Sharon’s review ~ Adulting by Liz Talley

Adulting by Liz Talley
Published by Amazon Publishing on April 1, 2021
Genres: Fiction / Family Life / Siblings, Fiction / Romance / Contemporary, Fiction / Women
Pages: 334
Format: eBook, Kindle Unlimited
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USA Today bestselling author Liz Talley's emotional and heart-lifting novel about facing the past, unconditional love, and a woman on the verge of a breakthrough.

After another all-night bender, one more failed stint at rehab, and a parole violation, self-destructive actress Chase London has to deal with her demons. She's been written off as a Hollywood casualty by almost everyone, including her own mother. But handsome superstar Spencer Rome has her back. So does an uncompromising stranger determined to start Chase at square one and help her pull her future into focus. If Chase is willing.

Life coach Olivia Han is devoted to "adulating" boot camp therapy. It's not just her professional specialty, though--it's also one way to avoid focusing on building a life of her own. To escape the pressures of Tinseltown, the two women head to Olivia's cabin in the wilds of Northern California. There they discover a place in need of TLC. As they work together to rehab the once-charming cabin, they create a refuge where Chase can come to terms with her unsettled past, and where Olivia has an unexpected reckoning with her own troubling history.

For two women doing damage control, this is a time for second chances--in life, in finding love, in forgiving family, and in an emerging friendship that might be exactly what each of them needs to heal.

A story of change, of acceptance, of forgiveness, of building new relationships and of hope, Adulting was an amazing women’s fiction novel. I will also go out on a limb and say this is probably one of those books you will either love or you will hate. ~ Sharon – Simply Love Books

 

TW: discussions of substance abuse, depression, suicide, sexual abuse, and rape of a minor

Author Liz Talley put the above trigger warning in the front of Adulting which I appreciate and I almost didn’t read the book, but since I’ve been on a Liz Talley binge read lately I went ahead and started it and I’m so glad I did.  Liz has the ability to write women and their friendships with one another in such a way that you want to insert yourself into the story and become a character. This book was no different despite that none of the women in this story were close at the beginning and that included the two sisters. A story of change, of acceptance, of forgiveness, of building new relationships and of hope, Adulting was an amazing women’s fiction novel. I will also go out on a limb and say this is probably one of those books you will either love or you will hate.

As this book opens Chase, who has been a Hollywood actress most of her life, is in a precarious spot and it only gets worse. An addict who has been through rehab numerous times and still on probation with an ankle monitor with a dead battery Chase realizes she’s on thin ice. She comes to realize just how thin when her mother calls her probation officer to take her in.

Olivia, a therapist, life coach, author, and owner of a very successful business wants to ignore the call on line 4, the one she uses for personal calls which means it can only be her sister Neve instead it is Conrad a man who used to be her best friend and a man she once thought she might have a future with and he’s cashing in on a favor. Help get Chase London clean and sober and on track so he can get her insured for a part in a movie he plans to produce.

From the first time Chase and Olivia meet it is easy to see these are two very different women who have lived very different lives, but there’s also a feeling that Olivia sees something in Chase that most people don’t and Chase sees that even though she ditches her only to be found and they come to a truce of sorts.

Olivia’s program is unique and not standard therapy and so they head up to a cabin in the woods of northern California Olivia recently inherited along with her sister where Chase will learn how to “adult” something she missed out on as between her mom/manager and everyone else she has never had to do much on her own. I’ll admit, Olivia’s tough love approach seemed a bit harsh at first yet not because Chase was a spoiled celebrity with no clue how the real world works. I honestly loved watching Chase go from angry and begrudging to resigned and finally to acceptance while learning how to be a better person and how to take care of a home, personal finances, and life in general. Every time Chase did something and cheered herself on, I cheered for her as well. Yes she was spoiled and vapid at the start but it was also easy to see that she was running from the things in her life that hurt her.

As this story goes on we begin to see cracks in Olivia’s armor especially when her sister Neve arrives unannounced at the cabin. There is something big between them and neither one is willing to give an inch. I liked seeing Chase realize that Olivia was a person with her own issues and caring about Olivia and even wanting to protect her from her sister. This showed real growth in Chase where she was worried about someone other than herself. Then there was Zeke the mountain man neighbor who liked Chase for the person she was not because of what she could do for him.

So much went on in this story, lots of twists and turns and discoveries of the past and they weren’t all pretty. Through it all these women began to trust one another, they leaned on each other, they comforted one another when needed, and despite the professional relationship between two of them they became friends.

Compelling from the first chapter to the last, Adulting was a filled with emotion, challenges, self discovery and healing. Despite the raw and sometimes hard to read subject matter in parts of this book, I loved the journey of these women individually and together as friends.