Review by Booklist Review
Leanne Hazelton is just a regular new mom shuffling her way through late-night feeds and diaper changes. Except the ghost of her father, whose funeral was the day before Leanne's son Hank was born, talks to her. And Leanne is slowly learning that her good friend, Regina, is not a real friend at all. At a party, Leanne steals Regina's password so she can spy on the collapse of their friendship as it's happening. At the same time, Leanne strikes up a friendship with Maxine Hunter, a writer she admires. A writer herself, with a memoir about to come out, Leanne struggles to find her place in postpartum life as she's cut adrift from the things she knew before Hank came along. In this sly and funny commentary on the institution of motherhood, Morris, the onetime host of the Mom Rage podcast, delivers a compulsively readable product. With short chapters and buttery-smooth prose, it's also an exploration of the ebbs and flows of female friendship and how people can betray each other in microscopic ways.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A writer and new mother flails through life in Morris's sparkling debut novel (after the memoir Bon Appetempt). After Leanne Hazelton realizes she detests her best friend, East Los Angeles influencer and anti-vaxxer Regina Mark, Leanne surreptitiously gets Regina's Instagram password and launches a slow campaign to discredit her. While nursing the grudge, Leanne prepares for the launch of her cookbook memoir; grapples with the recent death of her father (she keeps hearing his voice); and struggles to manage a student in the writing class she teaches out of her house, an older man who doesn't recognize page limits or personal boundaries. A local measles outbreak and the potential exposure of it to Leanne's son ramps up Leanne's annoyance at Regina, though her attempts to sabotage Regina's reputation gain little traction until she teams up with new friend and literary phenomenon Maxine Hunter for a large-scale prank. Seeing the feud from only Leanne's side perfectly captures the false intimacy of social media and how confusing its connections can be, an ambience intensified by Morris's arresting, concise observations, such as the description of Leanne communicating with her half-sister "mostly with variations on the heart emoji." These zany episodes yield great drama. (Feb.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Once a shopgirl, now a new mother and aspiring writer, Leanne is becoming increasingly uncertain of her path in life--and suspicious of her putative best friend, the wealthy and socially prominent Regina. As she sorts through issues of friendship, class, and whether her father is really speaking to her from the grave, Leanne benefits from a blooming new friendship with the distinguished author Maxine Hunter. A debut from popular blogger/podcaster Morris; with a 75,000-copy first printing.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A writer in Los Angeles with a new baby and a first book on the way finds motherhood has changed her view of things. As Morris' snappy debut opens, Leanne and her husband, James, are about to drop off their barky dog at WagVille and drive to Palm Springs for the lavish anniversary party of Leanne's wealthy, self-absorbed frenemy (on the way to regular old enemy), Regina. They don't really want to go, but "it'll be good for the book," says Leanne. Diary of a Home Cook: A Year in Recipes is coming out in five months, and among Regina's entourage is a journalist who might cover it. Regina is no doubt a snob and a phony, but Leanne, too, has traits that add to the negative potential of their relationship--envy, ambition, and a dangerously complete mastery of social media. When she discovers that on top of everything else Regina is an anti-vaxxer, she declares war via Instagram, incidentally offering the reader a complete guide to trolling. (Note: the book is set not in the pandemic but during a measles outbreak.) Morris has her finger on the pulse of many things: the sweetness of early motherhood, the grief of losing a parent, the ups and downs of launching a life in writing, the role of economic and career status in female friendships. Like Dana Spiotta's Wayward but funnier, the novel is also a hard look at the role of social media in women's lives. If it sounds like men don't play a big role in this book, they don't. There are just two male characters: James, the mostly offstage but very nice husband, and a nightmarish writing workshop student named Earl, whose trajectory is quite unexpected. Morris is also unusually gentle with her heroine, giving her a supercool bestselling author for a mentor and punishing her less severely for her mistakes than in the traditional fiction model. A smart, juicy, of-the-moment read. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
