Sunday, May 21, 2017

Book Review - Does This Volvo Make My Butt Look Big? by Annabel Monaghan

In a perfect world, mothers would unionize. The next best thing — they’d treat themselves to a break and read this book. Does This Volvo Make My Butt Look Big? is an honest and hilarious peek behind the curtain into the messy, wonderful moments of family life. And not the lightly staged and heavily filtered ones you see on Instagram.

Columnist Annabel Monaghan writes with enough empathy to cut through the hushed gossip of the playground and enough humor to disarm a toddler with a sugar habit. Undoubtedly, her words are the ones you need when you send your oldest child to college. Written with crisp prose that diffuses the illusion of the perfect mom, Annabel will remind you that when we peer over the tall fences that divide families, much of our experiences are shared.

If you’ve ever lied your way through a parent-teacher conference or marveled at the cluelessness of teenagers, this book is for you. If you’ve ever quietly rooted against your own child when he was trying to win a goldfish, you’ll certainly find your truth here.


My Thoughts 
What a breath of fresh air!  I love reading about someone who is in the same boat as me.  Annabel doesn't sugar coat things, she tells it like it really is!  That's what we need in this day and age! She's only saying what we are all thinking!

Some of my Top 10 favorite parts include: 

1. The Game of Life (Her 5 year old has the best philosophy!)
2. What Boy Moms Know (I know all about this!)
3. This Just In - My Kid Got A Job! (My daughter just got her first job!)
4. Raising Losers (Yes!)
5. In September, The Devil Is In The Details (I HATE back to school!)
6. I'm Over The School Photo (I feel the same way)
7. In The Hot Seat (I cringe on these days!)
8. Lost and Found (Daily struggle)
9. How I Became Irish (I love being Irish)
10. College Admissions Mania (I'm just starting the whole college process)

These are just my top ten but are so many more to read and some very funny stories embedded in each and every chapter!  I loved it and I will highly recommend this book to everyone! A must read for 2017!

Drink Selection
Who says you can't drink Champagne during the week?  Not Annabel or I!  Enjoy!  It looks delish!
Rating 
5 wine (or champagne) glasses all the way!  I loved each and every chapter.  Honest and funny all in one.

Author Bio
I write fiction for young adults and a column for not-so-young adults. Since you’ve gotten this far into my website, you probably knew that already.
Back in the 1990s, David Duchovny assured me during every “X Files” episode that the truth is out there. He might have told you too. I looked and looked, but I’m starting to think that the truth is in here. I believe that telling the truth about ourselves and our lives is the most liberating and unifying thing we can do. Writing is my way of mining life for small nuggets of truth. I’m often grateful that David Duchovny didn’t ask anything else of me.
The Digit books are about coming to terms with your gifts and then using them to take your place in the world. The opposite of authenticity is probably conformity, a challenge I was familiar with myself in high school — as a teenager I lived in fear that people would discover exactly how much I did not fit in. Digit finds happiness, true love and a way to save the world when she fully embraces and shares the truth about who she is.
Likewise, when I write my column (which appears in The Week, The Huffington Post and / or The Rye Record), I’m looking for truth in my current phase of life: the horror of the parent-teacher conference, the chronic reoccurrence of dinner, the lessons learned from the mid-life crisis, the mindfulness that can be found at Little League, the magic of the sock pile, the difficulty in explaining exactly what I do all day. There is so much that divides moms – whether we work or stay at home or both; our economic and geographic situations; the genders, temperaments and special needs of our kids. It’s nice to know that if we were to peer over these tall, tall fences, we’d see that so much of our experience is really the same.
Other things:
I grew up in Los Angeles, and nearly every one of my relatives still lives in Southern California. I attended Duke University where I studied English. I have an MBA from The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania and a brief history as an investment banker. I am now living in the suburbs of New York City with my husband and three sons and teach a novel writing class at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. You should totally sign up.

Link to Purchase
Amazon 








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