Awkward Age (Segal) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
A great premise for a novel, and Segal handles it expertly.… [E]veryday family interactions—the deep, primal resentments played out over a bowl of porridge, or a shopping list—are observed warmly and yet with hawk-like precision.
Guardian (UK)


In Francesca Segal’s magnificent new novel The Awkward Age, romantic and parental love go head to head, stress-testing loyalties and bonds with heartbreaking consequences.… [A] narrative that’s never anything less than gripping.
Independent (UK)


[Explores] themes of non-nuclear family life, the everyday fractures and renovations inherent to relationships of any kind, amid moments of pitch-perfect comic tension.… Segal anticipates every care, concern and anxiety of an all-too-real cast: the complexities of parenthood and the differing methods of trying to prepare children for the world.
Financial Times (UK)


Segal is a sharp observer of the tribulations of teenage love and modern relationships.… [T]his book is a lively, quick-witted performance.
Sunday Times (UK)


Segal’s elegant second novel is an entertaining look at the messy business of trying to be a family in emotionally trying circumstances.… egal gives each [character] a chance to tell their side of the story in gossipy detail, revealing petty jealousies, self-interested justifications, wounded pride and sweet affection. Irresistible.
Mail on Sunday (UK)


Segal deftly unspools a disastrous but plausible scenario for [a] struggling new family, raising big questions about loyalty, love, and the dynamics between parents and child. Not to mention lovers: What do you do if you think your soulmate has raised a brat? This page-turner is witty, compassionate and wickedly astute.
People


Awkward is a perfect descriptor for this page-turning novel about an adult couple whose respective children from previous marriages unexpectedly strike up a romance in the midst of merging households.
InStyle


If you're craving drama, this book is for you!
Bustle


This observant comedy of manners about a contemporary blended family by the author of The Innocents is deepened by the author’s compassion for her self-deluded characters.… If adolescence is “fraught with awkwardness,” Segal ably demonstrates that adulthood is as well.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Love and romance in all their difficult, volatile combinations have no limits in this multigenerational dissection of the eternal conundrum of life: what brings us together can tear us apart.… [A] novel that surprises until the very end.  —Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Readers who enjoyed…the works of Meg Wolitzer and Matthew Norman will adore this frank and unfiltered glimpse inside one family’s struggles and successes.
Booklist


(Starred review.) There are no clear answers here.… In finely wrought prose, with characters who seem to walk beside us and speak aloud, Segal's latest novel is a sympathetic portrait of the difficulties in finding love and raising teenagers.
Kirkus Reviews