The Adults

September 15, 2018
A very bad idea for a holiday vacation turns out even worse than expected for a bunch of Brits.Claire, a bouncy, put-together blonde, and Matt, a lovable slacker and committed pothead, haven't both gotten to spend Christmas with their daughter, Scarlett, since they divorced. (Funny how that happens.) Somehow they come up with the brilliant idea of dragging their new live-in partners to a ticky-tacky "holiday park" called Happy Forest--"Our carefully planned world is your oyster"--for a shared vacation. Claire is now with Patrick, an uptight, insecure, self-centered bore. Matt is now with Alex, a nerdy but rather sweet laboratory scientist. Scarlett, 7, the beloved offspring, also brings someone along--her giant, paranoid, imaginary rabbit friend, Posey. This recipe for disaster begins with the transcript of a 999 call, the British equivalent of 911: "Woman: Get them to hurry. There's so much blood. Operator: When you say he's been shot, what has he been shot by? What can you see? Woman: An arrow. An archery arrow." We then follow both the progress of the vacation from Day 1 and the transcripts of various police interviews conducted after the incident as we amble toward the revelation of who shot whom and what's going to happen after these poor people get out of Happy Forest. The best takeaway from this book is in the form of new entries for your British slang dictionary, particularly the evocative "bell end." Hulse, in her U.S. debut, manages to insert the full Google definition in the text, exactly the one we had just looked up on our phone.A bit too heavily staged, but with good dialogue and some nice farcical moments.

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Starred review from September 24, 2018
Hulse’s stellar debut follows an ill-fated trip to a Christmas-themed resort in North Yorkshire, which friendly divorced couple Matt Cutler and Claire Petersen take together for the sake of their seven-year-old, Scarlett. Tension ensues when they elect to bring along their reluctant significant others. Since Matt and Claire split two years ago, Scarlett has relied on her imaginary friend, a rabbit named Posey, to express her negative feelings. Scarlett and Posey are convinced that Matt’s scientist girlfriend, Alex Mount, kills animals for fun, and their fear is compounded when they witness Alex put a wounded pheasant out of its misery. Scarlett gets along better with her competitive stepdad, Patrick Asher, though he’s so tightly wound and concerned about what others think that Claire can’t be herself around him. Patrick misses his own children, and is repulsed by Matt’s relaxed, happy-go-lucky nature, baffled about what Claire ever saw in him. As the trip progresses, he and Alex are both thrown by how well the exes get along and start to feel jealous. From the outset, readers learn that someone is shot during an archery session, and the circumstances of the incident unfold gradually and naturally. Hulse does an excellent job building her characters, consistently increasing tension by placing them in close quarters and letting their different personalities clash. This debut is the whole package­: realistic, flawed characters placed in an increasingly tense situation, resulting in a surprising, suspenseful novel.

October 15, 2018
Exes with their new partners getting together for Christmas with a child? Not a good idea, as is clear from the start: one of the adults has shot another with an arrow. Matt explains to girlfriend Alex, whose home he shares, why he wants to organize the problematic get-together?a holiday weekend (actually five days) at Happy Forest Park so he can spend Christmas with his seven-year-old daughter, Scarlett, who lives with his ex-wife, Claire, and her boyfriend, Patrick. (Scarlett's imaginary friend, Posey, a large purple rabbit based on a stuffed toy she once loved and lost, comes along, too.) The cracks in the plan become apparent early: Patrick spots a former classmate and manipulates being close to her, Alex discovers Matt has been less than honest about the breakup of his marriage, and Scarlett and Posey fear that because Alex is a scientist, she likes to kill animals. The adults' deteriorating relationships are interspersed with police interviews and excerpts from Happy Forest brochures as the narrative gradually reveals who shot whom under what circumstances. An entertaining, tongue-in-cheek tale of people who are the adults, after all.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

Starred review from September 15, 2018

Coparenting is difficult any time of year, but trying to create a happy, memorable Christmas for seven-year-old Scarlett leads Claire and Matt to make seriously questionable choices. No one remembers who suggested the trip to family fun park Happy Forest, but both parents, their new partners, their daughter, and her imaginary friend Posey, a large purple rabbit, are all set to spend the holiday "having fun" together, or not? All the characters are genuinely likable and relatable, especially in their flaws. VERDICT A snappy writing style and changing viewpoints make the pages of this debut fly by as readers will want to know what happens next.

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