The Kari AnnAlysis

If you’ve ever seen the twister that displaces Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, then you understand the whirlwind of a move from San Francisco to Manhattan that Hannah is about to take. Her husband gets a new job and they saddle up to move back to his hometown. Luckily, she already has a few friends in waiting, including her best friend from college and a gaggle of Stepford wives she is obligated to hang out with, thanks to one of them being the wife of her husband’s work partner and the apple of her mother-in-law’s eye.

But Hannah isn’t like most of you Manhattanites. She doesn’t drop thousands at sample sales for her little girl without batting an eye, she doesn’t have a nanny, housekeeper or hybrid of the two and she’ll never be able to live up to the standard her MIL has set. But she’s going to try her hardest, even if that does mean hobnobbing with the ritzy and stressing more about what pre-school her three-year-old will attend than anything else in life. I mean, she has to get into an Ivy League school right? Gotta start early.

But Hannah soon realizes the life of luxury in Manhattan may not be as pristine as it seems and she’s about to the be one who makes it all start to unravel, but hopefully she can keep her own life from falling apart in the meantime

I got this book from a library sale in audio book form. I’ll go ahead and say it’s my favorite audio book I’ve listened to. I’ve loved a couple, but this one takes the cake.

Kargman gave Hannah such an awesome voice in this book. Most of the characters in this book are snooty, hoity toity and straight up, stuck up bitches. But Hannah is down to Earth and easy to love. Kargman has such a fresh, fun tone in this book. It felt raw to me, and I loved it. I caught myself laughing so many times while listening to this book and becoming so close with Hannah that I never wanted the story to end. I was so sad when I got to the last disc.

From the beginning, I loved this book. It starts with a dictionary of mommy terms that are going to be used from the book. I have looked online but can’t find it and didn’t write any down, but they are really cute terms, that I hope to one day find and use on my friends who have kids One thing about listening to this on audio book was that when some of the terms that were in the dictionary at the beginning of the book came along, I couldn’t go back and reference.

One thing that drove me nuts in this was book was the end. We got to the point where I wanted to know what happened with a few of the characters. I kept waiting for it and waiting for it.  It finally came, in form of a short paragraph update on each person. It worked, but I kind of wanted more. It did leave some things open, for hopefully more books from Momzilla land?!?

I almost didn’t pick this book up. I loved the cover, but once I started reading the synopsis, I wasn’t sure if I’d like it. I have read several books about New York moms and the upper echelan. They all have snooty people that piss me off because they have nothing better to do than roll around in their money and complain about their lives. They also tend to have lots of infidelity. I always try to imagine myself in the books that I read and when I read books like this, I want nothing to do with them. I don’t want to be in that world and be that bad of a person. I am glad I picked it up though, because even though it had all of the above, Hannah’s character was “normal” enough to kind of water down the mean girls.

I loved Momzillas and give it 5 bookmarks and am adding Kargman to my list of MUST READ MORE OF authors.

ISBN: 978-0767924788
Released: April 2007
Author Website
Kari got this audiobook at a library sale