ARE WE THERE YET?
By Kathleen West

While she’s always strived for a picture-perfect life, Alice’s foundation is rocked when she discovers her daughter is failing reading at school, and worse, her son is a bully, having humiliated a classmate on stage in front of 500 of their peers. Alice feels desperate to make things right, but when she turns to her friends for support, she discovers her own social standing has eroded now that she’s one of “those moms” who can’t control her kids.

As she tries to figure out where she went wrong, her curated life unravels further. She faces setbacks with a key client, her husband travels incessantly for business, and her mother decides to unload a family secret she’s kept for more than thirty years–one that shifts Alice’s entire perception of herself.

Despite her attempts to keep things under control, Alice can no longer rely on a spotless kitchen and an inventive mudroom design to make her feel better. She’s been trying to beat the competition, measuring her success and happiness by everyone else’s standards. Alice finds help, comfort, and strength from unexpected places, once she realizes that no one’s got it all together, and that maybe that’s okay.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

She felt as if she were watching a television show. This poor mother, she’d say if she were. How could she be so clueless?

 

“Okay, sweetie!” her mom shouted after her. “Dad and I are here for you.” Sadie scrambled away as if escaping a monster in a horror film.

My Review:

 

I wasn’t sure I was going to appreciate this book after finishing the first chapter, as the characters were not immediately likable, in fact, they were rather obnoxious. But the wryly-witty writing style pulled me in like a duck to water, and my curiosity was well and truly tripped. Ms. West is a divinely clever scribe and laced her tale with deliciously spiky humor, which was keenly insightful and at times cringe-worthily in realistically exposing our shallow tendencies, selfish inner musings, and common family foibles. Her characters were well fleshed out, extremely knowable, and lived and breathed as I read their storylines, which made me greatly appreciate the fact that I am not responsible for a tween or teen in this day and age. I’ll gladly be sticking to fur babies until I take my dirt nap.