The Awkward Age by Francesca Segal

I am so mad at this author.

It has taken me a week and another book between to come back to this review.  The Awkward Age was not at all what I expected.  I expected humor (British humor!!), family dysfunction, a light read.

Not.

This is a story of a middle aged couple who fall in love and decide to move in together, in London, while their daughter and son respectively are still teenagers and living at home.  At first, the kids hate each other.  And then....not so much.  And then.....well, they are teenagers.

I am all for love in middle age, and the feelings widowed Julia and divorced James have for one another are precious indeed.  And kudos to this author for really digging deep into honest feelings and letting us see inside the minds of each of our four main characters - the good, the bad, and the ugly thoughts they have about one another.  Their parenting styles are very different and when the kids reveal that they like each other, the parents begin projecting on their own lover's child. Brutal, but we all have been there in some form.

Here is what angered me - there is a scene between Julia and her daughter Gwen (who she has raised as a single parent for the last five or so years after the devastating illness and death of her first husband) which I just could not believe.  Julia has up until this point spoiled her daughter rotten, but also given her daughter a very firm safety net and exclusive, close relationship.  In this scene, Julia says some utterly unforgivable and uncharacteristic things to her daughter that NO mother, no decent mother, would EVER say to her child.  Ever.  No matter how angry or hurt.  And especially not Julia, who couldn't even say No to her daughter.  It was devastating and ripped my heart to read.  I wondered how Gwen would ever speak to her mother again, much less function.  Cue the therapy.

The story continues, the conflict explodes and then wanes and then, and then - Epilogue. Does the conflict rip the family apart?  Does love overcome all?  And if you had to choose, which love comes first - parental or romantic???   I wasn't very satisfied with the ending, it was too little too late really although it could have been worse, but mainly it was because these characters should never have let it go this far (BE THE PARENT!!) and it just seemed so set up and unrealistic. Yes, ok, I know it is fiction, but I believed Harry Potter more than I believed the way these characters acted toward the middle and end.

The teenage angst here is represented well I think though, so focus on that.  The difference in how the teenage girl reads a situation and the college boy's response to the same conversation is pretty typical I think.  And the grandparents in the book are probably my favorites - wait til you see how Philip Alden ends up!!  HAHA!  I loved that Julia was still close to her in-laws after their shared loss.
And the book is well written, I just had a hard time getting over that scene.

There is definitely sex in this book, but not graphically described.  There are also difficult references to the responsibility that comes with the decision to or not to have sex that are pretty deep and could be disturbing.  No rape, but this is a deep subject.  Proceed with caution.  There could be triggers here.

*Summer 2017 Book One Done!!!