Pages: 251
Published: 26th November 2017
Genre: Comedy
Tom’s marriage is faltering. His attractive, younger wife Kim is having an affair with her boss, and his teenage daughter Penny is embarrassed by him.
One day Tom allows a chemist to shoot him up with a serum that will age him backward slowly. When he looks 25, he returns from a “business trip” then claims to be Penny’s “cousin.
Soon Penny finds herself competing with Mom for the younger Tom’s attention, to comic and horrific results.
This was a very interesting and uniquely written book, which certainly grew on me as the story progressed. I had some misgivings early on, but from the moment where Tom is injected with the serum, the book really gets going and becomes a fairly enjoyable read.
The situations it creates within the family are crazy and hilarious and contain several laugh out loud moments, but this is also where the depth of character comes through the most. Penny’s insecurities are explored and it is interesting to how Kim responds.
The writing style struck me right from the start. It feels very laid-back and informal most of the time, with an underlying wry humour and a lot of code-switching. It it written in the third-person past tense, which for me took some readjusting because most of the books I have read lately are in the first-person present.
It is hard to place this one into a specific genre. In some ways it is a thriller, but it also has elements of romance and paranormal.
There are some aspects which I didn’t like so much. I thought some of the pacing was slightly inconsistent, and one or two of the scenes were a bit too explicit for me and went into too much unnecessary detail. As I say, it really gets going once Tom injects the serum.
Overall a pretty decent read. It may take a bit of time to get going, but there is definitely a lot of fun to be had later on. It is often a very funny read and from my point of view, it was good to read something slightly different to what I normally do, even if the tone of it was somewhat flawed.
Younger Every Day contains sexual content and references to drug use. If either of these things could trigger a negative reaction, then it would probably best to skip this book.
For an ARC, this was not a bad read and there were definitely some very enjoyable moments in there, but it is not altogether polished, either.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐
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