the struggle, Victor or Zoey probably go through it in this book, so readers might find that cathartic. I did enjoy reading about Victor and Zoey the most, although the book also includes some chapters focused on other characters in their orbit. The subjects were interesting, usually relating to social media influencing or creative work, but I felt that they were a little bit out of place in the overall story. This book also focuses on some flawed characters, so people who don't enjoy flawed characters will not like this one. I usually enjoy characters who are flawed or a little bit selfish, but Victor was too selfish even for me. He sort of started to get his life together at the very end, but he still seemed selfish to me. I was also a bit confused by Zoey's characterization. There were times I felt like I had a grasp of what her character was like, then she'd do something completely out of left field that I didn't expect. Some people might enjoy this, but for me it sort of took me out of the story. Readers who enjoy character-focused stories will like this one, and especially readers who are interested in pop culture or books about writing and other creative ventures.

I always enjoy stories like these, about characters maybe "coming-of-age" outside of the traditional timeframe, living in a big city, trying to find themselves and figure out who they are and what they want, so I was especially excited to read EARLY THIRTIES! I liked the humorous, witty writing, and thought that the author did a great job of exploring the messiness and complexity of these characters' relationships and the highs and lows that come with this stage of life that they're in. However, I did find myself wishing they had been a little bit more developed individually—even though we get multiple POVs, it sometimes felt hard to fully get to know all of them, and completely connect with the characters overall. While I wanted more from this book in some areas, I'd still recommend that fans of literary fiction check it out and see if it resonates with them! Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the ARC.

This was a little too much of the authors clear personal experiences and felt so stereotypical and out-of-touch at times. I wanted to care about the characters but I just didn't.