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Uproariously funny and irreverent take on modern pregnancy and parenting

Posted by Melody on Tuesday, Nov 3, 2015

Emily Flake's Mama Tried: Dispatches from the Seamy Underbelly of Modern Parenting hilariously pokes fun at experiences of expectant and first-time parents, particularly those of women who established careers and were fully independent thinkers before deciding to start a family.

At eight months pregnant myself, I peeled through the first third of her book, howling with laughter every few pages or so. I can identify with dealing with "swole" feet and eating cookies to make the baby kick (and just to eat cookies). This book was much needed comic relief for my final stretch as a pregnant lady.

As a parenting memoir from a New Yorker cartoonist, Emily Flake's new book is best for new parents. It's reminiscent in style to Roz Chast's Can't we talk about something more pleasant?, so if you love graphic novel memoirs, you might also want to give it a try. But unlike Roz Chast's book, it's got next to no press so it's still a hidden gem at the moment. This book was published about a month ago and I had not heard of it before it came through on my cataloging cart.

Here are a couple of other articles if I haven't yet convinced you:

Birthing Plans as imagined by Emily Flake
Birthing Plans as imagined by Emily Flake

About the Author

Melody's picture

I've been at the library for more than 10 years now, and I still find joy when choosing the best books for our readers. My current reading journey is taking me book by book through different genres. I'm challenging myself to find books that are enough outside my wheelhouse that I'd pass them by on first glance. The genre I'm looking forward to... more

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  • Funny story

    by Emily Henry

    FICTION Henry Emily
    Romance, Humor

    ", Daphne always loved the way Peter told their story. How they met, fell in love, and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. Too bad it turned out to be more of a prequel, a complication to Peter's actual love story, the one that ends with him dumping Daphne before their wedding to begin a relationship with his lifelong best friend, Petra. And so that's how Daphne's story really begins: stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children's librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only other non-Peter-related person she knows: Petra's heartbroken ex, Miles Nowak. Just until she can get a new dream job literally anywhere else. Scruffy and chaotic, Miles is entirely the opposite of buttoned-up Daphne, and they mainly avoid one another until one night, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship. Miles decides he will convince Daphne to give Waning Bay a real shot. He'll show her why he loves this idyllic town and its residents, and if they happen to post deliberately misleading photos of their adventures together-for a particular audience of two-who could blame them? Miles believes Daphne deserves the chance to build a life here, her own life. As she begins to fall for the town, Daphne wonders what this summer is supposed to mean. Is it just for fun? An interlude to her own love story? Or maybe it was never meant to be a love story? Maybe it was just an anecdote to share at future dinner parties: that time she fell in love with her ex-fiancé's new fiancée's ex-boyfriend. Who's to say?"--

    mdworak's picture

    This book needs no recommendations, but, yes! I must recommend it. Hugely popular contemporary romance author Emily Henry published Funny Story on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. I was one of the lucky few who fulfilled my audiobook hold the day it came out. Being sick all week and lying in bed, it was no feat to have narrator Julia Whelan read me this story through my illness. Such real characters, such tender affection, it just might be my new favorite. Sorry, 2022's Book Lovers! Funny Story now wears the crown. My one regret is that I finished it too fast. Time to put the print copy on hold! -Melody
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