The Mommy Clique - ARC read

The Mommy Clique

By. Barbara Altamirano

☕☕☕☕☕

"Really it was, in nature, all about survival of the fittest."

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Synopsis

    The Mommy Clique exposes the "royalty" moms of the town in such a hilarious, relatable and brutal story. When a new mom comes to town they pounce, trying to put her in her place, expecting her to either submit to or join their court, but much to the queens chagrin, "New mom" is much more resilient than she seems. 

    "New Mom" is Beth, who has returned with her husband and three kids to Connecticut from Texas due to her mother's declining health. Beth must prove her worth, even though she knows she doesn't need to, but wanting to come on good terms with the parents of the girls her daughter goes to school with takes precedence over her personal virtues. We watch Beth find herself among the very people who are devoted to breaking her. Among the other moms, we watch the struggle between being the mothers they want to be and also being the towns popular women, the ones who are most likely to get favors, the ones who's husbands will get a promotion first, the ones who everyone else wants to be (or so they think).

    The queen of the town, Elise, is your stereotypical blonde hair blue eyed mid life goddess with the perfect body, the perfect husband, and the perfect daughters...well except for her eldest, Jordan, who Elise sees more as a burden than her own daughter.

    We have the sidekick, Kelly, Elise's "Yes man". To Kelly, Elise's word is gospel and every order must be followed quickly and efficiently. Bringing down the self esteem of the other women in the town in a very serious operation for these women. The more we see Kelly in the book the more I fall in love with her and the more we realize she herself has a deep secret that would jeopardize her position in the court.

    Next we have Ronnie, the spy/researcher/informer. She knows how to work a computer, how to uncover the dirty secrets you might have hidden on your decades old MySpace page and can use it against you, but deep down she doesn't really like this life. Deep down she wishes she had a normal friend group with normal problems and hobbies.

    We have the joker, Gail, the second newest of the court. She is relieved when "New Mom" comes to town because it pushes her up the social ladder but she knows she can easily be overtaken if "New Mom" impresses her majesty, so she makes it her goal to always be better than her, better than anyone in the court, but unfortunately she's just never good enough. 

Together, the court tries to break down Beth to manipulate her into joining their forces, but are her morals and self-respect strong enough to overcome the torture?

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Review

    As a military wife and mom, this book really hit home! Dare I say; it hit the "on-base mom community" nail on the head! I am a new mom, at the time of this review my son is under a year old, but even still I have seen all of these mothers. I've seen the queen and her court, I've seen and been the new mom, I've seen and been the mom that these woman would laugh at and spread horrible damaging rumors about for their own entertainment.

    I LOVED the portrayal of Elise, the way she treats her daughters is spot on to some familial drama I am unfortunately far too aware of. She prioritizes image and beauty and status over comfort and happiness. The constant anxiety she has about her relationship with her husband, the constant self-esteem issues she has thinking her age is the reason her marriage is slowly falling apart, its all just so depressing and hard to imagine that it just makes you pity her! I really enjoyed reading the drama between the other women in the group, I am so happy Barbara wrote this book as a multiple points of view because it really helps you understand why each woman is the way she is and you get to see their individual internal struggles, like Kelly wanting so hard to keep up with Elise with her weekly salon visits but since her husband is the only one who works, she finds its getting a bit difficult to finance these trips she "stoops down" and gets a little work from home job, which in the real world is an all too real struggle a lot of moms are experiencing! I have been there! I have had friends beg to go out for coffee or go out to lunch or just a random shop around target but we just couldn't afford it and I would always find myself thinking "if only I had a little side job to get myself a little extra cash". I love how relatable Kelly can be, how hard it is to be "one of the girls" in a community like this. 
Ronnie frustrated me so bad. On one hand she made it very clear that she really wanted to be true friends with Beth with no malicious intent but then out of nowhere she would do something horrible to her. It had me gripping my phone screaming, "Girl you have skills! Use them to bring the crown down!" 

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My thoughts

    This book was such a fun read! It was like reading the local drama on Facebook but without the stress of there being local drama. Its definitely one of those reads you need a glass of wine and a porch swing for! I truly can't stress enough, if you are a mother who likes a bit of small town gossip, you NEED to read this book!

    *Full Disclosure*

            This was an ARC read in exchange for an honest review!

Review: The Silence of the Girls

The Silence of the Girls

By. Pat Barker

☕☕☕☕

"Every man in the city died that day..."

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Synopsis

    The Silence of the Girls is a story the Trojan women who were captured and used for the soldiers pleasure during the Trojan War. We follow Breseis, the wife of the son of the King of Lyrnessus which has been overthrown by the Greeks; all the men and boys butchered, and all the women allocated to their new owners. Breseis is rewarded to Achilles, the commander of the troop that overthrew her city and killed her brothers and father. She is a strong women, learning to adapt with her new life as a slave with as much dignity as the men will allow her (which isn't much). Achilles is a quiet but brutal man, his mother is a sea goddess and his father is a king. He has the mindset of a child, mourning his mothers touch, but the rage and brutality of a starving bear in a cow field.

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My Review

    I need to start out with a confession. I actually have read this book before...4 years ago..in High School. Its been a very memorable book for me, a certain disgusting line randomly pops into my head (if you read it and you get there...you know what I'm talking about...) and for what ever reason it makes me want to read this again and again (even though once I get to said line I have to put the book down and try not to throw up because *shudder*). I also want to say every review on this book I've rea has compared this book to The Iliad...which I find super strange considering The Iliad was the inspiration for this book...so of course they will be similar, they're telling the same story just from a different perspective (kind of...we'll get to that). So having not read The Iliad, I'll be able to review this book without that comparison. 

    The Silence of the Girls is a great story with such brutal description it really helps you build an image for what's going on, however the world building was pretty much non-existent. There was very few descriptions of rooms and the camps layout and yet there was a ton of movement within them. I found it a little bit difficult to navigate the encampment because there was no map made or described, then Breseis is going between buildings I wanted to feel like it was tiring and brutal for her but I had no idea how far apart different tents were so it was hard to sympathize with her labor. While we're on the topic of labor, I found it super strange that she didn't seem to do the same tasks as other women even though the other women were given to men of similar rank to Achilles. Most of the women were weavers or cooks or nurses, Breseis seemed to just float around jobless until there was a battle and then she was a nurse but at that point most of the women were so that was expected. The most labor she had was filling drinks during meals, cleaning up afterwards, and then going to Achilles so he can use her for the night and then go to sleep. Like...it's a brutal thing the war is but honestly compared to what most women in her situation had, she had it VERY easy, which I thought was a bit strange but maybe that's the story!

    I really loved the "relationship" between her and Achilles. I love that she stays firm with her hatred of him to the end (sorry romance readers!), maybe it softens slightly but she still very much does NOT like him and makes it clear that she never will. The only Greek she genuinely likes in Patroclus, but he's an actually decent guy so of course she likes him, but throughout the book she has to remind herself who and what he is, and I like that. I would've absolutely hated it if Breseis dropped her hatred for the Greeks just because a few of them were nice to her. 

    I love how strong she is. She holds her head high (internally because she'd probably get beaten for actually raising her head at her captors). I love how she supports her fellow women in this terrifying time while still keeping herself safe. I will not lie and say she's selfless here, but she is definitely generous and caring to say the least, and for that she has my utmost respect.

    I also have a slight problem with how little Breseis starred in her own story. This was clearly meant to be a telling of the Trojan War in the perspective of the woman (mainly Breseis) but instead we follow Achilles and his personal problems much more. It's almost like she's a side character in her own story. I can see the poetic meaning to this; "women back then were supposed to live in the background." but that's not what it felt like. It felt like it was trying to be from her perspective, but not much of her perspective was given until she was in bed or serving the rare occasions at night. I really wish the story was told from maybe a different woman and we got to hear the behind the scenes banter of the loom tents. I would be very interested in a book of that manner (And I believe Pat Barker did give us this in Women of Troy.) 

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My Thoughts

Honestly I cannot stress enough how solidly this book is imprinted on my brain. I have ADHD so not many things stick in there but my god this book is STUCK in there! I loved it! I really love the strong female character roll, I only wish we saw more of her and less of her captor. If you would like to read this book I want to warn you of the triggers; Rape, abuse, death, gore, suicide, death of children, mutilation of children, mutilation of adults...I think that's all of them. There's a lot. This is not a soft gentle read and for those who want this to be a love story between Breseis and Achilles, I'm sorry to say it definitely is not that!

I will for sure be buying Women of Troy, I love Pat Barker's writing style and am so excited to rad the next book in this story!

Spinning Silver Review

Spinning Silver

By. Naomi Novik

☕☕☕

 "A robber who steals a knife and cuts himself cannot cry out against the woman who kept it sharp."

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Synopsis

    We follow the story of three strong minded women, one who values her family and freedom over all else, one who values the lives of her brothers over her own, and one who values her kingdom over her own happiness. Though they all live very different lives, their stories find their way to each other with a common goal, to stop the winter that has rampaged over the land of Lithvas for the last 7 years, slowly killing all life in the kingdom. 

    Miryem is the daughter of a Jewish moneylender, not a very good one at that. When her mother is laying on her death bed and they are unable to buy the medicine she needs, Miyram takes it upon herself to collect the money her father lent to the people of their village gaining a reputation for turning silver into gold. In doing so she attracts the attention of the Staryk King. He presents Miryem with a challenge, she must turn 3 quantities of silver to gold or else he will kill her and her loved ones, but should she succeed, he would take her back to his kingdom as his bride and she will turn all the silver he gives her to gold.  

    As Miryem claims what is owed, she hires a woman, Wanda, to aid her household as payment of her father's debt, in doing so she saves Wanda from being her fathers source of income to pay for his own indulgences, and she and her two brothers escape his ruthless abuse.

       We also follow the story of an unfortunate looking woman, Irina, who's fathers buys the silver jewels Miryem creates in exchange for gold, in doing so the attention of the Tsar is captured and they are wed, but the Tsar has a burden of his own and that burden threatens the future of the kingdom. Irina takes upon the mission of fighting this burden to save her people and to free herself from her unwanted marriage. 

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My Review

    I loved this story but I hated this book, if that makes any sense at all. Spinning Silver is an interesting, loose, take on the old folks tale, Rumpelstiltskin. Where this book lost me was the sporadic change of point of view, and for the number of different changes, I really wish she had labeled them, or at least stuck with just the 3 main characters. I believe we followed the POV of 6 different people which got super confusing and it honestly made me struggle to process the story. I spent too much time trying to figure out who I was reading rather than what. 

    I've also come to the conclusion that Naomi's writing style is just not for me. I found this book to be really hypnotic, in a bad way. Something about the massive amounts of run on sentences, super long paragraphs that would take up about 3/4ths of the page, the lack of actual talking or action or reaction from the characters just put me to sleep. It was almost boring except every once in a while something interesting would happen that would wake me up again and suck me in, only for it to get smothered by excessive description. 

    I really wish I loved this book because the story itself is absolutely stunning. The ending, unfortunately was the best part of the book for me. I practically jumped out of my seat screaming at the last few pages...but unfortunately that was the most enthusiasm the book got from me.

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My Opinion

    So overall, this is an amazing story, once you get to it. I'll probably try to read this book again later, but I don't think I will buy any other works of Naomi's just because I am not a fan of her writing style, but that's not to say this is a bad book. I'm sure people who are big into this type of writing would rate this book better then me and I respect that. I do recommend this book to people who are big into descriptive writing, I don't recommend it to people who are big into action packed fantasy books. 

The River is DEFINITELY Enchanted!

A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross 

 ☕☕☕☕☕

"Do you ever wonder if we are unknowing participants in a spirit's game? If they move us like pawns on a board and glean with pleasure from provoking our heartaches?"

 

How The Lost Apothecary Got Lost

The Lost Apothecary

By Sarah Penner

           ☕☕

"It's okay to change," I interrupted, "but it's not okay to hide, to bury parts of ourselves."