These Books Nail Those Adult Coming-of-Age Moments

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There are so many coming-of-age tales out there that dig into the years when children lose their innocence… when pre-teens reach puberty and move through their days in painful awkwardness, eventually shifting into tiny versions of the adults they will become. But what of those adult coming-of-age stories? The college years, during which we attempt to create a sense of self separate from the one we grew up with? Those early post-college years, when we float aimless, hyperaware that the next big decision we make might set the course for the rest of our lives?

What of those years when we are thrust into true independence, the years that shape us into the people we eventually become?

When I was in my early 20s, just laid off from my first post-college job, collecting unemployment checks and handing out samples at Dunkin’ Donuts, I remember thinking that I must be experiencing that thing I’d read about: the quarterlife crisis. I had dreams but couldn’t tell whether or not they were viable. Back in my childhood bedroom, I didn’t feel up to the task of adulthood. It was as if I was in a state of arrested development.

I eventually moved past that to build a career… a family… a home. But that sense of uncertainty never went away. I wondered if I would be stuck in my quarterlife crisis forever. And then I wondered if I was having a midlife crisis. Eventually, I realized that all of life was a crisis.

Forthcoming title Three Cousins by Jessica Levine casts this struggle in a slightly different light. In its tale of three cousins who share an apartment at Yale during the height of second-wave feminism, it explores the different ways each woman grappled with the new freedoms offered to them. Placing this adult coming-of-age story in 1976 provides a new perspective on that time of life, one that almost feels at odds with what so many of us experience today. In the ’70s, it seemed there was nothing but possibility. Now, at a time when the rights so many of us gained are in danger of slipping away, there is a sense of aimlessness. Uncertainty. Despair.

I see it in so many of the literary fiction I read. Young adults drifting through life, making poor decisions and wondering if their future has anything better to offer.

I want to shake them. But I get it, too.

Interested in reading more adult coming-of-age stories? The list below approaches that time of life in a number of different ways.

Three Cousins by Jessica Levine

I’ll start with Levine’s book, because it’s the one that inspired this post. As I mentioned above, it follows three cousins who are sharing a room at Yale, flush with their new state of independence, parsing out what freedom means to them. One continued to hold onto the security of her monogamous relationship, though she finds herself attracted to other men. Another looks to travel as a means of escaping a life that feels too small. And the last takes the opportunity this cultural moment provides to explore her sexuality. Of course, with their varying interpretations of what freedom looks like to them, their longtime friendship is shaken to the core. It’s facinating to consider what it means to be free: what it meant 50 years ago and what it means to us today.

Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades

This stunning book, written in the first person plural, is built around a Greek chorus of Brown girls who are growing up in Queens, New York. While Brown Girls does begin by moving through their childhood, it eventually travels all the way through their varying adulthoods, exploring friendship, ambition, loyalty, and more—in addition to the ways in which they inevitably diverge. What most drives this book, however, is the question of what it means to be a Brown girl who is struggling to find her way in the world.

Giant Days by John Allison, Max Sarin, and Lissa Treiman

Adult coming-of-age tales are so often tied up with tales of complicated friendships. There are the friends we leave behind. The friends we try so desperately to hang onto, even though we can see we’re drifting apart. The new friends who come into our lives at this point, acting almost as a mirror, helping us figure out the people we might become. In Giant Days, a long-running comic series, we follow three very different women who meet at university and become fast friends. Over the course of four years, they get into the usual sort of college-era hijinks. They reinvent themselves. Gain a sense of independence. Figure out who they are. Survive life away from home. And having each other is what keeps them on track.

Sea Change by Gina Chung

In Chung’s Sea Change, we follow Ro, a 30-year-old who feels frozen in place as those in her life seem to move and grow past her. Her boyfriend leaves her to join a mission to Mars. Her best friend, who is getting married and who is thriving at work, grows ever more distant. Ro, meanwhile, has been working the same menial job at an aquarium for what feels like forever, and spending her nights drinking. Feeling increasingly isolated, she doesn’t take it well when the giant octopus that’s been at the aquarium her entire life is purchased by an outside investor. At this point, she can either drown in stasis or find a way to move forward. The vibe here typifies the type of lit fic that’s been getting the most buzz among twenty- and thirtysomethings these days.

Mimosa by Archia Bongiovanni

Much like Sea Change, this graphic novel nudges that adult coming-of-age transition into one’s 30s, which seems appropriate at a time when so many have been putting off marriage and children and settling down in favor of following their passions and establishing careers. Mimosa revolves around four queer thirtysomethings, best friends who are sick of being “the oldest gays at the party.” They decide to launch a new queer event called Grind, a project that allows each of them to avoid thinking about their real problems, which run the gamut from messy divorces and single motherhood to inappropriate workplace relationships and dirty secrets. The four of them have always been there for each other but, as it becomes tougher to ignore their problems and even tougher to fully support each other, they find that the unthinkable happens: they grow apart. But friendships can’t always last forever, especially as we grow and change.

Your Driver Is Waiting by Priya Guns

The voice of the main protagonist in Your Driver Is Waiting—a messy ride share driver living paycheck to paycheck—had me hooked from the very first page. In this social satire, everyone is fighting for change on behalf of people like Damani, a queer Tamil immigrant from Sri Lanka. But Damani is just trying to survive. And to perhaps find love along the way… even if the woman she sets her sights on is a flaming bundle of red flags. Can she continue on in this way, stuck in the gig economy, making questionable decisions, never changing or growing or moving forward? Or will her friends convince her to fight for something better?

Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley

This book was described by one reviewer as a cross between High Fidelity and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, which turned out to be pretty spot on. In Deep Cuts, music snob Percy Marks ends up in conversation with songwriter/musician Joe Morrow, sparking a lifelong collaboration that proves complicated, especially as it bumps up against their feelings for each other, and against Percy’s dreams of being a songwriter in her own right. How much of her life will Percy spend in Joe’s shadow before we feels confident enough to stand on her own?

Which of these coming-of-age stories do you relate to the most? (I’m feeling a mix of Giant Days and Deep Cuts…) Is there another book out there that gets at your experience more perfectly? What does the freedom of adulthood mean to you? And does adulthood represent freedom at all?

Steph Auteri

Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her more literary work has appeared in Poets & Writers, Creative Nonfiction, Southwest Review, and other publications. Her reported memoir, A DIRTY WORD, came out in 2018. She is the founder of GuerrillaSexEd.org. Favorite Genres: horror, comics, horror comics, and narrative journalism.