Odd Mom Out - book review

Odd Mom Out by Jane Porter

Marta and her daughter Eva have just moved across the country from NYC to Seattle for her work and to be closer to her sick mother.  Suddenly, her confident little girl, aged nine, has decided that she needs to be in the in-crowd and Marta has to watch her struggle while trying.  Seen as an outsider, Marta tries to change some things about herself in order to facilitate her daughter making friends, such as getting involved in the PTA, and in general trying to make friends with the moms of the girls that Eva wants to be friends with.

This was the premise of the book I picked up.  While it hinted that Marta would be trying something "new"  I was holding out hope that it would be a chick lit book that revolved around a mother and daughter and not a man.  Have I ever read chick lit before?  Only a million times, so I should have known that it was crazy for me to think I could find a book without a man being the focus.  Oh, and he's not just an average man this time.  No, he tall, model-handsome, has good morals, AND he's a billionaire.  Because that's realistic.

So, yes I was disappointed that the book took a drastic turn off of the whole mother daughter situation to follow her dating life, I was also disappointed in the dialogue.  For example - and these are not direct quotes by any means, just a summed up version of many of the converstions (B=boy, G=girl):
B:  You're chicken.
G:  No, I'm not.
B:  Yes you are.
G:  Ok, I guess I am.

Then there was all the talk about "playing with fire".  Come on.

Ok.  I'm possibly being a bit harsh on this one, but I was really excited to read this because of having a daughter and I was hoping that someone could have written a chick lit style book without such emphasis on a man.  I probably won't be reading books by Jane Porter again.

And one last thing.  The cover really bugged me.  The women in the background were supposed to be Stepford wife looking women, but I think they just looked like grandmothers.
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