PositiveThe Guardian (UK)...a novel that acutely captures the anxious ruminations of a life lived online ... Unsworth’s prose is jaunty, witty, sexy and funny ... The novel verges on the manic in places – there are a lot of exclamation marks and shouty upper-case typography. The patchwork structure, with very short chapters, including email drafts and therapy session monologues, means that it lacks the tight coherence of Unsworth’s previous novel, Animals. ... The writing can be gorgeously shiver-inducing ... The last third...is almost unbearably moving, in part through its directness ... Adults has much packed into it: romance, grief and betrayal, with several twists and turns and shifting loyalties. The path between the jaunty humour and gut-wrenching sadness that Unsworth steered so precisely in Animals feels more unsteadily managed here; the form seems unresolved. But her writing surprises, delights and moves. I will remember, for a long time, this novel’s lacerating wit and its melancholy sorrow.
