As a writer, wife, and mom, I love reading novels and memoirs about women who are navigating parenting, relationships, and careers simultaneously. My favorites are those that make me laugh out loud while presenting a relatable picture of all this juggling act entails. Smart and witty heroines who approach life with a can-do spirit and the ability to laugh at themselves as the world tosses one curveball after another their way capture my heart every time.
It’s hard to match Nora Ephron’s wit and wisdom. In this novel, which mirrors events from the novelist and screenwriter’s real life, cookbook writer Rachel Samstat learns that her husband is cheating on her while she’s pregnant. Even as her life is falling apart, Rachel maintains her sense of humor while dropping the “everything is perfect” routine and speaking her mind.
In this tale of love and loss, Ephron serves up hilarious and heartbreaking moments in equal portions alongside mouthwatering recipes.
If I had to do it over again, I would have made a different kind of pie. The pie I threw at Mark made a terrific mess, but a blueberry pie would have been even better, since it would have permanently ruined his new blazer, the one he bought with Thelma ... I picked up the pie, thanked God for linoleum floor, and threw it' Rachel Samstat is smart, successful, married to a high-flying Washington journalist... and devastated. She has discovered that her husband is having an affair with Thelma Rice, 'a fairly tall person with a neck as long…
Who can resist a diary? It’s hard not to fall in love with the title character, who’s on a perpetual quest for self-improvement. As Bridget, a lovable thirty-something singleton, finds herself in dozens of entertaining and embarrassing situations, she navigates them with her trademark pluck.
Very loosely based on Pride and Prejudice and complete with its own Mr. Darcy, I adored this novel and yearned for Bridget to realize she’s a catch exactly as she is. I read this at a time in my life when I, too, was a work in progress, and finding Bridget felt like connecting with a funny friend.
A dazzlingly urban satire on modern relationships? An ironic, tragic insight into the demise of the nuclear family? Or the confused ramblings of a pissed thirty-something?
As Bridget documents her struggles through the social minefield of her thirties and tries to weigh up the eternal question (Daniel Cleaver or Mark Darcy?), she turns for support to four indispensable friends: Shazzer, Jude, Tom and a bottle of chardonnay.
Welcome to Bridget's first diary: mercilessly funny, endlessly touching and utterly addictive.
Helen Fielding's first Bridget Jones novel, Bridget Jones's Diary, sparked a phenomenon that has seen…
Take one workaholic lawyer with six months to secure her promotion to law firm partner. Add an attractive, fun-loving neighbor next door who makes her laugh and tempts her with a different life. Is this a recipe for love or disaster?
Packed with sharp wit and strong opinions, this novel follows the once-famous architect Bernadette Fox, who mysteriously goes missing ahead of a family vacation to Antarctica. After reading her outrageous and uproarious interactions with fellow parents, neighbors, and her virtual assistant, told through emails, notes, memos, and more, it’s no wonder she’d want to disappear.
Somewhere along the way, while raising her brilliant daughter Bee, Bernadette loses her identity and her creative spark. This novel explores the price a genius must pay when she’s expected to conform to a way of life she never envisioned for herself.
A misanthropic matriarch leaves her eccentric family in crisis when she mysteriously disappears in this "whip-smart and divinely funny" novel that inspired the movie starring Cate Blanchett (New York Times).
Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect; and to 15-year-old Bee, she is her best friend and, simply, Mom.
Then Bernadette vanishes. It all began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle --…
When Alice hits her head at the gym, she awakens, believing she’s a decade younger than she actually is. In the aftermath of her accident, Alice must try to figure out how she went from a happily married new mom to the brink of divorce. In other words, she’s lost a lot more than her memories.
This story makes you take a long, honest look at your life and consider all the people and things you’ve taken for granted. With a little mystery, a bit of romance, and a lot of humor, this novel tops my favorites list when it comes to Moriarty’s engrossing tales.
From the bestselling author behind the addictive, award-winning HBO sensation BIG LITTLE LIES comes the compelling and thought-provoking story of love, life and memory
'Gripping, thought-provoking and funny' MARIE CLAIRE ______________
How can ten years of your life just disappear?
Alice is twenty-nine.
She adores sleep, chocolate, and her ramshackle new house.
She's newly engaged to the wonderful Nick, and is pregnant with her first baby. But there's just one problem.
That was ten years ago . . .
Alice slipped in her step-aerobics class, hit her head and lost a decade.
Every picture tells a story, but it’s not always the one we expect or remember. Christmas Actually is a festive drama about family and forgiveness and a snapshot of modern family life, addressing Instagram to motherhood and everything in between.
Why Christmas? My publisher wanted my new novel to have…
Hedge fund manager Kate Reddy is keeping plenty of plates spinning while struggling to maintain her sanity as a mom and make it in “a man’s world.” For some, a day in Kate’s life might be anxiety-inducing (hence the title!), but for those who’ve lived it, it’s maddeningly accurate.
I read this novel before work-life balance became a popular catchphrase, and as much as we may think society has evolved, Kate’s day-to-day is probably still far more relatable than it should be.
A victim of time famine, thirty-five-year-old Kate counts seconds like other women count calories. As she runs between appointments, through her head spools the crazy tape-loop of every high-flying mother's life- client reports, bouncy castles, Bob The Builder, transatlantic phone calls, dental appointments, pelvic floor exercises, flights to New York, sex (too knackered), and stress-busting massages she always has to cancel (too busy). Factor in a controlling nanny, a chauvinist Australian boss, a long-suffering husband, two demanding children and an e-mail lover, and you have a woman juggling so many balls that some day soon something's going to hit the…
Told over 13 hours, Claire Casey's Had Enough features a recently separated forty-something mom who reconnects with a former flame at her college reunion. As she begins to rediscover the woman she was, she’s forced to confront the harsh reality that recapturing her sense of self could blow up her marriage...now Claire must decide: risk the unknown or rebuild the life she has, flaws and all?
In writing this novel, I wanted to offer a humorous but very real look at all that’s expected of moms—from running a household and raising kids to caring for aging parents and trying to maintain a marriage and friendships. I hope this book speaks to anyone who's ever felt like they lost themselves while focusing on everyone else.
The All-Girl, No Man Little Darlin's
by
Mary Albanese,
Unwanted Anabel finds an unexpected ally in her "crazy" Grandma Maisy who isn't crazy at all but harbors a secret past. Anabel coaxes her story out, thrilled to discover that Grandma Maisy had been a famous cowgirl in the American Wild West.
