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!