My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

So hard to make cogent arguments against a smart tween while driving in LA; I needed to concentrate on swearing and shaking my fist at all the illegal left turns.

 

We all knew, deep inside, our kids were probably growing up to be entitled, overeducated blobs. We were raising hothouse flowers, unequipped to climb a fence or fry an egg or spend five minutes bored… “When the revolution comes,” I said, “our kids will be food.”

 

Lip filler lemmings… I’d tell them to jump off a cliff into the Pacific, but we all know silicone floats.

 

“No one’s reading like they used to. Have you ever considered hosting a YouTube channel?” “Yes! A lifestyle channel,” I said. “‘ Agnes’s Spectacular Guide to Failing.’ I’ll invite people who’ve failed miserably— our advertisers will be firearms, funeral homes, and pharmaceuticals.”

 

“Who’s opposing counsel?” she asked. “Ulger Blecks.” She whistled. “Why is it everyone whistles when they hear his name? Is he a dog?” “A pit bull that frightens rabies.”

 

“Let me tell you something, dearie,” Dad said and lowered his voice, which was how I knew he was heated. “The world was a better place when we settled matters with fists rather than lawyers.” I opened my mouth to object and found that I couldn’t argue with him. I would’ve loved to have popped Ulger in the mouth, but I feared he would eat it.

 

My Review:

 

This amusing tale was shot through with clever wit and razor-sharp snark while cast with mainly vapid, vile, exasperating, entitled, arrogant, shallow, and obliviously bone-headed characters who were of the type of ilk that I would never willingly share air.   The storylines had me rife with consternation and I was often simultaneously amused and intensely annoyed by the characters’ behaviors and poor choices. I will admit to being unfamiliar with many of the pop-culture references lavishly sprinkled throughout, so a considerable amount of the author’s cleverness flew right over my tiny pea-brained inhabited cranium and left me feeling more than a bit cretinous and imbecilic. The premise had such promise and the story threads had good bones with glimpses of cunning perceptiveness and sharp-edged humor that kept me reading to the end, but all in all, the odd pacing and unlikable characters consistently whittled at my enjoyment and rating.

Gigi Levangie is the author of six prior novels, including The After Wife and the New York Times bestseller The Starter Wife, which was adapted as a miniseries for USA Network.

She is the original writer of the screenplay for Stepmom and has written for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, and other publications. Levangie lives in Los Angeles.