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Once Upon a Time When We Were Grown Ups is a novel by American author Anne Tyler about identity, family, and missed opportunities in life. The main character Rebecca Davitch is in her fifties and runs the family party business in Baltimore. She is the widow of Joe Davitch and has been living in a large house for years, surrounded by his daughters from his first marriage, their daughter together, and numerous relatives who make up an unusual but close-knit family.

Although she appears content and successful on the outside, Rebecca increasingly feels that she has become a person she never imagined. As a young girl, she was serious, withdrawn, and ambitious, with plans for her studies and a different life. After her premature marriage to the charismatic Joe and his sudden death, she took over the care of the entire family and gradually gave up on her own dreams.

The turning point comes when she accidentally reconnects with Will Allenby, the young man she was engaged to before meeting Joe. The encounter raises the question what her life would have been like if she had made different decisions. Rebecca begins to reexamine her own past, her relationships with her children, her memories of her husband, and her self-image.

The novel does not follow major events, but the inner change of the heroine. Through everyday situations, family gatherings, and conversations, Anne Tyler depicts the complex relationships between family members and the way people gradually become different from the people they once were over the years.

At the heart of the work is the question of whether a person can change the direction of life in adulthood, or whether identity is shaped by a series of decisions that can no longer be undone. Rebecca is not looking for new love, so much as trying to understand herself and come to terms with her past. The novel is a subtle and emotionally compelling study of family, memories, and the possibility of personal change.