Review: Other People's Houses (by Abbi Waxman)

 My Rating: 3 stars

After a series of heavy reads, emotional reads, ones that tugged at my heartstrings and made me cry, I was desperately in need of a lighter read to help boost my spirits.  I had Abbi Waxman’s Other People’s Houses on my list of “ARCs past publication date that I need to get to” and since I knew this author to be a humorous writer, I decided to move this book up the list.   It turns out I made the right choice, as this was a fun read, one that was filled with snarky humor and realistic characters who dealt with everyday issues that most of us could relate to.  The central character in the story is Frances Bloom, a middle-aged mother of three who enjoys helping others despite the overload of responsibilities she already has on her plate with running her own household as well as being the carpool mom for her neighbors’ kids.  After Frances accidentally walks in on Anne Porter – the mother of two of the kids she carpools to school – having an affair with a man that wasn’t Anne’s husband, she finds herself reluctantly pulled into the fray when, a couple days later, the secret is revealed in the worst way possible.  Meanwhile, the other carpool families also have secrets of their own that they are more than willing to push to the back burner for the time being while they navigate the trials and tribulations of family life and raising kids.    Anne’s affair ends up impacting all these families in ways they never imagined and eventually causes them to re-examine their own lives and marriages.

While I did enjoy this book quite a bit overall and found the characters easy to relate to, I was not able to connect a whole lot to the story on a personal level as I initially thought I would, probably because I’ve read too many books with similar setup recently (families with kids all living in the same neighborhood dealing with every day issues of school, running the household, etc. whose lives are suddenly upended when an unexpected event occurs).  In fact, this particular story reminded me of Sally Hepworth’s The Family Next Door, except that this one was much lighter in tone and way more humorous, not to mention much more irreverent with its fair share of swearing and sex-related references.  With that said though, I actually enjoyed these characters far more and felt that the interactions between the couples in this one were more realistically portrayed and in line with what many of us would see in our neighborhoods.  The couple I actually enjoyed reading about most were Frances and Michael, as the hilarious way they would often banter back and forth while they tried to navigate the joys and frustrations of life with 3 kids reminded me of couples I know in real life.

Overall, this was an entertaining read and one that I felt was much needed during this particular “down” phase that I’ve been going through.  Though there were some serious issues that did get brought up in the story, those were dealt with appropriately without being heavy-handed and the light tone was maintained throughout, which is credit to the author Abbi Waxman’s story-telling skill.  This one is definitely recommended, though with the caveat that this might not appeal to all audiences due to the abundance of “colorful language” (which, in my opinion, was more than expected but certainly not excessive).

Received ARC from Berkley via Edelweiss