Jen Mann

I really enjoyed Jen Mann’s hilarious tales of life as a young mom in Kansas City with her blunt-bordering-on-rude, cheapskate husband Ebenezer and her sensitive son Gomer and precocious daughter Adolpha (names have been changed to protect the guilty). Because we know the same competitive moms. You know whom I’m talking about. The perfectly coiffed and dressed mom whose child never has a meltdown and who doesn’t understand why you don’t have time for Pilates or enough money for Le show more Ploutocrate, her favorite three-Michelin star restaurant. Sometimes she’s a stay-at-home; sometimes she has one of those jobs where you can actually go out to lunch. She will always be blonde. She is better than you; you know it, and she knows it. Her kitchen is clean, she made her kids’ Halloween costumes, and instead of the simple frosted cupcakes you made (or, as likely, bought at Kroger), hers are shaped like Minions or My Little Ponies. Unless her children never touch gluten or refined sugar. Then she somehow made admittedly delicious cupcakes out of carrots, kale, dates, and agave syrup. Yes, I’m bitter.

I don’t know if it’s being a real-estate agent or a blogger or just a freer spirit than I, but Jen Mann says all of the things that we sweatpants-clad, scruffy moms are thinking. Only more articulately. And funnier — much, much funnier. You don’t have to be a parent to enjoy People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges, as it’s hilarious, but parents will laugh especially loudly.

Note: Jen and I have to part company on parents who do their children’s homework. Her son is only in second grade, and somehow has not yet been assigned Homework to See How Smart Your Parents Are. I’m frankly amazed that hasn’t happened yet to young Gomer.

My daughter was 7 and in the second grade when we got our first assignment to create a three-dimensional model of the State ‘o Maine. (We live in Kentucky — but, hey, why not be cosmopolitan?) We were supposed to make up a batter for this play-dough-like substance — I’m not making this up — and then shape it and bake it in a slow oven. Really, second-graders and ovens: What could possibly go wrong? Then we were to paint the state, its surrounding states (and Canada, in our case), include the capital (I was still OK with it thus far), all the major cities, the mountains, all of the rivers and lakes, and the major tourist attractions. Did I mention my daughter was 7? Or that she is a high-functioning autistic? Or that, at the time, her language development was such that she sounded like Bob the Minion?

At 1 a.m. the day it was due, we were still working on this project. I had already had to slice the Allegheny Mountains and relocated them where they actually belong. My daughter and I were both crying. I finally sent her to bed, and finished it myself. I even added a tiny moose with a flag of Maine clutched in its jaws. You won’t be surprised when I tell you that mine wasn’t the fanciest state there. Missouri was just awesome. show less

I am just slightly younger than this book is intended for, but as I am close I figured I could relate and maybe prepare for everything ahead of me. When I saw this title, Midlife Bites, I wished to read it immediately. With a title like that I knew it had to be something special. I was unfamiliar with Jen Mann and her blog/previous books when picking this up but around one third of the way in to the book I was subscribing to her newsletter and putting all her previous books on hold and in my show more cart on amazon!

Jen Mann has taken a topic that really isn't talked about at all and given women a great guide through some of the things that come along with being midlife. Everything from did I waste my life, to sex with your partner, to admitting that heck yes, we are angry and we have every right to be. Even though I am a little younger even I am with Mann on her "no fucks given" approach to my life and the situations women deal with.

Midlife Bites is an amazingly refreshing, hilarious, and one of a kind gem that women everywhere will be grateful for as we laugh out loud and "mmhmm" our way through the various topics touched upon throughout this book. It is a wonderful start to a discussion we all need to have at some point, and this book gives us a place to turn to not just for the time it takes to read the book, but we'll know what we need to do next in order to survive this crazy time in our lives.

Jen Mann is brilliant and I cannot recommend this book enough. As soon as I can I am buying a copy for myself, and for every woman in my life that needs this as badly as I did.

Thank you Netgalley, Jen Mann, and publishers for providing an advance e-copy in exchange for my honest, unguided opinions. Every thought expressed in the above review is honest and mine. show less

I want to be Jen's friend, even though I don't like having friends because it's hard work keeping friends. This book was hilarious, and I don't even have kids or pets or plants. I get her, but I really hope some of these mom stories are made up. If they aren't, I pray for humanity. I want to punch them all in the face!
Review: Listened to it on audio, laughed out loud in my car, people stared at red lights.

If you're a burgeoning Martha Stewart with ten color-coordinated Christmas Pinterest boards you might want to skip this one. If, like me, you ever feel intimidated by the holiday cheer and Yuletide overachievement of others, you and Jen and I are kindred souls.

Irreverent, foul-mouthed, and brutally honest, this book covers the dark side of holidays past (begging for Guess jeans & neon in the 80s; the nasty Santa in the run-down mall), and holidays present (forgetting to move the Elf on the show more Shelf; wishing you could just go to a cookie exchange empty handed, hit the spiked punch, and crawl cookie-less out the back door unless someone made something with equal parts chocolate and fat).

The holiday newsletter parody alone is a laugh riot. Why do we DO this to ourselves, and why do we just keep upping the ante until the holidays are intolerable for anyone without a full-time household staff? Let's spend November and December on an island somewhere and skip the whole business. Except that we don't really want to, we want to have some kind of Christmas with our loved ones. Just not our mother's kind. Ain't nobody got time for that. show less