Kargman is no worse off without writing partner Carrie Karasyov (The Right Address
; Wolves in Chic Clothing
) in her first solo novel, a breezy jaunt through the Manhattan nursery grinder. Recently relocated to the Upper East Side from San Francisco after her husband, Josh, took a lucrative job, Hannah Allen is thrown into the mommy snake pit by her domineering mother-in-law, Lila Allen Dillingham, who introduces Hannah to a cabal of neighborhood moms led by the "drop dead gorgissima" Bee Elliott. Hannah, a black-jeans-and-Converse art history grad and mother of too-cute two-year-old Violet, struggles to please Lila and keep up with Bee's hypercompetitive crew of "Kelly-bag-toting, Chanel-suit-wearing, Bugaboo-pushing sharks" who fret over their children's head circumferences and admissions into pre-preschools with three-year waiting lists. There's no shortage of name-dropping and light humor as Hannah struggles to win a co-op board's approval, keep her marriage afloat and get Violet into Carnegie Nursery School. Though a bevy of "awky" abbreviations litter the narrative ("unfortch" "sitch," "actsch"), Kargman writes with verve. Fans of the genre won't be disappointed. (Apr.)
Details
Reviewed on: 01/01/2007
Genre: Fiction
Analog Audio Cassette - 978-1-4233-2738-7
Compact Disc - 978-1-4233-2740-0
Compact Disc - 7 pages - 978-1-4233-2739-4
Compact Disc - 978-1-4915-0380-5
MP3 CD - 978-1-4233-2741-7
MP3 CD - 978-1-4233-2742-4
MP3 CD - 978-1-4915-0381-2
Paperback - 290 pages - 978-0-00-725510-8
Peanut Press/Palm Reader - 206 pages - 978-0-7679-2730-7
