I read one book by this author before and really enjoyed it at the time. Stumbling across another one, I was quite pleased and picked it up.
However, I really wasn't so into this one. It started out with an entire section of the book that was pretty well dedicated to home remodeling. Which is a topic in life I find about as interesting as discussions of dieting, cooking, and cleaning your toilet--i.e. dear god, I don't CARE, please don't tell me this stuff. Your home remodel is probably only interesting to other people doing a home remodel, which I will never be doing. So maybe I'm biased there.
Then the book went on to sections that featured "kid/mommy drama," and "I kinda hate my husband" drama. Now, I enjoyed the author's take on these things--the weirdness of raising a kid, dealing with all of those perfect mommies-- in the previous book, but in this book, I just started getting uncomfortable reading it. It wasn't so much funny. Mostly it just felt like a pissed-off woman bitching, but not that entertainingly. And it just seemed more like a bitchrant most of the time than anything else. Particularly the husband section, which was just making me feel kinda sorry for the dude. Now, it's not like she was calling him horrible things, but it was a lot of cranky-ass complaining that felt kind of contemptuous. It reminded me of listening to a Ron "Tater Salad" White redneck comedy CD I bought for my dad yonks ago. He was saying things about his wife and her parents that made me feel uncomfortable, like "Dear god, if I were you, I would not be saying this stuff on a recording where any of those people may someday hear it." This wasn't quite that bad, but it wasn't something I enjoyed reading. I'm not saying that I think they're getting a divorce--I hope not-- but it wasn't feeling like it was all quite in fun either.
I know that being a Smug Married Mom is a Thing, and the SMM's frequently bitch about how totally incompetent their husbands are at household chores, but I kept thinking stuff like, "Okay, I know that's annoying, but there are plenty of shitty-ass husbands out there you could be married to and suffering from, and comparatively speaking, your hubby being a better dancer than you are isn't torture." I was also feeling pretty icked out at the essay about her sitting smugly behind some dad and his three kids at the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru window, making all kinds of nasty cracks about him because HE DOESN'T KNOW how to order food for three kids while alone. I guess I was supposed to find it cute, but I wasn't. Then again, I am not a SMM/her intended audience, so maybe I'm just missing the charms of husband-bitchin'.
Now, there's the occasional bit I enjoyed here and there. There's still Southern jokes here and there, which I generally enjoy, such as the "redneckeharmony.com" bit. I liked the author's shock at the idea of "ghosting," which is apparently mommy parlance for "if your day wasn't busy enough, why don't you take on baking treats for your overworked mommy neighbor and dumping them on her doorstop?" Really, weren't you busy enough? And I also appreciated her made-up dialogue between her daughter's American Girl dolls vs. her Bratz dolls.
But overall? Didn't really enjoy reading this too much. Two stars.
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