Act Your Age, Eve Brown

Eve Brown, who has yet to find her way in life, is buoyed by a mostly supportive family and a trust fund. Unlike her accomplished older sisters, she struggles with feelings of inadequacy, following then abandoning her varying interests and passions in search of a way of life that suits her. This apparent aimlessness baffles her extremely driven parents, who abruptly cut her off financially until she can live a life that they understand. Eve’s distress leads her to an unfamiliar bed-and-breakfast, where a disastrous impromptu interview ends in her accidentally maiming its proprietor, Jacob. Jacob is neurodivergent, his perspective shaped by the strategies he has developed to exist in a world where most people don’t think like him. He thinks he understands Eve, but comes to realize that none of his schemas could have prepared him for someone like her. The backdrop of a rapidly approaching regional festival gives the duo incentive to allow themselves to be vulnerable and provides plenty of opportunities for hilarity to ensue. Narrator Ione Butler ably differentiates the voices and accents of the novel’s diverse cast of characters.