The number of young adults living with their parents has steadily increased since the recession started and recent figures suggest that around 324,000 of them are women aged 25-34. For a long half year, Nat Luurtsema was one of those women. She moved home "for a month" having been priced out of the London rental market, and ended up staying in Watford for 25 weeks.
Because Luurtsema is a standup comic and because her family is, in her account at least, totally mad, her six-month stay makes a very funny book. Her mum, in particular, sounds so cheerfully controlling that it's impressive Luurtsema (who is 28) had the nerve to write this at all. Despite working nights, she is woken early every morning by her mother wrestling the duvet off her and on to the floor, gets a slap when she's discovered smoking by the garage, isn't allowed to leave any moisture behind after showering in the new bathroom (it must be removed with a tiny windscreen wiper), and is made to keep all her belongings out of the way in the garage.
Luurtsema doesn't pretend she's a perfect house guest either, though. She's messy and has what must be a disconcerting habit of changing into a racy party dress and high heels when she's writing comedy, something she suspects has led to her parents' neighbours assuming she's an unsuccessful hooker. She can't be trusted to use the correct pan for each vegetable when cooking and refuses to use her parents' favourite powdered shepherd's pie flavouring. She knows she's disrupting their neatly ordered lives and is fully aware that she's lucky to have her family home to go to. But she has to remind herself of this every time her dad talks about his bowel movements or assesses whether the wine he's about to open is "cheap enough for you", or when she's told off for eating another brimming bowl of cereal too close to the pale sofa.
Occasionally Luurtsema's drive to amuse feels a little relentless. Writing for a live comedy audience requires more punchlines than a memoir and sometimes the pace of her jokes outstrips the story she's telling. Still, this book should appeal to any adult who has had to spend more than four days in their parents' company since leaving home, and probably to most parents of adult children too, although perhaps for different reasons.
