I blindly picked up this book because I thought the cover was super cool and the title intriguing. If I were a parent, I think I would have related so much more to the characters and story. Not being a parent, I felt more like a spectator. 

 

A Category Four hurricane is the last thing Ramona needs. Between work, a philandering husband, a toddler, a mother not afraid to say what’s on her mind, a neighbor kid, a guinea pig, and the death of Prince, her plate is full. Now she gets to add evacuation to her to-do list. 

 

This book was fun and relatable in the sense of everything going wrong all at once, there was just a lot I couldn’t relate to on the parenting and marriage front which was a large focus of the story. I’m hesitant to say it was chaotic because that was entirely the point, however, I struggled to follow what was happening. I can see myself revisiting it at another time in my life and absolutely love it. 

I went into this one knowing I wasn't the target audience (overwhelmed working moms of young children). It's a solid, fast-paced debut with a good hook — in between trying to evacuate ahead of a hurricane, a busy mom of two littles tries to make sense of the sudden revelation of her husband's infidelity and the increasingly untenable expectations of her job. I recognized the "yes, I felt seen!" power of it and most of the "kids, amiright?" humor and "yes, he 💯 needs to man up, but let's excavate your part in this as well" truth. But for the most part it was a fairly unpleasant and stressful read for me.