Life Laughs: The Naked Truth about Motherhood, Marriage, and Moving On (Paperback)

by Jenny McCarthy (Author) "Hey, welcome back!..." (more)
Key Phrases: Potato Head, Singled Out, Bleaching Your Asshole (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Hilarious . . . A no-holds-barred look at the joys, challenges, and humiliations of the first year of mommyhood. -- Time Out New York on Baby Laughs

McCarthy’s comic tell-all will have fellow moms nodding. . . . It’s everything about new motherhood your polite girlfriends won’t tell you. -- The Philadelphia Inquirer on Belly Laughs

[McCarthy’s] honesty is disarming, funny, and so boundless that you’ll feel as if you’re at her side every step of the way. -- Arizona Republic

Review
[McCarthy’s] honesty is disarming, funny, and so boundless that you’ll feel as if you’re at her side every step of the way. (Arizona Republic)

McCarthy’s comic tell-all will have fellow moms nodding. . . . It’s everything about new motherhood your polite girlfriends won’t tell you. (The Philadelphia Inquirer on Belly Laughs)

Hilarious . . . A no-holds-barred look at the joys, challenges, and humiliations of the first year of mommyhood. (Time Out New York on Baby Laughs)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Plume (March 27, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452288290
• ISBN-13: 978-0452288294
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #50,734 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #12 in	Books > Entertainment > Television > Direction & Production
  #30 in	Books > Parenting & Families > Humor
  #74 in	Books > Nonfiction > Women's Studies > Motherhood

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Girls Night Out, November 1, 2006

By	Michele Cozzens "www.michelecozzens.com" (Cloud 8) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Life Laughs: The Naked Truth about Motherhood, Marriage, and Moving On (Hardcover)

Like the author, Jenny McCarthy, I was also raised Catholic in a Chicago suburb and attended Southern Illinois University. This is what compelled me to read "Life Laughs," her third book. She starts out the essay collection with a warning, preparing readers for her "honesty," as she discusses a variety of personal topics in a brash, "crude, raw, and sometimes dirty" manner. Truly, it's an honest description of her simple, conversational writing.

The first three quarters of the column-like compositions focus on marriage, and there are several woman vs. man scenarios typical to new relationships. As the marriage ages, the child is born, body parts start to sag, and then one day she rolls over in bed "and saw a nose with hair sticking out that was snoring with some pretty bad morning breath." There's no linear pattern to the collection, it's sort of random and all over the place, as Jenny goes places others fear to tread. Not knowing what to expect on the next page (a page that might include a caricature of Jenny falling into a toilet) added to the entertainment.

Throughout the hour or so it took me to read this bawdy little book, I felt like I was out for drinks with my funniest friends (it wasn't the book club, but definitely the bunco group) and even though I laughed out loud a few times, I have to admit, this gal also managed to bring out my inner prude. "Life Laughs," by Jenny McCarthy is for 30-something women the way "I Feel Bad About My Neck," by Nora Ephron is for 50-something women. She reminds us of the importance of laughing at ourselves, and she's willing to bare it all--even a seeming underlying pain--to do so.

Michele Cozzens is the author of It's Not Your Mother's Bridge Club

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't begin to live up to her other books, May 20, 2006

By	Illyria777 "junia-byu" (Provo, UT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Life Laughs: The Naked Truth about Motherhood, Marriage, and Moving On (Hardcover)

I adored Jenny's first two books. Before I explain what made this one so bad, recall what made the first two so great: you could really relate to them! They made you laugh because you had been there yourself. Even if you came from a completely different background than Jen--religious, sexual, and cultural--you could still totally relate to everything in those books because pregnancy and motherhood are such universal experiences.

Not so with Life Laughs. For starters, enjoy the picture of her kid on the cover, because that's about all the "motherhood" Jen covers in this book. Out of 45 chapters, only one directly focuses on parenting. If you, like me, bought this book hoping for at least a partial continuation of the first two books and some juicy, hilarious anecdotes about the challenges of trying to parent a toddler in the real world, then you're going to be disappointed.

A better subtitle for the book would have been "The Naked Truth About Multiple Sexual Partners, Marriage and Moving On," because that's really what the book was about. If you've never slept around rampantly or faked your way through endless nights of tedious and unwanted sex, then you'll probably have a hard time relating to the brunt of this book, because that's what it's really about.

Jen is open and honest with her audience as always, and she'll doubtless cover material that you will still be able to relate to. Some of it is even funny. But overall the book feels hurried and disjointed--and the typos and grammatical errors don't impress much, either. Wherever Jenny is, I hope she someday reaches deep inside and brings out for us again that witty, laugh-out-loud hilarious woman we all know is in there. Because this isn't it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love*, June 15, 2006

By	Elizabeth Resor "Lizard*" (Greenville, OH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Life Laughs: The Naked Truth about Motherhood, Marriage, and Moving On (Hardcover)

Wow. the moment i saw this book came out i had to buy it. I read her first book, "Belly Laughs" because I just found out I was pregnant, and it was at a consignment store...I decided what the hell...its $3. So i read it, i loved it. It helped me alot!!!
I went and read the next book, "baby Laughs." It was just as good! It was impossible to put this book down. I just kept turning the page LMAO.
I ordered "Life Laughs" and had it read in less than two hours. She talks about stuff that NO ONE else has the balls to write outloud! Let alone ADMIT about yourself. She puts herself out there, and I think she is doing a great thing, using her name to write a story. It IS interesting. EVEN if you don't like her. I find her LOL funny....