Momzillas [Hardcover]

Jill Kargman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 10, 2007

A hilarious and deliciously scathing send-up of motherhood as practiced in the upper echelons of Manhattan society, from the coauthor of The Right Address and Wolves in Chic Clothing.

The mothers on Manhattan’s chic Upper East Side are highly educated, extremely wealthy, and very competitive. They throw themselves and all of their energy and resources into full-time child rearing, turning their kids into the unwitting pawns in a game where success is measured in precocious achievements, jam-packed schedules, and elite private-school pedigrees.

Hannah Allen has recently moved to the neighborhood with her New York City–bred investment banker husband and their two-year-old daughter, Violet. She’s immediately inundated by an outpouring of advice from her not-so-well-intentioned new friends and her overbearing, socially conscious mother-in-law, who coach her on matters ranging from where to buy the must-have $300 baby dress to how to get into the only pre-pre-preschool that counts. Despite her better instincts and common sense, Hannah soon finds herself caught up in the competitive whirl of high-stakes mothering.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Kargman is no worse off without writing partner Carrie Karasyov (The Right Address; Wolves in Chic Clothing) in her first solo novel, a breezy jaunt through the Manhattan nursery grinder. Recently relocated to the Upper East Side from San Francisco after her husband, Josh, took a lucrative job, Hannah Allen is thrown into the mommy snake pit by her domineering mother-in-law, Lila Allen Dillingham, who introduces Hannah to a cabal of neighborhood moms led by the "drop dead gorgissima" Bee Elliott. Hannah, a black-jeans-and-Converse art history grad and mother of too-cute two-year-old Violet, struggles to please Lila and keep up with Bee's hypercompetitive crew of "Kelly-bag-toting, Chanel-suit-wearing, Bugaboo-pushing sharks" who fret over their children's head circumferences and admissions into pre-preschools with three-year waiting lists. There's no shortage of name-dropping and light humor as Hannah struggles to win a co-op board's approval, keep her marriage afloat and get Violet into Carnegie Nursery School. Though a bevy of "awky" abbreviations litter the narrative ("unfortch" "sitch," "actsch"), Kargman writes with verve. Fans of the genre won't be disappointed. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

When Hannah Allen's husband's job brings them from San Francisco to Manhattan, she's ill prepared for life as a Park Avenue mother. In this land of elite pre-preschools, pacifier consultants, and children's birthday parties held in hotel ballrooms, gossip and competitive bragging are the pastimes of choice. Hannah finds herself struggling to feel at home and make new friends, and jabs from her snobby mother-in-law aren't helping matters. Kargman offers a voyeuristic view of the good life and its bad side in a novel that is entertaining but also insubstantial, peppered with pop-culture references and enough lingo and cute abbreviations to necessitate a glossary. However, Momzillas does mark the rise of a new trend in contemporary fiction: mom lit. Building on the success of tot-filled tomes like The Nanny Diaries (2002) and Little Earthquakes (2004), the fiction of singledom is giving way to the fiction of motherhood, and readers are snapping these books up. Aleksandra Kostovski
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Broadway (April 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767924789
• ISBN-13: 978-0767924788
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #818,253 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jill Kargman is deathly afraid of clowns. And mimes. Wait, mimes are worse. She lives in New York City where she writes magazine articles and trashy novels and enjoys wrap sandwiches. She is the author of teen books Bittersweet Sixteen, Summer Intern, and Jet Set, plus some excellent grown-up books. And by grown-up books she doesn't mean porn; she means not young adult but plain old adult. Her articles have appeared in Vogue, Teen Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Town & Country, Travel + Leisure, Elle, Elle Décor, and a bunch of British magazines you've never seen. She went to Yale where she did not study writing and has three children who keep her young. And exhausted.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Fun But Irritating, April 24, 2007

By 

Carina - See all my reviews

This review is from: Momzillas (Hardcover)

Overall, I thought the book was fun to read. I have met lots of competitive mommies like the ones the author describes. However, I don't think I've ever read a book that contained so many type-o's. Also, the shortened words drove me nuts- for example, "neighb" instead of neighborhood. Maybe that slang is particular to some region of the country. It doesn't appeal to me. It also irritated me that the protagonist was so judgemental. Couldn't she find something nice to say about the Momzillas? They were her first New York City Mom friends. They invited her to events. They showed her places in the city. By the end of the book, it seemed like she was declaring herself superior to them. I would have believed and liked her more if she had simply concluded that she didn't have much in common with them and found new friends whose company she enjoyed more.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious and relatable, November 16, 2007

By 

C. Grimes (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Momzillas (Hardcover)

I picked up Momzillas figuring it would be fairly amusing, but as soon as I started reading the Glossary in the beginning, I was laughing so hard. Even for those of us not living on the UES of Manhattan, we can relate to the Momzillas Hannah deals with in the book. Jill's humorous, breezy style made this a fun and quick read, and I loved that it was laced with so many pop-culture references. I had just finished reading a couple of pretty heavy novels, and this was a welcome treat. Thanks, Jill! Looking forward to more fun reads!

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Major disappointment!, June 18, 2007

By 

Chick Lit 78 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Momzillas (Hardcover)

I purchased this book based on the reviews I read on Amazon. Boy, was I disappointed! The book was neither funny nor original. The main character Hannah drove me nuts! She had no back bone and could not stand up for herself and her beliefs. The "Momzillas" were completely obnoxious and over the top. I skipped through tons of pages of irrelevant side stories that basically didn't add anything to the plot.The only good part of the book was the fact that it was short, other than that it was a complete waste of my time.