cover image Not Ready for Mom Jeans

Not Ready for Mom Jeans

Maureen Lipinski, . St. . Martin's Griffin, $13.99 (294pp) ISBN 978-0-312-53728-9

Young working mothers will relate to Lipinski's (A Bump in the Road ) amusing but unsurprising latest. Chicago events planner, popular blogger (Am I Making Myself Clare), and newspaper writer Clare Finnegan dons her black Miss Piggy pants (baby weight!) to return to work after having adorable Sara with cute hubby, Jake. She almost loses her cool when an ex-college flame hires her to plan a society golf function. Clare's also worrying about her friend Reese divorcing husband Matt; her mother battling breast cancer; and the commitment of buying a house. It's all there, but Clare's life via Lipinski's jittery prose reads more like a journal of teenage blog posts than an adult novel. Although it captures the angst of the almost-30 mom finding her way, the manic glee is just too self-aware and giddy (“...This Day Needs to Come to Life So I Can Painfully Kill It”). (May)