You guys, I don’t know how I’m going to write a concise book review of And Then We Grew Up.
I wrote pages and pages of notes as I was reading this fantastic nonfiction book. PAGES, I tell you! Author Rachel Friedman spoke to the art monster within me, and I responded viscerally to everything she said.
Friedman had dreams of being a professional violist, but she left them behind when she realized the punishing professional music scene wasn’t for her. Over a decade later, she finds artistic fulfillment through writing, though her career as a published author hasn’t flourished as she’d hoped. Friedman eventually decides to reconnect with old friends who pursued – or, not pursued – their artistic talents into adulthood, eager to find out if they, too, are struggling to reconcile the dreams they had for themselves with the realities they are currently living.
I immediately felt a connection with everything Friedman says as I read And Then I Grew Up: On Creativity, Potential, and the Imperfect Art of Adulthood. I, too, once thought of becoming a professional musician, but I gave it up (albeit with no regrets) and later discovered writing to be my creative calling. And, like Friedman, I’ve long dreamed of being a successful writer, living the dream of working for yourself and basking in your own creativity every day.
Instead, I work a desk job, publishing other people’s works in lieu of my own. Womp, womp. While my art monster epiphany a few years ago led to writing my first novel and creating this blog, I admit that, most days, I feel very far from achieving my goal of becoming a published author, let alone one who can make a sustainable career out of her writing.
Does this “What happened to my dreams???” scenario sound familiar? Then, And Then We Grew Up is for you.
Friedman’s book speaks loudly and clearly to anyone who’s had a surefire vision of what they wanted in life, and then had that vision not happen. Although I keep mentioning “art monster,” you don’t have to be an “artist” to appreciate Friedman’s message. And Then We Grew Up is inspiring, reassuring, and achingly familiar to those of us who have pursued a path and left it (or, had the path leave them), then struggled to find a place in the world. It’s about striking that difficult balance between doing what you love – music, writing, drawing, acting, cooking, knitting finger puppets out of cat hair (yes, that’s a thing), whatever you have a passion for – and doing what you need to do in order to, well, pay the bills and not go hungry.
Everyone has a different standard of “making it” and of what success is, and Friedman explores them all in her attempt to make her peace with her artistic life. Various scenarios and perspectives are represented, from the struggling artist to the disgruntled artist, to the semi-successful artist and the professional-but-still-unhappy artist.
Ultimately, And Then We Grew Up reassures you that there’s no one “right way” of living your life as an artist. There’s no one definition of being successful. It’s subjective, and it varies greatly from person to person, as the interviews with her friends expertly illustrate. You have to find a perspective that works for you to feel at peace with your life choices as an artist, and go with it. Which is much, much more difficult than it may seem.
Friedman also doesn’t shy away from the hard-hitting questions most of us creative types are afraid to ask ourselves: Am I living up to my full potential? Am I content to keep doing what I’m doing, even if I never achieve the level of success I’m aiming for? What if I never achieve what I want; will I feel my life has been wasted? Can I be content with what I have, even while dreaming about more? And Then We Grew Up is poignantly thought-provoking, and this wannabe author and fledgling blogger found herself looking in the proverbial mirror countless times to unearth her own answers.
I emerged from this book with a new perpsective on my writing lifestyle and what I want to achieve, as well as a refreshed outlook on what I’ve already achieved. So, I’m here to tell you, if you have any little inkling of an art monster dwelling within you, you should absolutely read And Then We Grew Up.
And Then We Grew Up by Rachel Friedman will be available for sale on December 31, 2019 from Penguin Books/Penguin Random House. Although I received a complimentary advance copy of this book, all opinions expressed in this review are my own, and I was not compensated in any way for this review or for any other promotion/publicity I’ve done related to this book.
