Review: How to Party With an Infant

How to Party with an Infant by Kaui Hart Hemmings

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I should have been more wary of a book jacket claiming the contents were “hilarious.” As is so often true with literary fiction, most of the book felt more sad than funny to me; that said, the prose is obviously dripping with wit. It’s clever, sometimes annoyingly so.
Mele is a single, stay-at-home mom in San Francisco who hangs out with the other mom-group misfits. The book is nominally Mele’s contest entry to write a cookbook for the overall mom group; her plan is to interweave stories from each of the parents in her mom group with a recipe that corresponds to that story. It’s a charming format and the mom stories are varied and have distinct voices. They are alarmingly believable.

I maybe shouldn’t have picked this book up to read on maternity leave. Now I’m moderately disheartened about this whole parenting thing. I came for the hope for positive mom-friendships, but I’m leaving with a sadness about the loneliness and thanklessness of being a mom.



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