Mom’s The Word by Marilynn Griffith

Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Steeple Hill (January 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0373786417
ISBN-13: 978-0373786411

When her tall, dark, delicious husband joins their three kids in calling her “Mom,” Karol Simons has an identity crisis. Sure she loves the pint-sized trio, but what’s happened to her dreams of writing a novel? Determined to have it all, she turns to her neighbor for help.

Everyone’s in for some big surprises….

This book was a refreshing read that took me back in time – back to the days when I was growing up and we were close to our next-door neighbors. Karol misses her best friend, Hope and Hope’s husband, Singh. Their former next-door neighbors and their tribe of children have moved away leaving Karol mystified and sad. Their new neighbors, Dyanne and Neal, are quite different from their old neighbors. Dyanne is a career woman, and she fancies herself as a future mom, only if she can convince her husband that it’s time for them to multiply.

When you add Fallon, a mature eccentric author, into Dyanne’s and Neal’s household, the story becomes even more interesting.

Karol is facing a crises – she wants to write her book but has no time since she’s a full-time mommy. Dyanne wants to try her hand at motherhood so she steps in, offering to help Karol and her family while Karol takes a vacation from being a parent so that she can finish writing her book.

Both couples find their marriages in trouble when Karol discovers the real reason that Hope and Singh left and Dyanne and Neal face their own problems especially when Dyanne continues her quest for pregnancy.

I recommend this book if you want a good, insightful, refreshing story that you’ll read pretty quickly. The characters are quirky, but realistic and I believe lots of people could find something in this book that they can relate to.

I haven’t gone off on a tangent like this for a book review in a long time, but this novel got me to thinking about my childhood. We were close to our next-door neighbors when we lived on the military base. I recall playing at each other’s houses and I remember my mother being friends with the mom who lived next door. I remember she was a large woman who wore glasses and she had a loud voice. When she laughed, she threw her head back and opened her mouth so wide that I could sometimes see her tonsils when she was laughing about something! I remember their names, but not sure if I should post them here! I did look up the boy on Facebook and I think I found him! I’m not sure if he’d remember me if I contacted him, though!

The reason why I have fond memories of next-door neighbors is because it’s something that I have NOT experienced as an adult. After getting out of college and working full time, living in apartments and houses, I just never really connected with next-door neighbors the way we did while on the military base when I was a kid.

Are you close to your next-door neighbors? Do you think people are close to their neighbors nowadays, or are people just too busy working and living their own lives to develop close relationships with people in their neighborhood?

~Cecelia Dowdy~