Elizabeth LaBan

This book was fine - light reading for me to read when I'm a little bit sick and not quite ready to read anything with more heft. The author is from Philadelphia and I really enjoy all the local flair in her novels.

This one is about a single Mom of two living in a nice part of town in the months after her husband mysteriously leaves her and the kids. She doesn't want to tell anybody and slowly her resources have dwindled to the point where she's stealing packets of butter and sugar from restaurants and smuggling happy hour food out of bars to feed her kids for dinner.

I mostly enjoyed the novel but was completely unsatisfied with the underlying mystery.… (more)

I picked this up after seeing a photo of the author with Jennifer Weiner, who I enjoy. Elizabeth LaBan is the wife of a well known restaurant critic here in Philadelphia and I bought this book as a nod to supporting the local community. Honestly, I wasn't expecting it to be good and I was really surprised with how much I enjoyed it!

The book is about Lila, an executive turned mother of two who is living in a new city with her slightly paranoid restaurant critic husband. She's struggling to adjust to a new baby, the new city, and a future that might be nothing but motherhood.

I really enjoyed all of LaBan's characters, I thought she did a great job of showing the conflict between Lila's past and present and the antics of Sam the critic were funny and sometimes over the top but mostly believable. I'm curious how much of this is actually lifted from Craig LaBan himself!

Overall, it's a nice dose of chick lit, an easy read and fun for a Philadelphian who will recognize some of the location details in the book.… (more)

The Restaurant Critic's Wife/Elizabeth LeBan Lila Soto has a master’s degree that’s gathering dust, a work-obsessed husband, two kids, and lots of questions about how exactly she ended up here.
In their new city of Philadelphia, Lila’s husband, Sam, takes his job as a restaurant critic a little too seriously. To protect his professional credibility, he’s determined to remain anonymous. Soon his preoccupation with anonymity takes over their lives as he tries to limit the family’s contact with anyone who might have ties to the foodie world. Meanwhile, Lila craves adult conversation and some relief from the constraints of her homemaker role. With her patience wearing thin, she begins to question everything: her decision to get pregnant again, her break from her career, her marriage—even if leaving her ex-boyfriend was the right thing to do. As Sam becomes more and more fixated on keeping his identity secret, Lila begins to wonder if her own identity has completely disappeared—and what it will take to get it back.
 
Even for those who aren't foodies, this was a really fun book that showed a lot of growth.
 
Each chapter begun with a partial review of a restaurant, and the language was fantastically over the top. I don't commonly read food reviews so maybe this isn't abnormal, but I enjoyed these immensely and felt that they really added to the chapters.
 
I really enjoyed how there was a lot of focus on Lila's growth as a character and a person, and ultimately on how she found her place in life in a new city with two small children. I came into this book thinking it would have a lot more romance to it, but surprisingly, the plot focused much more on Lila's growth than on a growing romance.
 
Lila's continual pursuit of her career was really an inspiration. There were some fun scenes where she managed crisis scenarios that happened, mainly in the hotel chain she had previously worked at. It was intriguing to see how she had evolved since meeting her husband and how important her career had been and would be to her--she had a total fixation on her suitcase, which was a representation of this. There was an underlying message about work and the way people play different roles as life progresses.
 
The setting of Philadelphia worked really well for this book, and as Lila and Sam had just moved there at the beginning of the book, there were some hilarious and heartwrenching moments with Lila struggling between making friends and maintaining her husband's anonymity. Simultaneously, the community around them had its own pros and cons and ultimately also showed Lila's growth.
 
Small children can be a nuisance in books, but I loved the way LaBan portrayed Lila's three-year-old daughter Hazel and all of her friends. There was a highly entertaining birthday party amongst other antics.
 
I really appreciated that this book focused on a lot of deeper issues and really looked at how life changes us not necessarily for the worst and highly recommend this.… (more)