When We Grow Up - by Angelica Baker

About the Book

"For fans of Fleishman is in Trouble and Such a Fun Age, an electrifying novel about six longtime friends on a tropical vacation, when an unexpected crisis forces them to ask how strong their bonds really are"--

Book Synopsis

For fans of Fleishman is in Trouble and Such a Fun Age, an electrifying novel about six longtime friends whose tropical vacation is interrupted by an unexpected crisis, forcing them to ask how strong their bonds really are

Clare is supposed to be the grown-up one. Married to the love of her life, with a major deal for her first novel, she has everything she thought she wanted. So then why does it all feel so wrong? When she agrees to a weeklong vacation with five of her oldest friends, she is hoping for an escape with the people who know her best. There is Jessie, who won't stop talking about her new boyfriend; Mac, trying to pretend he hasn't outgrown the group; Kyle, the eternal peacemaker; and Renzo, who brought them all together but keeps picking fights. And then, of course, there's Liam, the guy Clare has barely seen since high school but somehow can't get out of her head--or her bed.

But when a terrifying news alert shatters their peace, it becomes harder to ignore how much the world has changed since they were teenagers. As the resentments and tensions that have always simmered just beneath the surface begin to boil, Clare must ask if their shared history is enough to sustain their friendships, or if growing up might mean letting go.

With crackling wit and emotional fearlessness, When We Grow Up is a provocative portrait of friendship in a world that feels ever more unrecognizable and a searing exploration of what it means to be a good person.

Review Quotes

Praise for When We Grow Up

A Most Anticipated Book (Goodreads, Literary Hub, Virtuoso Magazine, BookBub, Zibby Media)

"Will appeal to readers who gravitate toward dramatic relationship fiction, a sort of cross between Hanya Yanihariga's A Little Life and the 1985 Brat Pack movie St. Elmo's Fire."
--Library Journal

"Sharply observed, sardonic, engaging, intimate, and evocative, When We Grow Up delves into the ways we try and fail to form and foster friendships, both before and after we know how to love well or thoughtfully. It confronts the damage that we cause, the violences we miss, as we bumble through discovering who we are. An exploration of how impossible it can feel, in the face of a world that seems so often invested in our imminent destruction, to want and know how to be good."
--Lynn Steger Strong, author of Flight

"When We Grow Up is novel as anthropological investigation, a study of the class of people for whom adulthood begins at thirty. I laughed, I winced, and I saw much I recognized in Baker's exploration of how the self is forged not only by the circumstances of our birth and family and education but by our peers and friends."
--Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Entitlement and Leave the World Behind

Praise for Our Little Racket

"Baker is wildly talented and this debut is her gorgeous opening note."
--Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, bestselling author of The Nest

"I read [Our Little Racket] greedily, in one dizzying weekend, unable to put it down. . . . The book gets beyond moneymaking hubris to a more basic kind of desire--the fretful, shapeless longing of those who are sidelined to be seen somehow as indispensable."
--The Atlantic

"Never less than gripping . . . It's impossible not to be swept up in the hard universal truths uncovered within its pages."
--Nylon

"A classic page-turner . . . Elegant writing and razor-sharp analysis."
--Connecticut Post

About the Author

Angelica Baker is the author of the novels Our Little Racket and When We Grow Up. Her essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Literary Hub. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, with her husband and two sons.