What happens when children are more mature than their parents? Growing up with an emotionally unavailable, immature, or selfish parent is painful, but rarely discussed. In this breakthrough book, clinical psychologist Lindsay C. Gibson exposes an often overlooked, yet extremely common syndrome that shapes the lives of so many people.

"From the New York Times' bestselling author of The Vacationers, a smart, highly entertaining novel about a tight-knit group of friends from college--their own kids now going to college--and what it means to finally grow up well after adulthood has set in. Friends and former college bandmates Elizabeth and Andrew and Zoe have watched one another marry, buy real estate, and start businesses and families, all while trying to hold on to the identities...

"An enthralling novel about love, loss, secrets, friendship, and the healing power of literature, by the bestselling author of The Knitting Circle. Ava's twenty-five-year marriage has fallen apart, and her two grown children are pursuing their own lives outside of the country. Ava joins a book group, not only for her love of reading but also out of sheer desperation for companionship. The group's goal throughout the year is for each member to present...

"The adult Blaire children, Lizzie, George, and Ruth, convene for a weekend visit in New Hampshire at the behest of their father, Murray. The Blaire children carry with them a host of issues, but perhaps the biggest one is that it has been more than 30 years since the accident that took their mother, Lillian, and brother, Daniel, from them. When a beloved keepsake of Lillian's, a Fannie Farmer cookbook, is discovered ruined, it is considered a travesty....

Years after gaining unexpected custody of her sister's three small children, a woman experiences emotional division when the grown children choose very different paths in life, in a tale set in Manhattan, Paris, and Tehran. In this compelling novel, a young woman overnight becomes mother to her sister's three small children. Grown now, each of them will choose a different path. Through it all, one thing will remain: family ties.

What does it mean to be an adult? In the twentieth century, psychologists came up with five markers of adulthood: finish your education, get a job, leave home, marry, and have children. Since then, every generation has been held to those same markers. Yet so much has changed about the world and living in it since that sequence was formulated. All of those markers are choices, and they’re all valid, but any one person’s choices along those lines...

A divorced couple teams up and travels to Bali to stop their daughter from making the same mistake they think they made 25 years ago.

"When seventy-year-old Charlotte Perkins submits a sexy essay to the "Become a Jetsetter" contest, she dreams of reuniting her estranged children: Lee, an almost-famous actress; Cord, a handsome Manhattan venture capitalist who can't seem to find a bride; and Regan, a harried mother who took it all wrong when Charlotte bought her a Weight Watchers gift certificate for her birthday. Charlotte yearns for the years when her children were young and she...

"Will Connor returns to his hometown, a village north of Boston, to care for his injured mother. He's kept his distance from the town since high school, but once home he finds himself reexamining a horrific incident that took place during one of his mother's 'spirit circles.' His mother had embraced the hippie generation's fascination with New Age and the arcane, but the unexpected death of a close friend put an end to the meetings of the modern-day...