How To Party With An Infant by Kaui Hart Hemmings – 240 pages
Book Blurb:
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 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.
My Review: 4 stars
How To Party With An Infant is not just a funny story as the title implies, but also a sharpened lens into motherhood. Although the title also indicates infancy, it’s really about mothering kids of all ages and the friends we make because of our kids.
As a single mom, the protagonist of this book has struggled to fit in and has finally found her group in which she gels with comfortably. The author finds a unique and interesting way of delving into each of the characters in her posse using recipes and of an application for a cookbook competition. The questions asked by the San Francisco Mommy Club for this competition, go way beyond recipes, and instead read like a psychology exam.
Even though I am an empty nester and have survived those toughest years of parenting, Hemmingses knack for conversation, introspection and delving into the nuances of others, makes it so easy to lose yourself in this novel. I loved her writing in both The Descendents and The Possibilities and this book is no different. I think her pulse on the human condition is spot on and this time she used the hilarity of ‘over the top moms’ as the subject. And by ‘over the top’ I mean financial, going green, baby talk, race, jealousy, nanny hunting, etc. I think all readers will find a bit of themselves or their friends in one or all of these characters. For example: the friend who admitted that she wanted to be part of the ‘mean mom’ group even though she despised them. She considered it a better option than being in the ‘dork mom’ group.
Of course no fictional book that focuses on parenting would be complete if there wasn’t reflection on the state of the character’s marriages or lack thereof, dating and adultery as well as the benefits that good friendships can provide. No one tells you how many of your friends stem from your children’s playmates. It’s a fabulous secret of parenthood.
Quotes I liked:
As a parent you’re friends with people you never thought you’d be friends with.”
-“Secrets and lies, so healthy sometimes.”
-Friendships are meant to strengthen you, not deplete you.”
-“Children lead us to our company.”
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