Adult Assembly Required

Laura Costello has freshly moved from New York to Los Angeles for grad school and when disaster strikes, she ends up walking into Knights' books and stumbling into a new circle of friends at the same time. At the bookstore she meets Polly, who takes pity on Laura and snags a space for her renting a room in the same house as Polly and a handful of others, including Impossibly Handsome Bob. It's not long before Laura has a new circle of friends. But Laura has come to LA not only for grad school but to prove to herself and her family that she can operate on her own after a traumatic accident and the baggage that comes with that might stop her from seeing that she and Bob could definitely be more friends.

First off, while this book can be show more treated as a standalone, it contains a ton of spoilers for [The Bookish Life of Nina Hill] so I highly recommend reading that first. And of course, as with all of Waxman's novels, other characters from previous books crop up as well so reading her whole bibliography sequentially is really rewarding for the attentive reader. That disclaimer out of the way, I really loved this book. The circle of characters that Waxman has created as tenants in the same house as Laura are a delight. While Laura is nominally the lead character of the novel, plenty of other people get time in the spotlight with the roving third person omniscient point of view. While there's heavy subject matter in the book, it also feels completely cozy to dive into this world. The slow build romance between Bob and Laura is also a delight. Definitely a book I'll be acquiring for my own shelves. Highly recommended. show less

This is a story about a young woman who runs away from home and family expectations to find herself and finds friends and a life she loves.

Laura Costello has come from New York City to Los Angeles to attend graduate school. She's only there a day or two when her apartment house catches fire, and she loses everything but the clothes she's wearing. She also gets caught in the rain and finds shelter in a local bookstore. There she meets the quirky staff and is taken to the boarding house where one of them lives.

The house is filled with interesting people including her new friend Polly and Maggie who is their landlord. Laura finds herself living next to Impossibly Handsome Bob who is a quiet gardener. The two fall in love which is apparent show more to everyone except them.

Laura was a great character who is dealing with PTSD after a car accident. She is terrified of driving or even riding in a car. She is also dealing with her family of academics who don't understand her need for sports and physical activity or her desire to become a physical therapist. She also has an ex-fiancé who is more than a bit of an ass.

I enjoyed the quirky characters, heart and humor in this story. The characters were engaging and very real. Some were introduced in The Bookish Life of Nina Hill and it is nice to see where they are in their lives in this story.

The book was an engaging story of real people with real problems. show less

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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“My name is Laura Costello, and I'm having a bad day.” She realized that made her sound like a member of a twelve-step group with an extremely low requirement for membership, but it's what came out.

WHAT'S ADULT ASSEMBLY REQUIRED ABOUT?
This is not the most auspicious way to meet your protagonist—she's in a new city, she knows nobody, and is about a month away from starting grad school, so is in kind of a limbo—waiting to start the next chapter in her life when her apartment burns up (with everything she owns) and she's caught in a massive rainstorm before stumbling into Knight's bookstore.

Thankfully, Knight's is just the right place for someone to stumble into—not only show more will you find a great selection of books and people to help you find the right one, (at least in this case) they'll take you in, get you a towel, a cup of tea, befriend you, and will help you find a place to live—the illegal boarding house that one of their staff lives at has an opening.

Maggie Morse is a widowed therapist, her children have moved out, so to fill up her house, she rents out as many rooms as she can—once Laura moves in, that total is five boarders, two dogs, and a cat. All are just a wee bit eccentric, which is just what Maggie wants—to fill her life with interesting people. The 80s sitcom just begs to be made, doesn't it?

She and Laura hit it off, and Laura moves in. We quickly learn that today isn't the only bad day that Laura's had—she'd had a couple of years' worth of them and has moved to L.A. for a fresh start as well as graduate school (she could've stayed in NYC for that, but her overbearing family and her ex-fiancé are there).

And from this point? Well, life—and possibly love—ensues.

NO ISLANDS, NO ROCKS
If The Bookish Life of Nina Hill was about finding and understanding family (while finding love), Adult Assembly Required is about friendship and its power to help you define yourself and your place in the world—alongside, or possibly in place of, family—(while possibly finding love).

It's not just about Laura's new friendships—there are so many layers of overlapping, intertwined, and free-standing friendships of various levels of closeness throughout this book it'd be nearly impossible to diagram. You could really excise (or ignore) the romantic plots within this and it'd still carry a heavy emotional impact.

Study after study, article after article, book after book talks about how disconnected Americans are today, that people are lonely and isolated—even those in close-knit families feel this way—that we need friends, friend-groups, and social connections outside the home. And to see all of these strong friendships and the impact they have on the people involved—topping it with how Laura's life changes for the better and she becomes stronger because of and as she develops friends? It's fantastic to see. You want to be friends with some/all of these people.

I've got nothing against a decent love story (over one book or a series), teams/partners working together are great, and there are plenty of great rugged individuals all over the literary landscape. But there's something special about healthy and solid friendships.

THE NINA HILL OF IT

"...I’m not a big Halloween person.”

“Not even Reese’s peanut butter pumpkins? They’re the best of the shapes,” said Nina. “It’s the perfect ratio of chocolate to peanut butter.”

Laura looked at Nina with interest. “You really do spend a lot of time thinking about things, don’t you?”

"'Fraid so,” said Nina cheerfully, nodding. “It’s what keeps me from gnawing my own fingernails off.”

I was a little apprehensive about the idea of revisiting Nina Hill—that book was just so good, and we left her in the perfect place—a good chance of a Happily Ever After, a fresh start with her family, and her vocation/life purpose was revitalized and re-energized. Why disturb or revisit that?

But in making her a supporting character—Waxman gets to give fans (and, I expect, herself) some more time with this delightful character, but doesn't have to jeopardize anything from the ending of The Bookish Life, because the focus is on Laura along with Polly and Impossibly Handsome Bob. Nina is just one more of the eccentric characters that Laura encounters in L.A. and as she becomes a friend she helps Laura—but the agency, the interest for the reader is on Laura.

I wasn't sure I wanted anything like it, but now I'm fully on board with the idea of a Nina Hill Extended Universe and hope Waxman will return to it frequently (but not necessarily exclusively).

ONLY MISSING TAYLOR DOOSE
One of the most impressive things that Waxman did in this book (and to an extent in The Bookish Life was making this little area of L.A., Larchmont, feel like a small town—not just a small town, but an idyllic small town like Stars Hollow.

It's still in LA—with the traffic, weather, intricate highway systems, and questionable public transit—but in at least this one area it's a community. Neighbors help and support each other's businesses, know who the quirky people are, go to street fairs, have a Booster Club that's apparently effective, et cetera.

I'm sure there are real communities scattered about in larger cities like L.A., but this feels different—yet believable.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT ADULT ASSEMBLY REQUIRED?
I've tipped my hand already, here, I'm sure. But I loved this. By the time I'd read four pages I'd laughed enough that my daughter was giving me a look from the other side of the room. That settled down a bit as I re-acclimated to Waxman, but the book stayed as engaging and witty from there.

Waxman's narrative voice is the real star of this book—Polly's a fantastic character, ditto for everyone else in Maggie's house, I'd love more time with Polly's grandmother, and the assorted cats and dogs* are fantastic—but I'd be more than willing to read a version of this book without any of them just to read this narrative voice. It's chatty, it's snarky, and it's still a reliable third-person omniscient. One day, I may be able to define the je ne sais quoi to define what it is about this voice that makes it so special, but until then I'll just enjoy it (and not really care if I can describe it).

* Ugh. The pets! I forgot to write anything about the pets! Especially Daisy the pug. I don't have time, and this post is too long anyway. They're all pretty great, even the cats. But Daisy is magic. Am thinking of starting a petition calling for Book 3 in the NHEU to be about her.

I've spent a lot of time talking about everything but Laura Costello. Primarily because I don't know how I could do so without making you reading the book irrelevant, once I start, I don't know that I would know where to stop. From the moment you see her in the bookstore and hear about her bad day, you want to see her have a good day. When you do see that, you want to see more of them—and you want to see her put herself in positions to have many more of them. And as she has them, you want her to have even more.

She took some hard and important steps to put herself in L.A.—but those aren't enough. She has more work to do (I don't think she realizes how much more), and she needs support to get it done. The remarkable thing is that she gets that support, she's surrounded by it, when she realizes her need—these friendships enable her to get to the point that she can see her need. And (very importantly), it's not one-sided, she's able to give support and encouragement and prodding even as she receives it.

Impossibly Handsome Bob is probably also Impossibly Good. But who cares? He's just fun to read about, especially as he reacts to Laura.

Adult Assembly Required is funny, it's sweet, it's heartwarming, and will make you feel good all over. I canceled a thing or two and shuffled around my plans so I could find more time to read this because I just didn't want to stop once I started (and didn't regret it!). I'm not promising you'll have the same reaction, but I don't see why you wouldn't have one like it. show less

This is sort of a sequel to The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, which I loved. Some of the same characters appear, but the story is mainly about Laura, a native New Yorker who has come to Los Angeles to get a degree in physical therapy at UCLA after a significant car accident. She still suffers from some PTSD but probably has more trauma as a result of the attitude of her scientific Ph.D. family members, who maintain stiff upper lips rather than any compassion for Laura.
Ms. Waxman writes some of the funniest scenes while also showing sympathy for the characters' quirks. As a result, she's one of my favorite contemporary writers. The romance is sweet with Impossibly Handsome Bob, the horticultural expert who lives across the hall from her in show more the best boarding house ever. The supplemental characters all add to the story, even the ex-fiance who is insufferable. Laura learns to become an independent woman with the help of her new friends in this delightful read. show less

Adult Assembly Required brings us back to Nina’s Hill universe and to some of its well-known characters. I remember enjoying reading Nina’s book and, wanting a light reading for my Covid quarantine, this felt like a no brainer.

This book follows the story of Laura, who suffered a severe and life changing car accident that makes her rethink her life choices and desires. She moves from NY to LA and, due to a fire in her apartment and an expected bad weather, ends in Nina’s bookstore wet and homeless. Polly sympathizes with Laura and takes her to her house, where one room just became vacant.

What I enjoyed about the book:
- I loved the guesthouse and all the characters living on it. It was nice to see their interactions and I wished the show more book focused more on these characters than on the ones from the previous book.
- Abbi tackles important issues such as anxiety, depression, domestic violence. I always like to read about characters who are struggling with these problems as they feel more relatable and, at the same time, promote awareness of this matters.
- Bob was a nice guy. It is so more common to read about alpha characters that it always feels refreshing to read about nice guys.

What I think it could have been done better:
- I’ve felt the story was all over the place. There were too many important issues to be addressed and most of them ended underdeveloped. Laura had already so many issues, there was no need to add Maggie/ Sarah problems or the discussions between Asher and Sarah.
Sometimes I think authors add as much drama as possible to be able to categorize the book as fiction and not romance, ending doing a disservice to the story.
- Nick was an awful boyfriend; however, these types of toxic relationships are very common and leave scars and insecurities. I think this was a missed opportunity to write about an important issue, that causes insecurities and would affect future relationships. Instead of that, Laura immediately trusts Bob and this is never a root problem for Laura’s inability to communicate her desires.
- I consider the book would have benefit of a greater independence from Nina´s story. Not only I ended up preferring the characters of this novel, adding the previous ones let us with a too big pool of characters, most of them with no added value.
- The story had inconsistencies that I didn’t comprehend and that felt lazy. Laura’s mom works in the psychology department studying the social behaviour of pigeons and later we are told she teaches psychology at the university. However, Laura repeatedly tells us her mother saw no value on psychotherapy and that she needed to be strong and move on. Someone with a psychology background wouldn’t "struggle for weeks to find a physical cause for her constant crying and panic attacks“ . This is does not make any sense.

I recommend this book to readers who really loved [b:The Bookish Life of Nina Hill|42379022|The Bookish Life of Nina Hill|Abbi Waxman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1541774944l/42379022._SY75_.jpg|66042198]. If you, like me, didn’t particularly liked Nina, choose something else. show less

Laura Costello's move to L.A. has been fraught with disaster so far. When she winds up in a bookshop, rain-soaked and crying, the employees take her under their wing, one of them even helping her find a place in her own boarding house (her apartment having burned down that morning). There, Laura meets more new friends and finds herself settling in, but her past isn't done with her yet. And also, she's having some Feelings about Impossibly Handsome Bob, a fellow boarder, but it's probably just friendship, right?

This is a nice slow-burn romance set in Waxman's version of L.A., populated by many characters that readers will recognize from her other books. Delightful, and it does stand alone, but I'd recommend reading Waxman's bibliography show more in order if possible so you get the joy of all of those little cameos. show less

Postgrad student Laura Costello moves to Los Angeles, where she wanders into Knight's bookshop, where she meets the central character and others from Abbi Waxman's previous novel, The Bookish Life of Nina Hill. Nina's colleague Polly knows of a room available in a shared house. So at the start of the story Laura connects with characters from author's previous novels and finds a place to live. And there's even an attractive man who previously featured in another Waxman story. But Laura has just broken off an engagement - does she really need more complications?

So the scene is set for an enjoyable good read, with some serious bits about characters coming to terms with the past. I really enjoyed the new to me characters and re-encountering show more some previous ones, and the quirky humour. The storyline is perhaps quite predictable but satisfying, and I look forward to reading Abbi Waxman's other books. show less