Mean Moms: A Novel

Written by Emma Rosenblum, published July, 2025.

Buckle up, buttercup, because this book is a wild ride from beginning to end.  Set in the prestigious (read ultra rich) Atherton Private Academy in New York City, the book follows a set of Queen Bee Moms through a school year.  The publisher classifies this book as a satirical domestic thriller/fiction novel. I don't feel like that title even begins to cover the depth of the dark humor or the look at the social maneuvering that are found throughout this book. 

The fly leaf asks a question that haunted me throughout the entire book: What would happen if the woman standing next to you at school pickup was actually a sociopath?  And with that lead, the wildest literary ride I've had in a long time began. 

As you can tell from the title of the blog, I had children. Enough to fill a mini-van.  And I was very involved in their activities. I can honestly say, I've met most of the Moms that were caricatured in this book at some point in time.  While I am not and never have been wealthy (my kids went to public schools) The personalities of the main characters were accurately portrayed.  I've met these women.  You've met them, too!

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

 

This was such a delightfully unexpected book!  Set as a series of letters, we join Sybil who has retired and sits down to write everyone.  Family, friends, neighbors, authors, and acquaintances.  

Through these letters, we take a look at Sybil's life both past and present.  We journey with her through her relationships with her friends, family, and acquaintances. She takes a hard look at her actions, and how they have impacted others around her.

I found this book to be a charming story that delved deep into the heart of the human condition.  Through Sybil's letters, we see great loss, regret, love, and joy.  While each letter is to or from a different person, it is easy to follow the arc of Sybil's story.  There were several times when I found myself downright angry with Sybil... and sometimes I wanted to send her a letter and ask her some questions about an event that she alluded to in her letters.

In many ways, Sybil reminded me of my mother in law.  While my MIL was never a lawyer, she was of a similar age to Sybil in the story, and she was a dedicated letter writer.  We have binders of the letters that she wrote over the years. My MIL would not talk on the phone, but she would send a 20 page letter in a heartbeat.

And now, I find myself getting ready to sit down and write a letter to Virginia Evans.  While she might not ever answer me, I feel the need to sit down and write a physical letter in appreciation for this wonderful novel that she has gifted us.  5/5, highly recommend this book!

NPR Interview with the Author: https://www.npr.org/2026/01/22/nx-s1-5677630/the-influence-of-the-sleeper-hit-novel-the-correspondent

Author Website: https://www.virginiaevansauthor.com/

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

 This book, written by Kim Michele Richardson, is a masterpiece.  There are so many levels to this book, so many stories within stories, within stories that it took me a while to process it all.  I need to put it all down on paper.  There are just so many parts to this story that need to be explored. I'm going to attempt to pull all of my thoughts together here... bear with me.  Just know, I loved this book.  It's a worthwhile read. My thoughts are below the trigger warnings.

  

Trigger Warnings: Sexual Assault, Sexual Harassment, Racism, Prejudice, Domestic Violence and Abuse, Child Death, Violence, Murder, Medical Experimentation, Trauma, Starvation, Poverty.

Summary:

 Cussy Mary, or Bluet, is the last of her kind.  She is one of the Blue Fugates of Kentucky.  Her skin has been blue since birth. There is no known cure for this.  However, the Blue Fugates found themselves ostracized from general society as fear, spread through stories, traveled through the mountains. Bluet has found a job as a Pack Horse Librarian, and travels through the hollers surrounding Troublesome Creek in order to take books to families who would have no reading material otherwise.  As the reader travels through the countryside in the depths of the Depression, the reader sees how truly desperate things were for the poor and hungry during that time.  

So, here are the levels of the story as I saw them:

On the first level, this is the story about the Pack Horse Librarians of Eastern Kentucky.  During the Great Depression, the WPA sent these librarians out into the hills on horseback to deliver books the residents of the coves and hollers of Eastern Kentucky.  With minimal printed materials available, the pack horse librarians were a life line for these families, bringing books, news, and word about what was going on in town.  The routes were downright dangerous.  More than one Pack Horse Librarian died in the line of service.

On the second level, this is the story of the Blue Fugates of Eastern Kentucky.  The story of who they were as people, and the ostracized lives that they led.  Why were they ostracized?  Because they were blue.  "Colored".  Along with all of the connotations that word brought with it in the 1930's.  It's a stark look at racism.

Coal Miners.  There were many coal miners in Eastern Kentucky in the Depression.  It was a good job, if you could get it.  It was also a hard job. My grandfather was a coal miner in the pits in Indiana during the Great Depression.  I've always heard stories about how hard the work was, but I don't think that the depth of horrors of that job hit me until I was reading the story of Cussy's father.

Lastly, it is a stark look at the Great Depression.  The outright starvation that took so many lives. Again, I'd heard stories.  My parents were little in the Great Depression.  One grandfather had a steady job in the coal mines.  The other worked for the WPA.  I've heard stories about how tight money was and how hard food was to come by.  My grandfather who worked for the WPA would bring home a large sack of beans from the government every once in a while, and that bag of beans fed the entire family until the next bag came home.  Granny would stretch those beans in any way that she could. 

During the course of reading this book, I did a lot of research about the Troublesome Creek area.  To this day, it is still a very poor county.  According to citydata.com, 50% of the residents of Hindman live below the poverty level and the average median income is just a little over $23,000.  That data  is from 2023. In the southeastern part of Kentucky, known as Appalachia, where this story is set, there are multiple missions set up by multiple mainline Christian Denominations, attempting to help ease the poverty in the area through education and job skills training.  

The Blue Fugates of Kentucky were a very real people.  They descended from one man - Martin Fugate - who had immigrated from France.  He was white. He married a white girl who had been born and raised in Kentucky.  Four of their seven children were blue.  How wild is it that they both carried that same recessive gene?  (Information from the author's notes in the back of the book.)   I did dive deep into research on the Blue Fugates. They were a very shy and quiet people who kept to themselves.  Understandable.