Adult Humor Pick: People I Want to Punch in the Throat

People I Want To Punch in the Throat
by Jen Mann
Ballantine Books Trade Paperbacks
2014
206 pages
ISBN: 9780345579839

Funny, bawdy, in-your-face, hysterical and manic, People I Want To Punch in the Throat is a welcome addition to chick-lit for the twenty/thirty/forty/ etc. and anyone who has ever been a mom set. Jen Mann does not take herself too seriously...herself or anyone else for that matter.

Mann makes suburban housewife drudgery comic. Referring to her kids as Gomer and Adolpha keeps their real names a  secret and it's pretty funny, too. She calls her husband Hubs and is jealous that he gets to leave the house for some alone time, but she always ends up having to take the kids with her. She yearns  to roam a grocery store all by herself without her kids having a cereal aisle meltdown or her husband taking things out of the cart in his penny pinching moves to save money.

Mann pokes fun at her neighbors and over-achieving mothers. She outs bling crafters and cupcake decorators and fashionista  moms who pick up their kids from school in designer attire. She thinks it's absolute insanity that these same moms overschedule their kids in every after school sport available and then complain about their kids' teachers who assign too much homework that interferes with their prodigy's future sports careers. It seems like every suburban family thinks they have the next Tiger Woods or Nadia. They don't seem to care to have the next Einstein or Steven Jobs. Sports, after all, is the better payday.

And the parties! These ladies throw parties for crazy reasons. There's the Half Year Birthday Party, The Almost Christmas Party, The It's a Monday Party and every kind of buy stuff you don't need party and Jen attends all of those. She is, after all, a successful realtor and needs connections to sell more houses. If she can meet fellow suburbanites, maybe she can sell them their next home.

It's no wonder, then, that these same perfect specimens pop pills "like Tic-Tacs." A few mother's little helpers and they can maintain that cool facade and keep up with the other manic overachievers.  Some will even share and trade their meds. Jen would just like a crash course to figure out which pill will make her bake awesome homemade brownies and keep her from forgetting to pick up her kids from school when they get out for a half day.

People I Want To Punch in the Face is the perfect read for laughs. Highly recommended for anyone who has ever raised a child or a husband.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

Foodie and Book Club Pick: My Berlin Kitchen

My Berlin Kitchen
By Luisa Weiss
Viking
2012
302 pages with recipes

Fans of Luisa Weiss’s blog, The Wednesday Chef, are in for a real treat—her own true story of cooking, living and loving. Weiss was a young child when her parents divorced, her father relocating to America and her Italian mother living in Berlin. She traveled between the two continents throughout her childhood and teens, never feeling truly at home or belonging to any country. She remembers the long flights and the Christmases away from either her father or her mother, but never Christmas with both of them.

The only place young Luisa felt safe was in the kitchen, the aromas and colors of familiar food welcoming her into its open arms. Luisa soon associated certain foods with certain family members or places. Her father gave her a recipe for the family’s Tomato Sauce—great comfort food handed down from her Italian grandmother (maternal). Whenever Luisa prepares it, she remembers her father and her grandmother, and she hopes to pass it along to her children someday. She points out that everyone needs a great tomato sauce.

From her uncle Pietro, Luisa includes a delicious recipe for Pizza Siciliana, a Sicilian treasure topped with escarole, anchovies, provolone and grape tomatoes. Serious foodies will love recipes for Erbsensuppe (German Pea Soup), Braised Leeks and Meatballs in Tomato-Chipotle Sauce.

Luisa’s story is shared by countless numbers of career women on the fast track. Through their 20’s and 30’s, they are building a career and not thinking about marriage or children, and suddenly, they hear that biological clock ticking faster. They nearly panic. It’s time! Their clock keeps reminding them. Find a husband. Settle down. Start a family. And like Luisa, they may fight the clock; they may walk away from love. Only to discover it has always been there.

My Berlin Kitchen is a charming and winsome read with wide appeal. It’s a love story, a coming of age story, a food story, a family story, a life story. Like Eat, Pray, Love, this novel will captivate and capture hordes of hungry new fans (pun intended).

Highly, highly recommended for foodies, romantics, and book club members everywhere. Mature content. Wide appeal for high school libraries. Teens will be enthralled by Luisa’s “jet-set” lifestyle.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

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Chick Pick: My Life Undecided

My Life Undecided
by Jessica Brody
RR Donnelley & Sons Company (Farrar Straus Giroux)
2011
299 pages
(Amazon has it listed as 320 pages, but my copy has 299)

Blogger's Note: I find the idea of a teen using a personal blog to make her decisions quite quirky and wish I had thought of this idea!)

Funny, quirky, comic, quick-witted, and over-the-top melodramatic Brooklyn Pierce is a character girls will love. She is so confused and in so much trouble, she turns to the "people" of the Internet to make her life's decisions for her. Since she burned down her mom's model home and faces arson charges and tons of community service hours in a local nursing home, she knows the decisions she has been making on her own just aren't good ones. She feels genetically pre-disposed and blames her DNA for making bad decision.

So Brooklyn posts her blog "My Life Undecided" and asks readers to choose for her. Their job is to choose which book she should read for English--The Grapes of Wrath or The Old Man and the Sea. Their second vote is whether she should sit alone in the cafeteria like a leper or hide out in the library like a wimp. A total of eleven people find her blog and decide she should read The Grapes of Wrath and have lunch in the cafeteria. Brooklyn is true to her blog readers and follows their directions.

Brooklyn sits alone at lunch and tries to eat quickly so she can escape, but as luck would have it, she begins choking on canteloupe. Lucky for her, someone grabs her from behind and wraps arms around her waist causing the canteloupe to dislodge. Her savior is a boy from her English class--Brian Harris. She's never noticed him before probably because she used to hang out with only the most popular people and Brian is just a quiet guy. Brooklyn soon nicknames Brian "Heimlich" on her blog and hot guy Hunter becomes Rhett Butler--in one comic moment, Brooklyn originally names him "Red" Butler, but her blog readers correct her and tell her the name is actually "Rhett."

When "Rhett" invites Brooklyn to a funky downtown club that his father has just opened, she knows it's off limits. Her parents would never allow her to go. She dearly wants to go and hang with Hunter, "Rhett," but leaves the choice to her blog followers. The majority assures her to stay away; it will only get her in trouble. Brooklyn follows them again and goes to dinner with her parents just blocks away from the club.

Performing community service in a nursing home is no laughing matter, but Brooklyn meets a crotchety old lady named Mrs. Moody who allows her to read to her. Soon Brooklyn actually looks forward to her visits and decides maybe old people aren't so bad after all, especially moody Mrs. Moody.

Brooklyn pines over Hunter, "Rhett" and can't see the good guy standing right in front of her Brian "Heimlich." It takes her blog readers to spell it out for her. In a cute twist, Brooklyn finds out Heimlich has been following her blog for weeks! Readers who like girl-y picks with plenty of comedy and drama will love My Life Undecided.

Highly recommended grades 7-up. No language, no sex, but mention of underage drinking and a "party." No more details mentioned other than that there was a party and people were drinking.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not received monetary compensation for this review.