The Kids Are Gonna Ask: A Novel

3.5 stars. The Kids Are Gonna Ask by Gretchen Anthony is a quirky family-centric novel. Maggie McClair is raising her grandchildren, seventeen year old twins Thomas and Savannah. Their twin’s mother, Bess, died four years ago without ever revealing the name of their father. Thomas and Savannah decide to use their podcast to try to locate their biodad. After their podcast goes viral (not because of their quest but due to an odd dinner guest), podcast producer Sam Tamblin offers them his expertise to reach a wider audience. With Savannah writing their episodes, the teenagers reach out to their mom’s friends to help identify their dad. However, Maggie, Thomas and Savannah are ill-prepared for some of the more negative publicity surrounding their quest. Will Thomas and Savannah continue with their search for their bio-dad? And if they do find him, will he be open to meeting them? Thomas and Savannah are fairly normal teens but Maggie is a bit eccentric. She invites people she meets into their home for a weekly dinner that serves as the basis for the twin’s podcasts. She is supportive of her grandchildren’s search but none of them foresee the unexpected backlash and unfavorable opinions on social media platforms. And Maggie is surprised by some of the feelings she begins to experience as she and her grandkids delve deeper into her daughter’s past. Thomas and Savannah squabble and disagree with some elements of their search. As they face the adverse aspects of social media, their regular friendships falter but Savannah finds support from an unexpected person. The twins’ relationship is strained when one of the keeps a secret from the other. And the most likely candidate for their biodad is someone who is dealing with issues of his own. Will he agree to meet with the teenagers? The Kids Are Gonna Ask features an unique storyline but the pacing is slow. The characters are a bit off-beat but easy to like (with one exception). The twins quest raises some interesting moral and ethical questions as they utilize a public platform for their search for their biodad. Gretchen Anthony brings the novel to a satisfying conclusion. I received a complimentary copy for review.

I am decidedly enamored with this author; I enjoyed her bitingly clever Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners and hoped I was in for a similar treat in picking her second offering. Ms. Anthony excels at unique and oddly enticing characters who are more than a tad off-center. And while the peculiar characters in this tale were not always admirable or likable, they were achingly realistic and gaining hard-won insights while learning painful life lessons in an extremely public manner. My favorite characters of The Kids Are Gonna Ask were the grandmother/guardian Maggie and the secondary cast members of Nadine and Chef Bart. Chef Bart, and in particular Nadine - while only a teen, were the type of human beings we all wished we were and or were even capable of being. The writing was humorously and keenly perceptive, unfailingly engaging, and laced with cunning and witty scenarios and amusing brain-tickling twists such as the simple weekly Podcast that thrusts the teenage twins from obscurity into instant fame after their small independent production went viral when featuring an unusually odd dinner guest of their grandmother who imparted a rather bizarre in-utero twin-eating anecdote which was soon dubbed as “Zombie Baby.” The twins decided to parlay their sudden success into delving into their origin story to track down their biological father, who was completely unknown to them and had rarely been discussed by their deceased mother. Tested loyalties, anxieties, betrayals, revelations, humiliations, tears, devastations, and epiphanies occurred along their journey and the superbly evocative and emotive writing kept me right there with them every step of the way. I am more than eager to see who and what the profoundly perceptive Ms. Anthony hones in on next.