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Every day, parents struggle to do it all—juggling family and work and (maybe) a social life. And in Holly Banks Full of Angst, the first Village of Primm novel by author Julie Valerie, a young mom moves to a new town and finds the challenges—and the other moms—to be too much to handle.
The story moves into a Pinterest-perfect home in the village of Primm with Holly Banks, her husband, Jack, and her daughter, Ella. But even before Ella’s first day of kindergarten, things begin to go horribly wrong. Holly faces off against Mary-Margaret St. James, the perky but tyrannical PTA president, who proceeds to make her life miserable. When Ella misses the bus on the first day of school, Holly ends up hitting a school bus. And, to make matters worse, Holly suspects that her husband is cheating on her with his gorgeous boss. But nothing here is quite as Holly suspects.
Clearly, life in the perfect village of Primm isn’t exactly perfect for Holly Banks. Sending your only child off to kindergarten is hard enough without having to fight off the demands of a pushy woman who expects non-stop volunteer hours from each and every mother.
Moms will be able to relate to Holly’s struggles. We all feel the pressure to be the perfect mom and the perfect partner, to have a house that’s always ready for guests, to be involved in every school activity, to go after our dreams, to look perfectly put together. And as Holly crumbles under the unreasonable pressures after just a few days of school, readers will understand what she’s dealing with.
The problem, however, is that the author can’t seem to decide how she feels about the characters. One minute, Mary-Margaret is evil and conniving. The next, she might just be sweet and thoughtful and trying her best to make friends. She might be helpful; she might be devious. And the author never really seems to commit to one or the other. The same is true of Greta, the drunken, unfit mother from Holly’s youth, who still has problems with gambling addiction—but who also may be loving and loyal and a generally adorably batty grandmother. Even Holly fluctuates from suspicious to loyal to strong to wildly unhinged and spitting food at other adults. And while a little complexity makes characters more interesting, these are more confusing than complex.
With its exaggerated realities and its sometimes comically over-the-top characters, Holly Banks Full of Angst will have moms chuckling and cheering on their clueless sister. But the author’s indecision regarding her characters may leave you feeling frustrated.
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