Four generations of complex Black women contend with motherhood and daughterhood, generational trauma and the deeply ingrained tensions and wounds that divide them as they redefine happiness and healing for themselves.
Advance Praise:
Abi Daré, New York Times bestselling author of And So I Roar:
“Beautifully rendered, intricately delving into the bonds of multi-generational relationships with raw honesty, great emotional depth, and skillful storytelling. Johnson expertly weaves together the complexities of love, forgiveness, and self-discovery; creating a narrative that is both heartbreakingly real and profoundly moving.”
Jessica George, New York Times bestselling author of Maame:
“Grown Women took my breath away. A skillfully written story about the complexities of love, control, motherhood, and trying your best even when you think your best isn't good enough, it’s heartbreakingly honest, emotionally immersive, and painfully poignant. A master class in depicting the overt and the subtle effects of generational trauma and the self-strengthening power of forgiveness.”
Laurie Frankel, New York Times bestselling author of This is How It Always Is and Family Family:
“GROWN WOMEN is beautifully written, compassionately told, and deeply explored, but the word I’ll be using to recommend it to everyone is ‘complicated.’ These characters are messy, difficult, and capricious and also passionate, devoted, and smart as hell. Sarai Johnson’s debut novel covers a lot of the rockiest of ground, all of it thoughtful and impressive and, in the end, the reason we read.”
Emily Adrian, author of The Second Season:
"A beautifully drawn family portrait, GROWN WOMEN examines our most deeply held beliefs about love, responsibility, security, and independence. On every page, I was struck by the sharpness of Johnson's prose and the specificity and complexity with which she honors her characters. Johnson is a generous, confident storyteller whose debut you don't want to miss."
Lauren Francis-Sharma, author of 'Til the Well Runs Dry and Book of the Little Axe:
“A whirlwind of a story that serves as an invitation to consider all that makes a family, all that breaks a family. Four generations, four remarkable women, four stunning stories of heartbreak, commitment, and courage. You will want to root for them all, but more importantly you will root for forgiveness, root for love.”
Christine Pride, co-author of You Were Always Mine:
“I rooted hard for the women of this heartfelt novel—through their messy contradictions, their reckonings, their painful choices and their hard-won triumphs. Grown Women is a tender story about mothers and daughters and the ties that bind us, those gossamer threads that can be reinforced or broken so easily. But it's also a poignant testament to the joy and pain of being a grown woman.”
Kirkus Reviews:
“An absorbing debut . . . . The story takes a lively tour of the complexities of family. . . . It is wise to class markers and human contradiction. . . . A vivid line of women inches toward a place where it isn’t always the mother’s fault.”
Publishers Weekly (starred review):
“A deeply satisfying multigenerational saga of a Black family. . . . Johnson brings new life to the age-old theme of a family’s cyclical dysfunction, and the narrative is packed with stunning self-reflections. . . . This is a revelation.”