Life After Coffee by Virginia Franken Review & GIVEAWAY: A Hilarious Must-Read for Stressed Out Moms

I received this book for free from TLC Book Tours for review consideration, opinions expressed are 100% my own. This post contains affiliate links as indicated by an asterisk. Purchases from these links provides a small commission to me at no extra cost to you.

Blurb:

4* I really liked it! Life After Coffee by Virginia Franken is filled with humor and raw, real emotion about the messiness and joys of motherhood. A must-read for any stressed out mom who needs a laugh and longs for a great cup of coffee! 

Synopsis from Goodreads:

“When globe-trotting coffee buyer, Amy O’Hara, assures her husband—who stays at home to watch the kids—that it is He Who Has it Harder… she doesn’t really believe it. That is, until the day she gets laid off, her husband decides to devote all his waking hours to writing a screenplay, and she discovers she’s actually the world’s most incompetent mother.

Amy’s only possible salvation is to find another high-flying job as quickly as possible, but with the coffee industry imploding around her—and the competing buyers in her field being much hipper prospects—things look pretty dire. Even if Amy does manage to find full-time employment ever again, as her life slowly becomes more and more entwined with her children’s, how will she be able to bear leaving them to travel for weeks on end?

When salvation appears in the form of a movie-mogul ex-boyfriend who wants to employ her husband and rekindle their relationship, Amy starts to find she’s sorely tempted…

 

One thing is certain: whatever happens, she’s going to need a lot more caffeine.”

My Thoughts:

I thought I’d be happy when I quit my stressful full-time job to become a stay-at-home mom for my 3 angelic boys. Surely it couldn’t be THAT hard having my 3 year old home all day while the older 2 were in school, I naively thought. Don’t get me wrong, I knew it would be hard physically to keep up with the little speed demon. But I thought I’d have all this time to get my house perfectly organized and decorated while I was home and accomplish all these things I’d daydreamed of the 13 years I was a full-time working outside the home mom.

That was 3 years ago and still I’ve only made a small dent in my wish list of goals. No one told me that the mess regenerates faster than I can clean it it seems… even when they aren’t home! I’m happier…100% yes…but no one told me soon my daydreams of a beautiful home and perfectly mannered and brilliant kids would turn into daydreams of just wanting to pee alone. You moms of kids under 5 years old can relate, right? 

So when Life After Coffee came across my email and author Virginia Franken described her ideal reader as “A strung out, stressed out mom would understand”, I said that was me and just about every other mom I know whether she wants to admit it or not! And boy, DID I understand.

I understood every fear that Amy had every time she had to pry them off of her screaming and crying to go to work. I understood every self-doubt Amy had of why am I doing this? I understood every heartbreak when the kids preferred to be with their daddy instead of her (have you met my Superhubby? He’s a tough act to compete with when it comes to having fun). And I understood every simple, magical, heart-pounding-out-of-your-chest, tears-streaming-down-your-face joy that only motherhood can bring. 

I really enjoyed Life After Coffee, so much so that I nearly read the entire book in one day. I like stories where the characters are flawed and yet manage to grow and learn from their mistakes. With both humor and real, raw emotion, Franken brings the plight of the working mother and SAHM’s to light. Neither job is easy and there is a lot of messiness and winging it along the way. Amy has the added pressure of thinking about the one that got away and what will happen when he wants her back. Can her marriage and family survive her decisions?

Life after Coffee will make moms laugh and cry (just a little) and will make coffee lovers seek out their favorite quality cup of coffee.

Books Like This You Might Enjoy:

These would be great gifts for any mom or mom-to-be! 

The Big Book of Parenting Tweets: Featuring the Most Hilarious Parents on Twitter – 4*, a quick and funny read that all parents can relate to

The Mother of All Meltdowns Book Review – 3*- you think meltdowns are only for the kids? These moms confess their worst meltdown for all to read! 

My 3 Favorite Short Story Collections about Motherhood – some funny and some that redefine what a “good” mother means

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