The Wife App is Carolyn Mackler’s debut into Women’s Fiction and is a celebration of female friendship.

Three New York City women who have been close friends for 10 years decide to get revenge against their ex-husbands for taking them for granted. They have borne the mental load as wives and mothers with no consideration from the men in their lives. They’re ready to make money and get revenge on behalf of all women.

Lauren, a former computer programmer, is the mother of 12-year-old twins. She looks at her husband’s phone and discovers that he has been paying for sex. After she confronts him, he begins a sexual relationship with their girls’ 24-year-old babysitter.

Madeline is a wealthy divorcee whose life revolves around hook-ups and her 14-year-old daughter. When her ex expresses interest in having their daughter spend a year with him in London, Madeline feels abandoned. She relives her father’s death from when she was a teen-ager and works on repairing her relationship with her own mother.

Sophie is an elementary school teacher who was the breadwinner of her family while her husband smoked marijuana and played in a band. After they divorced, he married a successful attorney and had a beautiful baby daughter. Sophie struggles to meet her young sons’ emotional needs and her finances are stretched tight. She is obsessed with following her ex’s new family on social media.

During a night out to celebrate Lauren’s divorce, they come up with an idea to build an app to monetize all of the tasks that wives perform for free. Lauren writes the code and Madeline uses her business expertise to create the Wife App, the fastest growing start-up in New York City. Meanwhile the ladies’ romantic lives all take unexpected twists and turns.

While I found parts of The Wife App funny, I just couldn’t relate to any of the three heroines. To me, Madeline seemed obsessed with sex, and I was glad when she seemed to pursue a relationship with an old boyfriend. I was not prepared for the lesbian relationship nor the trans teen-ager. In some ways The Wife App reminded me of Olivia Goldsmith’s The First Wives Club, and in others a Judy Blume novel. While this story was not for me, there was nothing wrong with it and I’m sure that many readers will enjoy it.

I received an Advance Review Copy (ARC) from NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Three divorced women are done with the roles married women are expected to play for men. Too many women become cooks, cleaners, child bearers and carers, and so much more, while their husbands are only expected to go to work each morning. Lauren is software engineer and has some experience with app development, so she decides to monetize the work women too often do for free. With the Wife App, 'Spouses' can request and pay for the services of a 'Wife,' like booking doctor's appointments, overseeing home renovations, or picking up children from school. But without any funding, Lauren and her two best friends have to do the work of the 'Wives' to start, and their app just went viral...

What I Enjoyed; This book is a quick and easy, and I read it in one sitting. The author's use of three different female perspectives works well, as she offers multiple attitudes toward marriage, divorce, motherhood, and work/life balance. There is some character development for each woman over the course of the short novel, and I especially enjoyed Sophie's chapters, probably because she is a literacy teacher.

What I Didn't Enjoy: Though I liked the author's feminist perspective and her interest in equitable marriages, she could have been subtler in communicating her commentary. After reading the epigraphs for the novel, I understood the point of the book, and yet the characters directly state the idea repeatedly over the course of the story. I found myself starting to skim early on, as the premise and plot were predictable throughout.

I think the idea of a 'Wife App' is really interesting, but I wish the author had grappled more with the issues and conflicts she presented about equity, inclusion, and the work of a 'wife.' This book had a tidy, 'happy' ending when the underlying ideas are actually much more cynical

The idea of a 'Wife App' would make a great episode of Black Mirror. Instead, this book is quick, cute, and uncomplicated.

This one was not for me, but maybe it will be for you!

FULL REVIEW HERE:
https://aishasbookworld.wordpress.com/2023/06/26/review-the-wife-app-by-carolyn-mackler/

Imagine this: an app that allows you to get rid of all the work you do as a wife and for which you aren’t paid, because someone else will do it for you. Would you use it?

I love the dynamics between Lauren, Sophie and Madeline. Is the best asset this book has; they have this Sex & the City vibe without the corny scenes and cheesy dialogues. And way more funnier.

The Wife App is my first book from Ms. Mackler and I really enjoyed it. It was well written, although I didn’t liked much the beginning, which was slow and lacked of context. At the same time, even though the full story is alluring and you can’t stop reading the book, it wasn’t solid enough in specific parts of the plot. With topics like mental health, anxiety, LGBTQ, feminism, family and romance, this is a book a lot of women will enjoy and relate to this gorgeous heroines.

ARC given by Simon & Schuster via Netgalley. Thanks for your trust.

What an interesting concept! Wives getting paid for the things that automatically become their duties in a marriage, like making doctors appointments and baking cookies for the PTA.

This was a super cute and fun read. The story is told through the eyes of three best friends who are navigating life after divorce. None of them are perfect, but they are doing the best they can with their given situations.

I flew through this story! It was a good read.

This is a must read novel for the 2023 summer season! I would recommend this novel to any mother who has mumbled, "I am not a camp counselor." under her breath as she drives her children to yet another enriching activity.

The Wife App follows three divorced moms who are fed up with the division of labor between them and their former husbands so they create an app that allows them to make money off the mental load of others. Someone has to fill out those camp forms and schedule their children's dental appointments, right? Lauren, Sophie and Madeline might as well be paid for the work that is deemed too "domestic" by their husbands.

The plot is a fun and a realistic look at the division of labor in many modern families.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the opportunity to review this novel.

What wife wouldn't love a little bit of help on occasion? Whether you have kids or not, a disproportionate amount of work always seems to fall on the shoulders of the wife. So, what's a wife to do? She creates an app to help out all those women - and a few men - struggling with their overloaded mental loads. Enter The Wife App!

Lauren is probably going through the roughest time of the three. Recently divorced and struggling to find her new groove, she's giving it her all to do and be everything. Right up until she can't any longer. I loved her drive and determination, as well as her devotion to her children and her friends. It was both fun and frustrating to watch her achieve her goals while fighting for every inch.

Sophie, for me, is the most relatable. Both Lauren and Madeline are well off and not in fear of losing their home, feeding their kids, etc. On the other hand, Sophie is your every day sort of single mom. She works, cares for her kids, and constantly struggles to make ends meet. Her resilience is the hallmark of so many others just like her. Sophie also gets bonus points for not hating on her ex's new wife for the sake of hating on her. I respected that.

Madeline, however, was the least relatable to me, at least for the first three quarters of the story. She's not just well off, but wealthy. Has everything she could ever want and has the option to be nothing but a mom. As the story progresses though, her façade cracks and she becomes much more interesting.

As both a (former) wife and mother, the description of this book immediately caught my attention. The things I could have used it for when my kids were little! I could relate to so much of what the original wives - Lauren, Sophie, and Madeline - went through, that it only drew me in more. The way they dealt with each other and their children rang true to me, which only made their struggles feel more real in the end. Both funny and heartbreaking at times, The Wife App was an enjoyable read. I'd love a sequel, even just a novella, to let us know where the wives are now.

Thanks for a copy of The Wife App by Carolyn Mackler. It comes out on Tuesday - June 27th.

When 3 best friends come up with an app idea after discussing how their ex-husbands took all of the things they were doing for granted. They decide to call it The Wife App after the mental load that usually falls on wives or mothers to try to monetize their work. When their App starts to be a hit they are working through trying to make their idea take off as they each have different life complications.

I wanted to like this more than I did. There were good points made about mental load, privilege and the gig economy but overall I was kinda bored. There were few funny scenes but overall this was just meh to me.

After their own failed marriages, three best friends decide to create an app that will take the mental load off of wives. The Wife App is a place where people can hire a "wife" to do tasks that are often left to wives to take care of - whether its creating a packing list, scheduling doctors appointments, or anything in between, The Wife App can help with that. While this idea starts as a bit of a revenge joke between Lauren, Madeline, and Sophie quickly turns into a popular and fast growing start up. But while the app is growing, their personal lives also get interesting as well.

I flew through this book in one sitting by the pool. This is a unique idea to make marriages and partnerships more equal and help balance the heavy mental load women often take on. I loved the idea behind the app and each of the women's unique storylines. The character development was amazing, the girl power vibes were incredible and overall the story was fun! I look forward to reading more from Carolyn Mackler.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the advance copy.

I really enjoyed the friendship between the three main characters and the way they kept their friendship intact while also building a business together. They supported each other through major life challenges and they all experienced a lot of personal growth as their lives changed rapidly after the development of The Wife App. I found the idea of paying people to accomplish jobs that usually are done without compensation interesting and the development process of the app was fascinating. The reasons behind the need for such an app create a lot of heartache, humor, and second chances that make this story a pleasure to read.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for the #gifted ARC and a digital NetGalley copy in exchange for my honest opinion. The Wife App will publish on Tuesday and if you're intrigued by apps and women in technology or if you're looking to lighten your Mental Load as a wife, I think you'd be interested in checking this book out.
I tend to switch back and forth between reading a lot of books at the same time - otherwise I find I read too quickly and forget what I've read. But I picked up The Wife App yesterday late morning and basically read it straight through without touching anything else (with a slight audiobook break when I was cooking dinner last night!). After having read a number of thrillers lately, I knew I needed something different, and this was the perfect palate cleanser to whet my appetite for a different genre.
I'm not a wife, but I understand the book's documented problem - that overwhelmingly women take on the Mental Load of a relationship, especially when children are involved. The novel follows a group of three girlfriends as they celebrate the third's divorce and decide to find a way to monetize the way they've been wife-ing. I identified most with Sophie, the public school literacy teacher, but I really enjoyed all three different perspectives from which the book is narrated. There is NB and queer representation in the book which was unexpected but welcome. As a feminist I was cheering for these women and the Wives the represented to succeed throughout 💕

Did not finish this book. Was looking for light relief with a few laughs and this sounded like just the book. The first chapter was interesting with smiles. Then the author began the backstories of these women and it just went on and on. Like reading what any bunch of women from the neighborhood were going through. And on and on until I put the book down. Just not interesting. Have enough of that every day. Tried several times to get into it but no good. Too bad as the concept was such an Interesting one.

Thank you to the Simon Buddy program through Simon and Schuster for a physical copy of the ARC to review.

This book was out of the normal genre that I chose to read, while it does have some elements of romance, it is more contemporary fiction than a romance. It was a very quick and easy read, but it definitely made me contemplate some aspects of my life.

The premise of this book is that wives are taken for granted. We do things that take on more of a mental load than some husbands do in a relationship- like register the kids for camp, coordinate play dates, doctor appointments, get groceries, organize parties, etc. In this story, the men rarely if ever, assist or even acknowledge all of the things their wives do. This book did make me think about my relationship with my husband, but thankfully our relationship is not like the ones in the book.

The concept of this book was somewhat frustrating because it was true. I felt like it didn't show any men except for maybe Colin, that were decent men.

The idea of having an app similar to TaskRabbit is honestly really smart and I think it would be used by wives, husbands, partners, etc. So I want to see if something like this pops up after the book is released.
The relationship between the parents and the children in this book was complex and I enjoyed that every relationship between parent and kid was different. Each kid had their own thing they were going through and the parents didn't have a one size fits all solution.

Overall an enjoyable story and I would suggest it if you like Contemporary women-centered fiction.

Happy Publishing Week to this lovely book! Three BFFs, sick of doing it all and having their work as wives and mothers taken for granted, develop an app that monetizes the Mental Load & allows women to just take a break for a second.

I absolutely loved the innovative concept and found myself getting attached to the main characters. I found myself wanting ‘more’ which is one of the main reasons this wasn’t a 5 star read for me, but I do think it’s worth the read!

I was excited to read this book after reading the synopsis. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I found myself to be somewhat disappointed as I read the novel.

Three women, Lauren, Sophie and Madeline, after having divorced their husbands, get together and develop an app, The Wife App, to "right marital inequalities” that will let the user pay for jobs that normally fall to mothers. We follow the development and execution of the app from each of the women's point of view.

I didn't like the characters very much and at times the story jumped around. Overall, not a book that left me feeling satisfied at the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Simon & Schuster for an ARC. The review is my own.

After reading 20% of the book, I realized that this book is not for me. I ended up skimming the rest of the book. I was looking for a humorous read, but I found the story instead a little depressing. I also didn't find the wives that likable. One of the ex-wives spent all her time on her daughter, her own looks, and hookups. Her life seemed so shallow. I also quickly realized that another was going to end up in a lesbian relationship. I received a free copy of this ebook from the author. This is my honest and voluntarily given review.

Read it in a week! Lauren, Madeline and Sophie are captivating! Their subplots are so well crossed with the main plot that is hard to put the book down !
Caroline Mackler did an excellent job in making the characters round and so relatable to readers. The plot will drive you through happiness, sadness and anger, just like real life!
I’d recommend this book to all kinds of woman, not just marriage ones, the information is so necessary to be shared. I’d love see some men reading it as well, they could learn A LOT with The Wife App!
Reminded me a bit of sex and the city but more focused on self love and self knowledge.

I finished reading "The Wife App" last week. This one had a large amount of potential, but it ended up falling short for me. I get the concept - everyday life work falls mostly on the shoulders of a wife in a relationship. Wives carry the whole mental load, make the plans, care for the children, clean, keep the household running smoothly, etc - for free - so why not find a way to get paid for doing them?

But this is where it falls short - being a wife on the wife app, they are still doing work for others to get paid for it. What we really want is to get paid for the work we have to do for our own households. The "wife" workers were still having to do the work for themselves -for free- while getting paid to do the work for others, too. That doesn't seem much different than holding any other job on top of being a wife/mother.

So, I'm not sure. The actual stories of each of the women were very interesting, but not enough to get me over the main premise of the book. Because of that, I wouldn't recommend this book.

Thanks for the gifted copy @simonbooks! The Wife App is out next Tuesday, June 27. Swipe to read the synopsis. #simonbooksbuddy

I loved buddy reading this one with my sweet friend @overbookedmama. Our discussions and her perspective are always so thought provoking.

Overall I liked this one! It was just what I needed to kick off summer. Light and fun but with some necessary depth.

I was impressed with each of the three friends’ smarts and abilities to create such a neat (and needed!) app, especially while dealing with their own personal drama, setbacks and hardships. Usually in a book with multiple POVs I prefer one perspective over the others but that wasn’t the case here and I really enjoyed each. As a new mom, I could relate to the mental loads of the moms and relatability is always a bonus in a book for me.

The ending was a little rushed and I thought some of the secondary characters just added fluff more than substance. Major props, though, for tackle some tougher topics like gender identity and mental health.

More than anything, I just loved the idea of a wife app & as much time as I spent thinking of what I’d hire out, I spent equally as much thinking of the things I enjoy doing that I wouldn’t mind being hired for. 😂

I LOVED this book!

Big thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the ARC so I could read and review before it drops on June 27!!

Three friends find themselves in a moment where their lives have gone a bit sideways. Lauren is freshly divorced after discovering her husband's shady behavior. Madeleine's daughter may be spending the next year abroad. Sophie is dealing with an awful ex and some serious fomo.

They are all also struggling with the juggle to do everything - which is relatable AF. Particularly the things that, unfortunately, are known as "wife"duties - the mental load things like organizing health appointments/forms, overseeing all things related to kids' schools, errands, keeping up the house, etc. As someone who lives by herself, this is VERY real and as I have been dealing with home reno projects for weeks, my KINGDOM for someone to help with my mental load!

The idea takes root - what if they created an app to help with this? What begins as a bit of a joke - call it the Wife app, they decided after several cocktails - quickly snowballs. And as they work through this process, they all evolve a bit too.

I really got into this one - I fell for all three of our leading gals, even though they are so different. I am a sucker for authenticity and flawed characters - it makes things interesting and easier to get invested.

I also appreciated the commentary on society, the patriarchy, and how we value women, partnership and traditional roles. And seriously, I would love a wife app.

Will post this review on Goodreads, twitter @sarahncotton, retail sites and my bookstagram @scottonreads

Thank you, NetGalley for an ARC for an Honest Review!!

"It starts as a joke during a tipsy night out, Lauren, Madeline, and Sophie rail against everything wives do for free. Let’s build an app that monetizes the mental load, and maybe get revenge on our exes in the process?""

Will this really work? Easy to relate to the characters and themes in the story, I really enjoyed it easy to read.

Thank you once again!