Book Review | Book Chatter

The Perfect Mother
By Aimee Molloy
Harper, 9780062696793, May 1, 2018, 336pp.

The Short of It:

Another page-turner that keeps you guessing.

The Rest of It:

Motherhood is a hot topic this summer. I wonder why. Maybe because so many of us are overwhelmed, super busy, and give everything we have to our kids? Whatever the reason, I have at least three books in my stack dealing with motherhood in some way and The Perfect Mother was one of them.

May Mothers is a group made-up of women who had their babies in the month of May. They meet at the park for their regular meetings but now that their infants are a couple of months old, they decide it’s time for a girls night out and head to a local bar for some drinks. Excited to be taking a night off from baby duty, they get a little careless and drink a little too much so when one of the moms suddenly vanishes from the bar, only for them to find out later that she is home, with the police, trying to figure out who took her son from his crib, things begin to escalate as the moms try to make sense of what’s happened.

Mommy groups can be very supportive but also very dramatic. That is the case here. These women take it upon themselves to find the missing baby. They inject themselves into the investigation, steal evidence, put themselves in very dangerous situations, usually with their own infant strapped to their chests. It’s crazy what they do!

Although the missing baby is the focus of the story, Molloy also touches on the loss of identity that can come with having a baby and how difficult it is to figure out those first few months as a mother. This, I could relate to well.

The Perfect Mother is not a perfect book. It’s a little predictable and you might tire of all the “mommyness” contained within its pages but it was a quick, entertaining read and a good distraction from the headlines that continue to find me even though I have made a real effort to avoid them.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

Other People’s Houses
By Abbi Waxman
Berkley Books, 9780399587924, April 3, 2018, 352pp.

The Short of It:

Grab a cold drink and clear your afternoon for this one.

The Rest of It:

I’ve been reading some pretty good books lately.

Frances Bloom is THAT mom. She’s the carpool mom and people in the neighborhood look up to her. She’s a friendly approachable type, reliable, and thoughtful but as she shuttles the neighborhood kids to and from school each day, she can’t help but see the imperfections of her own little neighborhood,

Her close, married friend is having an affair with a much younger man, affecting the neighborhood in many ways. One of the moms on the street is MIA (what’s that about?). Her cousin who happens to live just down the street from her is wanting another baby even though her partner may not want one. With all this going on around her, Frances begins to doubt her own happiness. Does she have a happy marriage? Has the thirty pounds she’s gained over the years driven a wedge between her and her husband?

This all sounds rather domestic and fluffy but I have to say that it’s pretty realistic as far as neighborhoods go. If you really pay attention while walking the dog, you see things. Reading this book is like flinging a window open and sticking your face right into your neighbor’s house.

The story is a bit scandalous and there’s some language. It feels kind of naughty and wrong. I can’t lie, I ate it up. Because along with wrong, there’s a lot that’s right. There’s a lot of honesty within these characters and truthfully, I could relate to several of these families in some way.

There are mixed reviews of this book. I’d hazard to guess that those who had trouble with it, probably couldn’t relate to any of the families in the story. But if you’ve ever done a carpool, been on the PTA with a bunch of catty wenches, lived in a tight-knit community, and had your best friend’s marriage fall apart, you’ll find plenty to relate to because there’s a little bit of everything in here and I found it to be pretty authentic in the telling.

Plus, it has some juicy bits and at one point I was laughing out loud.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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