Sad Grownups

Full disclaimer, I’m in the hospital right now, (unplanned stay,) so I have to read on my phone and my god that’s a tiny screen. Thank you to Stillhouse press for approving my arcs requests and keeping my mind busy, it’s priceless at the moment.
Obviously the title was the main draw to me, as I am indeed a very sad grownup (who isn’t in this economy?), I also love short stories cause they’re low commitment (especially if you like to read before bed), and I don’t read enough of them.

All the stories are individual but they do have a lot in common. Alice, Renee,
Frida, Heather and all the others, are at a point in their lives where they look back and reflect. Lots of talk about motherhood and wether to become a mother or not. Or how a relationship with a complicated mother can impact someone’s life years beyond childhood. Many of the stories also talk about girlhood and womanhood, what it means to be and become a woman (and we also go back to the motherhood theme). There are also men involved but there were not my focus, sorry lads.
Little women was probably my favourite, mostly because of this quote

« This is what it means to be a woman in this world. Put a lot of justs in your sentences when talking to boys, to men, even if your idea is better; you don’t want. to look shrill or undermining. Say I’m sorry. Say it again while you’re looking down and then laughing but under your breath because not too loud, ever. »

Amy Stuber’s Sad Grownups is a brilliant collection. Each story—each page—surprises with detail both intriguing and unsparing. Stuber’s characters are complex and presented whole, which is a tough thing to do when you are writing short fiction. She examines loss, death, grief, parenthood, without sentimentality. It is that rare book which, when you come to the last page, makes you want to go back to the beginning and experience it once more. Sad Grownups deserves a wide readership.

--Jincy Willett, author "Jenny and the Jaws of Life"

Incisive and entertaining, this is a collection to savor. In these well-written stories, Stuber expertly explores modern womanhood. Her characters are memorable, and their insights provide "aha" moments for the reader. Many of the stories deal with motherhood, but never in a boring or expected way.

I especially appreciate how the stories manage to be both smart and emotional without ever dipping into the territory of sentimentality.

I highly recommend SAD GROWNUPS for fans of literary fiction, and I will look forward to more from this author.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance e-galley. All opinions in this review are 100% my own.

Wow, did this make me feel weighted down, heavy with sadness and angst. But in a good way!

You know, like, you’re just trying to live your life, do all the right things in the right way at the right time, but don’t you feel sometimes like you could just slightly push your finger into someone talking to you and hope they might slip over a cliff’s edge??

Yeah…that’s this book. Intrusive thoughts, odd behavior, sadness, but also loads of empathy and wanting to understand the world, and those in it, better.

Stuber’s writing style is phenomenally unique and poetic. I thoroughly enjoyed it all. Short sentences contrast against long winded sentences that showcase the mind of a really messy and conflicted human stuck in thought and decision. Each short story reflects a different issue, putting life on display, utterly appalling and visceral.

I can’t look away.

• Anticipated Pub Day: 10.08.24

Thank you to @stillhousepress and @NetGalley for sending an Advance Reader’s Copy for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

LOVED this. I think I was the perfect reader for this collection. I haven't read many short story collections (though I recently loved Bliss Montage) but overall I tend to deeply enjoy literary fiction, queer novels, themes of grief and loss, explorations of the current landscape of social media and influencer culture, writing and writers, and meta reflections on what a story is and does. This collection knocked all of that out of the park.

I think my favorite story in the collection, Little Women House, can shine a light on some of what I felt made the storytelling so strong. In this story, we are taken to a seemingly dystopian world (that has so much in common with our own I kept wondering if it really is just Earth in the 2020s) where four women play the parts of each of the Little Women from the original story for an audience of fans on social media... and also for a group of men that come to the house weekly. The flipping back and forth between in-character observations and glimpses of their lives before coming to the house was elegant and impactful, the ending was open and gorgeous, and I just felt so moved by the brief but poignant reflections on womanhood and performance.

I did feel the first half of the collection was a bit stronger overall than the second half — especially the first three stories, which I felt were all knockouts — but I remained really engaged throughout and found that the book earned five stars for me.

This evocative collection introduces us to a mosaic of lives set against stark, richly described landscapes.

The author paints vivid portraits of "sad grownups" who, despite their diverse circumstances, share a deep yearning for understanding and connection. There is the middle-aged queer couple whose debates about having children evoke more significant questions about purpose and identity; a professor facing terminal illness, whose every reflection resonates with the weight of mortality; and two high school graduates plotting a robbery as if chasing a life they cannot yet define. The stories are personal yet universal, exploring fundamental human themes in an intimate and reflective way.

In many ways, this novel is about the distance between people—emotional, physical, and philosophical. Yet, it also offers a quiet, persistent hope. The author does not force a resolution but instead allows each character’s story to unravel naturally, often ending with a glimpse of potential freedom or understanding, though never neatly tied. This lack of closure feels authentic, reflecting the often untidy nature of real life.

This novel will be a thought-provoking and rewarding experience for readers who appreciate introspective, character-driven narratives. It invites reflection on our connections to others, the world around us, and the spaces where we feel most lost or, occasionally, found.

The publisher provided ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Sad grownups is a book I can already tell I will return to again and again for comfort and a hand hold during difficult times.

Amy Stuber’s writing perfectly encapsulates grief, love, sadness, loss, chaos, friendship and what it means to be a sad grownup.

I particularly enjoyed the short stories: Little Women, Doctor Visit, More fun in the new world, Ghosts and The Last Summer. Stuber’s poetic and exploratory tone allows the reader to feel great empathy and investment for each of the characters, even in the short number of pages we spend with them.

I would definitely recommend this for anyone curious!

Short stories are often surprising, but the stories in Sad Grownups are unusually so. Whatever assumptions I had going in, and sometimes even well into the story, generally turned out to be wrong. These stories take imaginative turns. They also cover a wide range of situations (realistic and not), including people from many different walks of life, different ages, different settings. So the previous stories don’t necessarily set you up for the next. A couple have a touch of metafiction, and there’s sex and death in many varieties.

I especially enjoyed “Little Women,” about a sort of post-climate-apocalypse recreation of the house in Little Women, with modern expectations for the young women cast in the roles of the sisters, and “Wizards of the Coast,” which I’m hesitant to say too much about because it’s an unusual approach to a sensitive topic. I also really liked the last story in the collection, “The Last Summer,” in which a dying man makes some unexpected friends.

Over and over, the characters here do the unexpected, and it made for a rewarding reading experience. If there’s an overall message, it might be that you don’t have to do what’s expected; you can turn those expectations upside down and do whatever you like. The world won’t end, but it just might change.

Thanks to the author, Stillhouse Press, and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC.

Sad Grownups by Amy Stuber is a captivating short story collection. The characters in this book struggle to find their place in the world and do so with biting honesty. This was a fantastic read and would highly recommend to others.