How to Party With an Infant
3.5/5
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About this ebook
When Mele Bart told her boyfriend Bobby she was pregnant with his child, he stunned her with an announcement of his own: he was engaged to someone else.
Fast forward two years, Mele’s daughter Ellie is a toddler, and Bobby and his fiancée want Ellie to be the flower girl at their wedding. Mele, who also has agreed to attend the nuptials, knows she can’t continue obsessing about Bobby and his cheese making, Napa-residing, fiancée. She needs something to do. So she answers a questionnaire provided by the San Francisco Mommy Club in elaborate and shocking detail and decides to enter their cookbook writing contest. Even though she joined the group out of desperation, Mele has found her people: Annie, Barrett, Georgia, and Henry (a stay-at-home dad). As the wedding date approaches, Mele uses her friends’ stories to inspire recipes and find comfort, both.
The “delicious” (The Seattle Times) How to Party with an Infant is a hilarious and poignant novel from Kaui Hart Hemmings, who has an uncanny ability to make disastrous romances and tragic circumstances not only relatable and funny, but unforgettable. “[Hemmings] perfectly captures modern parenthood among the privileged and, with moments of concise poignancy, the silent shames of motherhood...The pleasure of Hemmings’s levity and wisdom more than sustain the reader. We cheer for her warm, self-deprecating characters and hope they continue to laugh together instead of crying alone” (The New York Times Book Review).
Kaui Hart Hemmings
Kaui Hart Hemmings has degrees from Colorado College and Sarah Lawrence, and she was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Her first novel, a New York Times bestseller, The Descendants, has been published in twenty-two other countries and is now an Oscar-winning film directed by Alexander Payne and starring George Clooney. She is also the author of a story collection House of Thieves, the novels How to Party with an Infant and The Possibilities, and the YA novel Juniors. She lives in Hawaii.
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Reviews for How to Party With an Infant
33 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I loved this book. The writing, the characters, everything just worked. I found myself smiling and chuckling throughout the whole time while reading it. One of those moments was when Mele got waxed for the first timed and was horrified at the results because she thought she looked like Mr. Bigglesworth, the hairless cat. Then when her daughter starts screaming Dora at the park because she is convinced a Mexican nanny is in fact the Explorer. Barrett's son wanted to have his birthday party at home and invite twenty kids over and eat KFC. They would hangout downstairs, listen to music and maybe dance. Barrett is horrified when she sees them dancing and finds out it's a hood party. There's just so many examples of smiling inducing moments or laughing ot loud, but my last one is when Mele is on a preschool tour and she realizes there is something stuck in the leg of her jeans, normally this would be a sock or dryer sheet, but instead it's dirty underwear.Mele was dating a man for months when she finds out that she is pregnant. His first words aren't Yay! I'm going to be a father, but instead I'm already engaged. So this is where Mele finds herself a single parent. Mele decides to enter the cookbook contest of the Mommy Club she belongs to and uses a story from each of her friends to create a recipe. I loved reading the story that Henry, Annie, Georgia and Barrett each told Mele. There was just something about this book. Not only was it humorous but the characters talked about how you can love being a mother but not always want to watch your child play with blocks. I loved The Descendants and look forward to reading more books by Kaui Hart Hemmings
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Party With an Infant by Kaui Hart Hemmings is a highly recommended humorous, yet moving account of being a parent and a person.Mele Bart is a single mom living in San Fransisco. After a few failed attempts at meeting other moms, she's managed to find a mother's support group where she fits in with the members. Her group joined the official San Francisco Mommy Club. Now SFMC is having a cookbook competition and Mele is filling out the entry form. Actually, the whole book is Mele filling out the form and telling corresponding stories about those in her support group while finding the perfect recipe based on the story shared. Mele is also trying to deal with her daughter Ellie's father, Bobby, and his upcoming wedding. He wants Ellie to be a flower girl.Mele and her friends are dealing with their feelings of inadequacy and failure, so their stories reflect this fact. In between the story telling, Mele is very candid about her life and experiences, including those she's had with other SFMC groups and her ex. Interspersed in the entry form stories are excerpts from an online message board. Seriously, the mommy wars rage as people express their firm beliefs about one thing or another, while one member is wonderfully funny and satirical.This is a great selection for anyone who can relate to Mele's search for like-minded moms:"She smiles to herself, remembering those early days, when she was one of those friendless parents - the ones that smile too eagerly at other moms and apologize if their babies sneeze. The ones who use lame pickup lines like "I like your burp cloth" or "How do you like your Britax Roundabout?" Mele would hit up all the hot spots - Gymboree, Day One, Music Together, playgrounds, parks, and museums - hoping to meet someone. She’d see other mothers in groups, laughing on polka-dot throw mats and think: Where do I find them? And how do I act once I do?"I found How to Party With an Infant a wonderfully entertaining light read, which I need every now and then. It is very well written and the stories are funny, poignant, touching, and hopeful. If you have ever struggled to find or fit in with a mommy group, you will understand Mele's situation. Or if you've ever experienced a part of the mommy wars, you'll find yourself laughing and commiserating with Mele. The fact that she found a group of such diverse individuals with stories that are sometimes raw and heartbreaking to share is heartening. Mele is very honest in what she writes for the cookbook entry, both in her feelings and observations and her friend's stories.Disclosure: My advanced reading copy was courtesy of the publisher for review purposes.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mele tells her boyfriend that she's pregnant and he tells her he is engaged. Mele has her baby, Ellie, alone and joins a parent group for support. That's this book. Mele tells stories from the members of her parent group. These folks worry and obsess and rant and whine and complain and worry and obsess a little more. The conversations Mele has with her friends are clever and witty and always savage. No one in the book, not even Mele, is that likable, and there is no action other than endless talking about very, very trivial things. I read through to the end, but I didn't enjoy the read and I finished feeling like I'd wasted my time.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hysterically funny. A "Bonfire of the Vanities" for the mommy set.