BOOK DESCRIPTION
After the death of his grandfather, Noah’s life is thrown into chaos as he faces a repressed past that threatens everything he believes to be true. In the course of trying to come to terms with his loss, Noah must also navigate a difficult relationship with his sister, Kelly, as they reflect on their turbulent childhood – when they were taken from London to live in the Kent countryside following the breakdown of their parents’ marriage.
Set between the 1970s and the more recent past, Adventures About To Begin chronicles a collapsing marriage as experienced by its children and reflects on how memory shapes our decisions at crucial junctures during our lives.
It is both funny and touching, as well as a sensitive insight into British family life during a period of great social and cultural change.
BOOK REVIEW
Adventures About to Begin starts off on a humorous note and is funny, alarming, and incredibly sad at times. The time period changes from 2005 to 1976 as Noah deals with the death of his grandfather and remembers the breakup of his parents’ marriage. The differences with which members of the same dysfunctional family deal with difficult times are well portrayed. This book is very, very British, but there is a wonderful appendix in the back (Noah’s cultural appendix) that provides definitions and references for Americans like me. The mingled tones throughout of humor, irony, and sadness were very well done. Warnings: Racism and abuse.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aside from writing fiction, Allen Therisa also writes for blogs on everything from popular culture to politics, outside of his working life in the world of social media and website design. Adventures About To Begin is his debut novel.
Allen’s Social Media: Facebook | Twitter (X) | Website
BOOK LINKS
Sounds like an interesting book and it was a great review. I live in the US, I grew up in Sweden and I’ve visited a lot of countries, so I’ve met people from other cultures, but I’ve only been to Great Britain a couple of times on very short business trips, so I have not met many British people. Therefore, I don’t know what “This book is very, very British” means. I think the book cover was bright and colorful.
Lots of British cultural references which are explained in the appendix.
Oh I see thank you
Thank you so much for taking part in the tour xx
Great review, Bonnie, with an excellent description of the book.
[…] participated in Sunday Post, did a blog tour for Adventures About to Begin, and yesterday reviewed The Girl Who […]