How to Party with an Infant (Hemmings) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
How to Party with an Infant…rejoices in irresistibly dry wit…. Hemmings perfectly captures modern parenthood among the privileged and, with moments of concise poignancy, the silent shames of motherhood: envy, boredom, laziness and guilt…. The book takes a few stabs at easy targets…. But the pleasures of Hemmings's levity and wisdom more than sustain the reader. We cheer for her warm, self-deprecating characters and hope they continue to laugh together instead of crying alone.
Heidi Pitlor - New York Times Book Review


Side-splittingly snark...the novel's characters and settings are rich and resonant... [A] smart, funny send-up of modern motherhood, San Francisco-style.
San Francisco Chronicle


The wit is often diabolical—which is to say, delicious—in Kaui Hart Hemmings’ new novel...[is a] sly takedown of 21st-century parenting.... Underneath this wicked wit, though, is a warm heart.
Seattle Times


It’s not often a reviewer can say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with a book; that a novel is standalone perfection and needs no tweaks or editing. How to Party with an Infant is one of those rare exceptions...incredibly well written and thought out.... Best of all: it’s funny! Actually, incredibly, tremendously funny! This book will surely put a smile on readers’ faces from start to finish...a powerful tale sure to make readers’ hearts swell while cracking the biggest grin, i.e. the best kind of story.
Portland Book Reivew


The sarcastic, irreverent voice we loved in The Descendants is back in Kaui Hart Hemmings' new novel...a funny, incisive tour de force that takes on the pretensions and foibles of these haute-bourgeois, narcissistic urbanites...Joyful and sexy.
Honolulu Star-Advertiser


Mommyhood gets hilariously tricky in this novel from the author of The Descendents (A Cosmo Reads pick).
Cosmopolitan


Meet Mele, a young single mom, a good cook, and an even better eavesdropper. She enters a San Francisco mommy club’s cookbook contest and makes recipes based on her cohort’s humiliating confessions in this charmer from the author of The Descendents.
Marie Claire


In Kaui Hart Hemmings' cheeky yet poignant novel, Mele attempts to navigate parenthood as a single mom. She finds comfort while writing a cookbook filled with recipes inspired by tales of her friends' own parenting disasters (Hot Summer Stories pick).
Us Weekly


In her funny and sensitive fourth novel, Hemmings explores the intersection of personhood and parenthood.... [A] layered narrative that is both ruthless and empathetic, satirical and sincere.
Publishers Weekly


Hemmings effectively captures the judgmental, overly prescribed nature of today's parenting assumptions. [P]arents will relate, while those who are not will feel relieved. The book's format as a questionnaire accompanying Mele's cookbook application is somewhat artificial but doesn't interfere too much with the storytelling. —Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
Library Journal


This is satire with soul. Hemmings skewers the cottage industries that helicopter motherhood has fostered, while plaintively celebrating the basic joys and frustrations all parents experience. Whip smart, sharp witted, and downright brave, Hemmings’ novel of modern parenting is sleek, sly, and sublime.
Booklist


[A] potato-chip-thin comedy about a single mother in San Francisco hoping to win a cookbook competition.... From the plucky heroine whose life is not very hard to the easy potshots at stereotypical monster-moms, this novel is so contrived it's hard to believe it comes from the same author as the [2007] emotionally wrenching The Descendents.
Kirkus Reviews