Modern Lovers

Emma Straub

May 2016 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

“It’s ‘Friends’ meets ‘Almost Famous’ meets the beach read you’ll be recommending all summer.” –TheSkimm

From the author of the New York Times bestsellers All Adults Here and This Time Tomorrow, a smart, highly entertaining novel about a tight-knit group of friends from college— and what it means to finally grow up, well after adulthood has set in. 

Friends and former college bandmates Elizabeth and Andrew and Zoe have watched one another marry, buy real estate, and start businesses and families, all while trying to hold on to the identities of their youth. But nothing ages them like having to suddenly pass the torch (of sexuality, independence, and the ineffable alchemy of cool) to their own offspring.Back in the band's heyday, Elizabeth put on a snarl over her Midwestern smile, Andrew let his unwashed hair grow past his chin, and Zoe was the lesbian all the straight women wanted to sleep with. Now nearing fifty, they all live within shouting distance in the same neighborhood deep in gentrified Brooklyn, and the trappings of the adult world seem to have arrived with ease. But the summer that their children reach maturity (and start sleeping together), the fabric of the adult lives suddenly begins to unravel, and the secrets and revelations that are finally let loose—about themselves, and about the famous fourth band member who soared and fell without them—can never be reclaimed.

Straub packs wisdom and insight and humor together in a satisfying book about neighbors and nosiness, ambition and pleasure, the excitement of youth, the shock of middle age, and the fact that our passions—be they food, or friendship, or music—never go away, they just evolve and grow along with us.

Ratings and reviews

I'm sure why, but, even though I liked the characters, they were well written, and the story was fine, I just could not care about these people's lives. I felt disconnected most of the time. it was engaging enough that I finished it, it just didn't wow me.

Perfect read prior to a girls reunion weekend as we are all in our 50s and lives have detoured wildly. Loved the characters and contemporary issues. More please.

I live right next to ditmas park, which made it all the more relavent. Excellent adventure in love across generations. Great read!

About the author

Emma Straub is the New York Times‒bestselling author of Modern Lovers, The Vacationers, Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures, and the short story collection Other People We Married. Straub's work has been published in fifteen countries. She and her husband co-own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn.