Invincible Summer (Adams)

Book Reviews
There's a long list of reasons that Alice Adams's debut novel, Invincible Summer, shouldn't work. But it clicks anyhow. Ms. Adams has managed to combine…a familiar plot…and pigeonhole-ready characters and spin their story into a heart tugger with seemingly honest appeal. This amazing feat doesn't rival those of the Large Hadron Collider, which plays a cameo role in Invincible Summer. But it's close…. Ms. Adams [has a] gift for making her characters so changeable, so vulnerable, so universally familiar. They all make terrible decisions…and the book's main satisfaction comes from watching them adapt and cope.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


A crackerjack storyteller who deeply inhabits her characters—deploying pitch-­perfect dialogue to poignant and hilarious effect—Adams uses the conventions of the form to examine larger ideas about class and commerce, art and science, friendship and family at the time of the most recent fin de siècle.... Ultimately, though, this is a novel that strives to define a generation...and it falters when Adams overreaches, struggling to establish her characters as representatives of their era, shaped by the historical events of their day....  [T]his charming novel derives its power less from its author’s reductive attempts at answers and more from her restless questioning.
Joanna Rakoff - New York Times Book Review


[A] moving...bittersweet and compassionate novel.... Like your favorite Austen novel, Invincible Summer reconciles the cultural reality of an era with the personal lives of its characters. But Eva is not as reflective as, say, Elizabeth Bennet.
Sophie McManus - Washington Post


Perfect for the beach, but it's got some substance as well.... Think of this as The Big Chill for millennials.
Deborah Dundas - Toronto Star


Easy yet not insubstantial, this debut is a sweet toast to enduring friendship.
Meredith Turits - Elle


Adulthood has never been so endearing.
Steph Opitz - Marie Claire


Adams movingly depicts the tough steps we take into adulthood.
Good Housekeeping


Adams does an incredible job [of] conveying life's ups and downs with both humor and compassion, [and] shows herself to be especially skilled at crafting charming, empathetic (albeit troubled) characters you can't help but cheer on.
Sadie L. Trombetta - Bustle


[A] fun and memorable debut.... Adams’s characters have many ups and downs, disappointments and adjustments, but they are believable due to her understated exposition of the characters’ psychologies. The reader will stick with the book...because the characters are such good company.
Publishers Weekly


Adams'...characters are nearly impossible not to root for, and she captures their often troubled dynamics with tremendous empathy and charming wit. And while the novel wraps up just a touch too neatly...there is something pleasantly satisfying about its profound sense of hope. Breezy with substance...absorbing.
Kirkus Reviews