“In the fall of 1980, when I was fourteen, a friend of my parents named Naomi Shah fell in love with me. She was thirty-six, a mother of two, and married to a wealthy man. Like so many things that happened to me that year, it didn’t seem strange at the time.”

Griffin Hurt is in over his head. Between his role as Peter Proton on the hit TV show The Nuclear Family and the pressure of high school at New York’s elite Boyd Prep—along with the increasingly compromising demands of his wrestling coach—he’s teetering on the edge of collapse.

Then comes Naomi Shah, twenty-two years Griffin’s senior. Unwilling to lay his burdens on his shrink—whom he shares with his father, mother, and younger brother, Oren—Griffin soon finds himself in the back of Naomi’s Mercedes sedan, again and again, confessing all to the one person who might do him the most harm.

Less a bildungsroman than a story of miseducation, Playworld is a novel of epic proportions, bursting with laughter and heartache. Adam Ross immerses us in the life of Griffin and his loving (yet disintegrating) family while seeming to evoke the entirety of Manhattan and the ethos of an era—with Jimmy Carter on his way out and a B-list celebrity named Ronald Reagan on his way in. Surrounded by adults who embody the age’s excesses—and who seem to care little about what their children are up to—Griffin is left to himself to find the line between youth and maturity, dependence and love, acting and truly grappling with life.

I received an audio copy of this book via the Penguin Randomhouse Audio Influencer program. All thoughts are my own.

This is a well-written novel that left me conflicted. At its heart, this book is an exploration of adolescence, trauma, and the disorienting journey toward adulthood, all set against the backdrop of Manhattan in 1981. It’s raw, unflinching, and at times deeply uncomfortable. Yet, while it has moments of brilliance, it often feels bogged down by its own ambition, dragging readers through what feels like every single day of its year-long timeline.

The story follows Griffin Hurt, a 14-year-old child actor. On paper, Griffin should be living a dream life – he’s successful, talented, and living in the heart of New York City. But in reality, his life is anything but glamorous. The adults who should be guiding and protecting him are instead sources of exploitation or neglect. His parents lean on him financially, living off his earnings and adding an uncomfortable layer of pressure and responsibility no teenager should bear. Then there’s Naomi Shah – a woman in her late 30s who begins a disturbing and manipulative affair with Griffin. His wrestling coach is yet another predator in a long line of adults who fail the kids they are meant to mentor and protect.

When I read the synopsis of this book, I expected something in the vein of “The Graduate”: a sharp, coming-of-age narrative about seduction and misguided infatuation. The problem is, in “The Graduate”, the main character is 21 and just out of college. In this book, the character is only 14 and just beginning to understand his urges. There’s no way to make the relationship between him and Naomi endearing – it’s 100% inappropriate. Luckily, that isn’t all the book is about, and we don’t get deep details of the affair – just enough to know that something inappropriate is going on. That said, every time I picked up the book, I felt sucked of energy – almost like the adults who leeched off of Griffin were also affecting me. If this was the effect the author was going for – it worked!

Unsurprisingly, one of the book’s most unsettling aspects is how it portrays the adults around Griffin. His parents are absorbed in their own issues, relying on him financially and emotionally. His coach’s predatory behavior is gross, and Naomi’s manipulation of Griffin is particularly disturbing, given his age and vulnerability. These elements aren’t easy to read, but they do reflect a harsh, unsettling reality that felt plausible for the time. Parenting was so much looser back then. I was several years younger than Griffin was in 1981, but I remember babysitting my siblings and cousins when I was no more than 9-years-old. If you knew these kids, you would know this was way more responsibility than should have been on my shoulders. Parenting was so loose and almost distant back then. It was definitely a different time.

On the plus side, the book is very well-written (if not a little too long), but my biggest struggle was its pacing. I can appreciate a slow-burn, character-driven novel, but Ross stretches the narrative thin over what feels like a painfully long year. There are moments that feel impactful, but they’re often lost in a sea of meandering episodes that don’t move the story forward. It felt like we were meant to live through every one of the 365 days, necessary or not, which tested my patience more than once.

I feel like I need to state that I don’t mind a sad or even somewhat disturbing book. I also don’t mind reading about trauma – I know these things exist in the world, and we need to call them out. While reading this book, I kept thinking about Douglas Stuart’s “Young Mungo” and how it handled these topics. “Young Mungo” is another book about a teen boy who is molested. It’s a tough read, but I felt that Stuart handled it with better care. In this case, Griffin is kind of blasé about what was happening to him as far as Naomi (he was a little more disturbed by the coach’s inappropriate behavior). I mostly listened to this one, so maybe the lack of emotion was due to the narration, which is strange because the author narrated it.
Overall, this is a challenging read – not just because of its heavy subject matter but because it demands patience and attention.

For me, it was a mixed bag. There were moments where it shined and offered poignant reflections on youth, vulnerability, and the failures of adulthood. But there were just as many moments where the story dragged, making me wish it had been a little more focused and a lot shorter. If you’re someone who enjoys immersive, character-driven stories and don’t mind a slower pace, this book might resonate with you.

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