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charmainelim's review
1.0
I have a full length rant...I mean review up: https://charmainelimen.wordpress.com/2015/10/17/review-goddess-of-suburbia-by-stephanie-kepke/
mbarron57's review
3.0
Thank you to Net Galley for a ARC of this book.
if you're looking for a quick, no-brainer read for lounging beach- or poolside then Goddess of Suburbia is your best bet. The book developed extremely fast and some parts read more like a script then an actual story but in the end I did get the happy ending I was hoping for.
if you're looking for a quick, no-brainer read for lounging beach- or poolside then Goddess of Suburbia is your best bet. The book developed extremely fast and some parts read more like a script then an actual story but in the end I did get the happy ending I was hoping for.
booking_along's review
2.0
*I received this copy from the publishers through NetGalley in exchange for a honest review*
This might include information that could be seen as spoilers for what is happening in the book, but only if you don’t actually read the summary, still be warned.
I really have to say that I was looking forward to reading this. I love a good spin on the typical cheating husband and divorce with children. I was looking forward to a funny and fast read, with an interesting spin and loving characters –for the most part at least.
Well… I did not really get that. There is the interesting spin: homemade porn that goes really big. And I mean really big, there is talk about Ophra commenting on it in this book. But overall this book was just too much for me.
The author blew this book completely out of proportion for me.
She tried to write something big, and overshot that by more then a few miles.
But lets start with something good about the book…. the boys –three out of the four children in this book- are very fun and interesting to read about. I loved their honesty and way to try to cheer their mom up during the difficult time. So that was rather nice. What was also kept real was the aspect of the other moms and how they treated the main character Max after the entire porn stuff came out and was talked about. That the other moms would talk so that their children would make Max’s children’s lifes more difficult and all that. Very real and very honest on how a situation that is difficult to begin with would be made even harder in real life, simply because of how other people react to it. So I liked those aspects. Sadly that was all that I found enjoyable about this story.
So on to the parts that I did not like.
Lets start with the completely ridiculous and unrealistic part.
The paparazzo!
I am sorry, but no-nobody porn housewife that does not sleep with some kind of superstar is going to be followed around by hoards of photographers! Its just not that interesting. I could have understand one or two reporters that wanted a background story, and get a quote or something of that nature. But really, I do not believe that homemade porn, shoot by a phone camera with to complete unknown people would ever get that kind of talk or following. So that was completely over the top and too extreme for me. So about ¼ of the story is completely stupid to me. I am sorry to say it so bluntly, but it really was just horrible to read about! If the author wanted to make it a story about how hard it is to live in the spotlight after porn is released, make the main character someone at least a little known in some way or form. Max was a pastry chef, let her be some kind of famous pastry chef in the city they live in if the author wants to write about a paparazzo following!
And even if we skip over the nobodies that would never even make it into magazines, lets talk about how only Max is being chased after. What about Nick? Her husband that is also featured in the video? Why isn’t he chased after by reporters wanting pictures of him? Or the mistress that posted the entire thing? Why is only Max the one suffering through it? I don’t understand.
And then there were the parts, where I did not completely understand what time the story talked about was taken place in, since the author tried to combine current events. And those moments just did not work, at all. Mostly because for one the moments those flashbacks or what ever the heck you want to call them happened didn’t make any sense at all.
And then there is the fact that, Sometimes I did not notice that it was a past event for a while and was just confused what the heck was going on. How should I know that while Max was talking to someone on the phone, she would suddenly tell a story in the middle of it without it being pointed out that the conversation that is currently taking place is not actually the phone conversation that happened just a sentence ago, but happened a twenty years ago?
That might be better in the actual book, where those past events are marked more directly, but in the ARC it was not even pointed out that the reader was going into the past, just one moment you read a sentence from the present and the next it was a flashback.
Then there is the entire relationship between Max and Nick- the cheating husband that was also in the porn video. Nick was a complete ass! He didn’t care for what was happening, nor how his children were handling the entire thing, nor that it might not be the best time to move in with his mistress and take his children there right away. Also those pointed comments about how Max only married Nick because they had great sex was kind of overdone for me. And also after being caught cheating, nobody should ever use the pathetic excuse of saying they only did it because they have a sex addiction –that by the way is never talked about ever again in the book, so it was completely pointless anyways! And I am not saying that a sex addiction is pathetic, but that using it as an excuse to cheat is!
And then there is Max herself. She is kind of all over the place for me. On one page she hates men and doesn’t trust anybody. On the next she is getting back together with the college sweetheart. Huh? What the heck is going on?
And lastly what I did not like was how the oldest child blamed the mom. I am sorry if you are fourteen years old and don’t understand that your cheating lying father is at least halfway responsible for what the heck is going on during this kind of thing, you need to get your head checked! Okay, your mom and dad filmed themselves having sex, but they were both there, not just the mom! So what the heck, child?
So overall… The story was a nice try, but overdone. To me the author tried to hard to make it interesting and put to much stuff into the story. And really the only thing that can be taken away from this entire book is that especially in this time of age, nobody should ever EVER tape anything that they do not want others to find out.
This might include information that could be seen as spoilers for what is happening in the book, but only if you don’t actually read the summary, still be warned.
I really have to say that I was looking forward to reading this. I love a good spin on the typical cheating husband and divorce with children. I was looking forward to a funny and fast read, with an interesting spin and loving characters –for the most part at least.
Well… I did not really get that. There is the interesting spin: homemade porn that goes really big. And I mean really big, there is talk about Ophra commenting on it in this book. But overall this book was just too much for me.
The author blew this book completely out of proportion for me.
She tried to write something big, and overshot that by more then a few miles.
But lets start with something good about the book…. the boys –three out of the four children in this book- are very fun and interesting to read about. I loved their honesty and way to try to cheer their mom up during the difficult time. So that was rather nice. What was also kept real was the aspect of the other moms and how they treated the main character Max after the entire porn stuff came out and was talked about. That the other moms would talk so that their children would make Max’s children’s lifes more difficult and all that. Very real and very honest on how a situation that is difficult to begin with would be made even harder in real life, simply because of how other people react to it. So I liked those aspects. Sadly that was all that I found enjoyable about this story.
So on to the parts that I did not like.
Lets start with the completely ridiculous and unrealistic part.
The paparazzo!
I am sorry, but no-nobody porn housewife that does not sleep with some kind of superstar is going to be followed around by hoards of photographers! Its just not that interesting. I could have understand one or two reporters that wanted a background story, and get a quote or something of that nature. But really, I do not believe that homemade porn, shoot by a phone camera with to complete unknown people would ever get that kind of talk or following. So that was completely over the top and too extreme for me. So about ¼ of the story is completely stupid to me. I am sorry to say it so bluntly, but it really was just horrible to read about! If the author wanted to make it a story about how hard it is to live in the spotlight after porn is released, make the main character someone at least a little known in some way or form. Max was a pastry chef, let her be some kind of famous pastry chef in the city they live in if the author wants to write about a paparazzo following!
And even if we skip over the nobodies that would never even make it into magazines, lets talk about how only Max is being chased after. What about Nick? Her husband that is also featured in the video? Why isn’t he chased after by reporters wanting pictures of him? Or the mistress that posted the entire thing? Why is only Max the one suffering through it? I don’t understand.
And then there were the parts, where I did not completely understand what time the story talked about was taken place in, since the author tried to combine current events. And those moments just did not work, at all. Mostly because for one the moments those flashbacks or what ever the heck you want to call them happened didn’t make any sense at all.
And then there is the fact that, Sometimes I did not notice that it was a past event for a while and was just confused what the heck was going on. How should I know that while Max was talking to someone on the phone, she would suddenly tell a story in the middle of it without it being pointed out that the conversation that is currently taking place is not actually the phone conversation that happened just a sentence ago, but happened a twenty years ago?
That might be better in the actual book, where those past events are marked more directly, but in the ARC it was not even pointed out that the reader was going into the past, just one moment you read a sentence from the present and the next it was a flashback.
Then there is the entire relationship between Max and Nick- the cheating husband that was also in the porn video. Nick was a complete ass! He didn’t care for what was happening, nor how his children were handling the entire thing, nor that it might not be the best time to move in with his mistress and take his children there right away. Also those pointed comments about how Max only married Nick because they had great sex was kind of overdone for me. And also after being caught cheating, nobody should ever use the pathetic excuse of saying they only did it because they have a sex addiction –that by the way is never talked about ever again in the book, so it was completely pointless anyways! And I am not saying that a sex addiction is pathetic, but that using it as an excuse to cheat is!
And then there is Max herself. She is kind of all over the place for me. On one page she hates men and doesn’t trust anybody. On the next she is getting back together with the college sweetheart. Huh? What the heck is going on?
And lastly what I did not like was how the oldest child blamed the mom. I am sorry if you are fourteen years old and don’t understand that your cheating lying father is at least halfway responsible for what the heck is going on during this kind of thing, you need to get your head checked! Okay, your mom and dad filmed themselves having sex, but they were both there, not just the mom! So what the heck, child?
So overall… The story was a nice try, but overdone. To me the author tried to hard to make it interesting and put to much stuff into the story. And really the only thing that can be taken away from this entire book is that especially in this time of age, nobody should ever EVER tape anything that they do not want others to find out.
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