Uproariously funny and irreverent take on modern pregnancy and parenting

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:

• "Emily Flake’s Mama Tried lambastes modern parenting, in all its passive-aggressive, smug glory" [excerpt]
• "Laugh Till You Cry With Emily Flake’s New Book ‘Mama Tried’" [Q&A with Emily Flake]
• "These Hysterical Cartoons Perfectly Capture Modern Parenthood" [excerpted illustrations]