This one was a miss for me. I was really looking forward to a funny story I could get lost in but this fell flat for me. I was missing the funny.

Publisher’s description: When he changes the locks, she changes the rules.

Agnes Murphy Nash is the perfect Hollywood wife – she has the right friends, the right clothes, and even a side career of her own as a writer. Her husband Trevor is a bigshot producer, and from the outside it looks like they’re living a picture-perfect celebrity life, complete with tennis tournaments and lavish parties.

But the job description of a Hollywood wife doesn’t cover divorce, which is the way Agnes’ life is headed after she comes home one day to find her credit cards cancelled and the security passwords to get into her enormous LA home changed. Oh, and there’s a guy there whose job it is to tase her if she tries to enter…which she does.

Needless to say, Agnes’ husband is dead set on making sure she loses big time, but Agnes isn’t the type to just lie down and take it. In a world of fremenies and hot nannies, personal psychics and “skinny” jello shots, Agnes may be losing her husband, but could that mean getting her own life back?

Been There, Married That is a drop-dead hilarious battle of wills that will make you laugh out loud, cringe, and keep turning the pages to see what crazy disaster will happen to Agnes next…and how she’ll rise from the ashes.

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After finishing Gigi Levangie’s “Been There, Married That,” I was shocked to discover that she was the creator of the story for the movie “Step Mom” because I love that movie and I hated this book. Maybe “hate” is a strong word, but I couldn’t find anything to like about it, and I didn’t think it was even remotely funny. The writing was disjointed and disorganized. There were so many places where there wasn’t a transition to indicate that a scene was changing, and the book was so stream of consciousness, I found myself rereading things that still didn’t make any sense.

Based on the description, I thought I would really enjoy this. This book is every cliche we hear about Hollywood — people with more money than they know what to do with, drug addicts and alcoholics, everyone sleeping with someone besides their spouse. Agnes is supposedly a successful author in her own right, but she and her friends are all vapid caricatures who sit around at lunch gossiping about the latest scandals until Agnes becomes the scandal and all but one stop taking her calls.

***SOME SPOILERS AHEAD***

Agnes has been a Hollywood wife for 10 years, but when her powerful producer husband tells her he wants a divorce, somehow she thinks it will be amicable and doesn’t listen to her friend Liz who tells her she needs to get an attorney immediately. She lets her husband dictate everything, including things like putting their house up for sale and doesn’t tell her that a potential buyer is coming to stay in the house for a weekend so she has to pack up their 11-year-old daughter and find somewhere to go for a weekend...after he cancelled her credit cards so she can’t check into a hotel! The buyer moves their grand piano out of the house to see what the room would look like with more space, steals her sheets and towels, and she doesn’t call the police??? She calls the realtor, who assures her the piano will be returned and she accepts a check for the sheets and towels because she needs the money.

That’s just one scenario. After a book full of these, when Agnes’s divorce is finalized, we see her on a movie set where her convicted felon sister, who has no experience making movies, is co-producing a movie with her now ex-husband, directed by a man her husband supposedly hates and she slept with in the midst of the divorce. WHAT?!?!

I don’t know. Maybe that’s the way things are in Hollywood. It certainly did not make for an engaging or funny read. I had no sympathy for Agnes. The whole thing was just pathetic.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance digital copy in exchange for an honest review. This title will be available on February 11, 2020.

I tried. Really, I did. I made it to about the 20% mark and then I had to stop. This is a did-not-finish title for me. This book is gross. As in spectacularly trashy. There's a time and a place for snarky humor and crass language, but this goes way too far. The blurb sounded fun and interesting, but the quality of the writing is poor so I didn't feel compelled to care about the heroine or her struggles. Thank you for the opportunity. I will not post my review anywhere.

Hmm.....this book took a lot to get through. I lot of wine, I lot of patience and a lot of thinking “wtf did I just read”. The writing was all over the place and the characters were not even remotely likable.

I swear on everything that I gave this a valiant effort but my god, this is horrible. It was so cringe inducing, unfunny but also not particularly interesting. Why do I care about what garbage human #1 does to garbage human #2? I’m not sure if the whole thing is meant to be satirical but if it is, it’s also not very good because it lacks the entertainment factor. Just... yikes, this try-hard word vomit should never have made it to print.

The writing was funny and I laughed out loud a lot while reading this, but it was choppy and sometimes hard to follow. I did like the idea of the story but had a hard time liking Agnes.

This an absolute gem of a book! Gigi Levangie created Agnes so those of us having a bad day can truly say "But not as bad as Agnes". A Hollywood wife trying to live her normal crazy life smacks head on into a wall when her Hollywood husband decides it's time for a life change, one he forgot to tell her about. While the story line may not be the most original, this book most definitely is! Fun, entertaining, full of humor...you could go on all day listing adjectives for this book, but it's better to just read it. I guarantee you will be glad you did.

This is a laugh out loud fast paced book, you definitely need to pay attention when reading it. I thought it was well written and a good storyline. I enjoyed the characters and it was a good read. I look forward to reading more stories by this author .
I read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book All thoughts and opinions are of my own.
Thank you NetGalley and St. Mark's Press for letting me read this story.

This was funny and witty at times but it was all over the place. It was hard to figure out at times what exactly was all going on. And the story itself which by the blurb I thought I would like was really stupid and bad. I would not recommend this story at all. I felt like it was a total waste of my time. I almost didn’t finish it but kept hoping that it would get better. But it didn’t.

DNF at 25%.

Agnes Murphy Nash is the perfect Hollywood wife, until her husband decides he's bored and wants a divorce - and he lets her know by locking out of their McMansion while she is out at a party, because he doesn't like conflict.

This was a frenetic disjointed stream of consciousness. Agnes wasn't really a sympathetic character and I really didn't understand what was happening as she careened from celebrity hairdresser to the stars to an interview with a gossip columnist to a gals night out without pause or any indication that the date and place had changed.

Even worse, I just didn't find this funny, maybe you have to be in Hollywood to get the in-jokes and understand the allusions. Anyway, I tried twice over six weeks and couldn't make it past a quarter of the way through the book.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Agnes (she hates the name, too) is living the Hollywood dream life - married to an Oscar winning producer husband, mother of teen daughter with all the accompanying problems, "crazy busy' mom life, and a palatial home with a beautiful view and a staff to take care of every need. But then - as it does for "commoners" - life happens. Her husband, Trevor, not only doesn't show up to her book release party, but changes the gate code to their home which leads her to scale the massive gate, fend off the dog, and be tased by her own security guard. Trevor drops more hints of impending trouble by informing her of the new role of the couple's assistant as a sleeping companion (but no sex involved), and scheduling occupancy times for each room in their home so they don't run into each other, until Agnes finally realizes that Trevor, following Hollywood trends for the sake of being trendy, doesn't quite feel up to being married anymore - even though he is not happy being unmarried either.

Add in Agnes's felon sister, her public humiliation of being removed from the IT gatherings and social circles, Trevor's shady tricks with his shady lawyers to prove her an incompetent mother, a "cognitive" (like a psychic...but not), and a very sexy director and you have a very entertaining book. It is always somewhat of a comfort to read about what we all perceive as the sheer silliness of the Hollywood lifestyle. It makes us appreciate our relatively normal lives with the normal-people problems. Agnes is easy to root for even though the reader may find herself shaking her head in wonderment about how Agnes could have ever hooked up with someone as narcissistic as Trevor in the first place and further, feel twinges of irritation as Agnes habitually defends him even though he is a complete a$$ to her. Agnes's sister, Fin, is also a likable character and takes her inability to comply with the law in stride and her happy ending is well-deserved.

Fun read if you like to roll your eyes and laugh-out-loud at the Hollywood crazy lifestyle,

As per the synopsis: A hilarious new novel full of Hollywood glitz, glamour, and scandal.

I did laugh out loud, I enjoyed the chick lit and I thought it was light hearted and I enjoyed the craziness of it all. It was so far, far out of touch with my world I loved it and the light relief it brought my world for a few hours.

There's lots of supporting characters who bring energy and laughs to the story and kinda reminds me of the Stephanie Plum humour in the Janet Evanovich series.

Loved the cover, loved the humour and loved the crazy zany characters.

Been There, Married That seemed like such a promising book when I read the synopsis and I was really looking forward to reading it. I've been reading some pretty heavy books lately and a fun, snarky book seemed like the perfect antidote to those.

Unfortunately this was not the book for me. Usually I will say something like if you enjoy this type of book, this is a good fit for you, but I don't really know who this book would appeal to. I very much dislike leaving poor reviews because I know how much hard work goes into writing a book, to say nothing of the effort that goes into marketing. In this case though, I feel like I have to leave this review.

The story is all over the place and the humor wasn't really humorous, in my opinion. It came off more as a bitter type of humor or a trying too hard type and it didn't sit well with me, nor was I amused. I do think the idea is a good one, but I think this project needed a very strong editor that could have convinced the author that either a rewrite was needed or an extensive editing job.

If you like humorous reads, give this a shot and it may resonate with you.

I requested an ARC and was approved - thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and author. My thoughts in this review are my own.

A typical high power divorce. Wife is married to a high powered executive and is now being served with divorced papers and has been cut off. An enjoyable read.

Been There, Married That by Gigi Levangie Grazer is a full length, stand alone novel. This book had me in knots. I read the blurb and had high expectations. This new to me author delivered and wrote a rom/com with sometimes slap/stick-ish scenes, sometimes I just wanted it to end. I was going between, please hurry up, over no way to I just can't anymore.
Agnes and Trevor are the typical Hollywood glitz and glamour couple when everything comes crashing down. Her marriage is over, but Agnes still lives in deep denial and she wants to stay here. She's naive and thinks acting like an ostrich helps her.
I read the book, cover to cover in one sitting, I simply had to know what happens to the characters. When you expect a rose war, you're wrong and this book isn't for you. At first I missed the characters emotions, I thought of the storyline as bland, but in the second half, Agnes grew kind of a backbone. She's not a strong heroine, not at all. Somehow it seems she likes to be a doormat.
All in all Been There, Married That is a good read, 4 stars.

Humor is very subjective - and we'll just leave it there. Plenty may enjoy this, but it didn't pop my corn or melt my butter!

I loved all of her earlier books and jumped at the chance to read an advanced copy of her newest book.

WTF was I thinking....

WTF was she thinking when she wrote it?

I was able to make it up to the point where Agnes goes to Tucson for rehab and I just couldn't go on. I couldn't tell you anything about this book because everything was just so unclear. Which of these bee-yatches were an actual friend? Why was she still married? What the heck was the plot?

It was like reading a bad Reddit AITA post.....

I am NTA for giving up.....

While I enjoyed other works by the author and was drawn to its attractive book cover, I was disappointed with Been There, Married That. This satiric look at a messy Hollywood divorce had promise. Lots of funny, snarky dialogue and a lush lifestyle of the type of people we watch TMZ and other entertainment shows to get a glimpse of. But the problem for me was that the characters were too over the top to care about. The author has a good sense of humor and yes, you will find parts to laugh at but it wasn’t enough to get me to root for those who needed rooting for. Wish I liked it more. I do appreciate receiving an advance copy and extend thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press.

This is the first book that I have read by this author. First off I would like to start this review by saying that it is not a book that I would normally pick up on my own. I was offered a chance to read it and I thought why not give it a try and see what you think. I have to say I am so glad that I did. I have not laugh so hard reading a book ever. From the moment I pick it up and began to read I had a smile on my face. All I kept thinking was boy I am so glad that is not me! I am looking forward to seeing what else this author has to offer. Thanks NetGalley. I voluntarily reviewed this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is my second book by Gigi Levangie and I loved it. The story is about a high profile divorce. Agnes and Trevor had a great marriage, in the beginning. Now they hate each other and are getting a divorce. The story is told by Agnes and we hear about a wife struggling to survive against her husband’s attacks. He gets the police to harass her, sells their house, cuts off her credit cards and tries to get primary custody of their only daughter. Primary custody of their daughter is the only thing Agnes wants out of the divorce and her husband will do everything he can to prevent that. Not because he loves his daughter, but because he hates his wife.

The story is told with humor that brings light to a serious situation. I read the book in one day and really enjoyed it.