Momzillas [Hardcover]

Jill Kargman (Author)

Book Description

Release 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 (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,301,983 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.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful

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

By Carina

Format: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

Format: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

3.0 out of 5 stars Any Mom, Anywhere Could Have Written This. April 12, 2007

By mommy reader

Format:Hardcover

The behavior of the moms depicted in "Momzillas" is unique only considering their wealth. They are able to competetively acquire whatever money can buy for their precious lambs. However, these competitive moms are everywhere. The book cover states that Ms. Kargman is a perfect author of such a topic, since she resides in Manhattan. Just about anyone could have easily written a similar book based solely on visits to New York, watching Sex and the City and reading "The Nanny Diaries". I had read Ms. Kargman's other books written with her co-author. They were decent chick-lit, but definitely no "Devil Wears Prada" or "Nanny Diaries". I was surprised it took both of them to write the previous books. This one seems no different, and certainly no better. Where was the editing? On one page, the word should have clearly been "heard" but was written "head". We're talking the 2nd chapter. Was I the only one who caught it? And what's with the leaving words out of sentences? Is this a new, hip way of speaking? One paragraph was describing how the people of California were perceived and stated how they "ran amok buck peeing themselves." Was that supposed to mean "ran amock buck NAKED peeing ON themselves?" Was this intentional and maybe I'm just not hip enough? Who knows.

The glossary of terms at the beginning of the book is entertaining, but the use of such terms grated on one's nerves. Who really says "actsch" instead of "actually"? And were we supposed to believe that anyone's husband would really refer to our friend Leigh as "LeighLeigh"? Please. It's as though the author tried way too hard to be cool. Not every description has to sound as though it's coming from a young, urban adult. Sometimes (as in many times) a young adult, middle-aged adult and senior citizen may say and describe things in the same, exact way. There's no need for the constant slang and shortening of words. This book, while containing many funny passages, was not really as funny as the other reviewers found it to be. I have 4 kids and 3 are currently teenagers. So many funnier things happen past the preschool years. I guess I just didn't find it all that funny or well-written.