The Wife App by Carolyn Mackler @carolynmacklerbooks was a fun, quick read, perfect for summer.

“Three best friends decide they’re finally done with their ex-husbands taking their work as wives and moms for granted. They’re ready to monetize the mental load, stick it to their exes, and have a wild ride in the process.”

I was immediately drawn into the story and flew through it. Each chapter is told from the POV of one of the three main characters and I loved seeing each of them and their perspectives. The idea of the Wife App is brilliant and the discussion of the mental load so many of us carry was spot on. There were many funny and insightful parts and also parts I cringed while reading only because the truths being shared were so very real. A great read!

If you ever wanted "beach read" defined, it's this book. I mean this in the kindest way possible, but this is some 2000s chick lit: sanitized New York City, everyone getting everything they want, maybe the real friends we made along the way were the friends we had this all time and also these surprisingly stable lives in magically affordable places while we make lots of money on a fun side project.

But this time with the most awkward queer storyline you'll ever read.

Is it breezy and enjoyable and do I know just who to recommend it to? Yes. Would I have read it had it been by anyone else? No. I tried it, it went by fast, there's nothing WRONG with it, I hope it does well, but I stopped reading books like this a long time ago because they are so samey, so ready-for-the-screen-adaptation.

Anyway, have fun at the beach this summer. Great book to bring if you can stomach how douchey the one cheater is.

I'm giving this one 3.5 stars because I love the message and the theme but it's a book that I've read before. I spent most of it with a massive sense of deja vu and it suddenly hit me toward the end that it's almost a replica of First Wives Club, just updated for modern times.
Three divorced friends are tired of how their lives are falling apart despite all their work, so they come together with a project that starts as a bit of a joke and quickly turns into a life-changing opportunity. Lauren is just getting divorced after discovering that her husband is a 'regular' at a brothel, Madeline's life revolves around doing everything for a daughter who wants to get away from her, and Sophie works like crazy to give her kids everything while watching her ex-husband create a perfect family with his new wife. They're all tired of taking on all the mental load of being a wife with no recognition of how much work that is, so they come up with an app that lets users hire 'Wives' to do those tasks for them.
The first half of the book is honestly a little depressing with reminders of how awful things in life can get. There are issues with family, children, work/life balance, money, identity, and just everything that one usually reads books to escape from. But it does get to the bright side of things when each of the women finds their grove and realizes that it's in their hands to take charge of their lives and be happy. It's this half that carries the positive messages and gives the book the lightness I was hoping for when I first started it.
Overall, it's a solid book with great messaging and lots of life lessons, it just happens to be a little too close to one I already consider a classic and somewhat of a downer for most of it.

Happy thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the emotional read!

I love the premise of scorned women creating an app to channel their rage and this book didn't disappoint. While it's not necessarily High-Brow Literature (TM), it's a fun read with likeable characters you want to root for. I enjoyed it and will recommend it.

Who hasn't had an idea for an app over a few drinks with your best friends? Well when three best friends who were sick and tired of their work as wives and mothers not being recognized, they actually did it!

I liked the premise of this and it really does shine a light on all the work moms do that we don't see.

I loved this book. Sometimes "women's fiction" is a miss for me (also it's 2023 why are we still differentiating women's fiction from fiction :| ... I digress)

This book was a HIT. I loved the three women, I loved the differences in their personalities and the way their strengths/flaws each brought something different to the table. I also loved the differences in their friendships, because it felt like the friendships I have with my female friends. We seek one another out for different things and sometimes all we can muster up is a thumbs up emoji, but in true times of need we are there for each other.

I do wish the romances had either been more flushed out, or omitted, but they didn't necessarily take away from my love of the book. It just felt like they came in at the end to make the story feel more whole.

Either way, I could not put this book down and I loved every moment of it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

"Because every wife deserves a happy ending."

The idea of The Wife App starts as joke during a drunken dinner between three friends. The last of their marriages has failed and the idea of monetizing the mental load on wives emerges. They've been doing "wife" tasks for free for years so why not cash in? Lauren, mother of twins and whose divorce has just been finalized helps develop the app and it soon takes off. But The Wife App might not be as easy to make successful as they first thought.

We also get the POV of Madeline - gorgeous, wealthy, and in the middle of a custody dispute with her ex-husband in England and Sophie - whose whole life revolves around her young son Charlie but finds herself wishing for more.

I loved the dynamic of the three friends. Their personalities couldn't be more different but they're still so friend-compatible. The triple POV isn't confusing as each chapter has a heading of whose story is being told. I'm not sure how technologically accurate the startup of the app is but I thought the inside look at that was fun. Overall, an entertaining and funny book! Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for allowing me access to an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

It's all the little things. That's Lauren's brilliant idea for an app- an app where a spouse can transfer the spouse's mental load to a "wife" who will do everything from taking the dog to the vet to organizing a trip (but not THAT). Lauren and Sophie met at Vassar and later met Madeline. All three are divorced, all three struggling either financially (in Sophie's case) or emotionally in Lauren's case and in her own way, Madeline, who lives for her daughter who now wants to spend the next year in London with her dad. The app gives them a bit of freedom and even more opens their lives. There are some entertaining vignettes with the "spouses" and Mackler is more generous to them than she could have been. There's an interesting surprise of a twist near the end (no spoilers) and this is generally a pretty genial, entertaining read with good characters and fine storytelling. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. This one might well make you think about what you would love to hire someone else to do. A very good read.

I wanted to love this book, but it was just OK to me. I loved the concept of the Wife App, but the execution wasn't my favorite. It didn't feel like all that much happened, and I wanted more character development. It was still a decent read, though.

The story alternates between the three starting founders of the Wife App.

This story really gives one to think about; very creative concept for a novel. Kudos!

There is a facebook group that I’ve discovered recently (Friends and Fiction), their 2023 reading challenge included reading a YA novel. This introduced me to Carolyn Mackler; when The Wife App became available, I anxiously reguested it via NetGalley. The Wife App is Carolyn Mackler’s first adult fiction novel (after approximately 20 YA books). Seems that this was an easy transition for Carolyn Mackler, The Wife App is going to be a huge success for her!

There are a lot of characters (in my opinion). Three women, their ex's, children and stepchildren, ex's wives.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to review the advance read copy in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Carloyn Mackler and Simon & Schuster for approving my ARC request. Publication date is 27 June, 2023.

Most wives and mothers work a full time job only to come home to work another one. Imagine a life where you gained income from all of the tedious wife tasks that you handle on the daily! This is where I was hooked. It felt like I was living a fairytale through the words. These 3 friends come together to create an app as revenge to their ex-husbands for all of the the tasks they’ve done as wives. They each have their own storylines which are layered and complicated in their own ways….and a little messy. The author touches on contemporary topics such as mental health in children, co-parenting, & LGBT relationships. I do not recall any TW. This was a light read. Very enjoyable and relatable.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for the free copy for review.

Sometimes books find you at just the right time, and you fall in love with them and want to read them over and over again.

…And sometimes you find a book at exactly the wrong time and find it completely insufferable. With this book, I have to say it’s a privilege in some ways to not relate to it, as a woman married to a man.

I picked it up because it’s all about the invisible labor that tends to fall to women in a straight relationship. But the solution is that these same overworked women are going to get paid to do labor that would fall to other women. Like, where do we actually confront the men that are profiting off of this labor?

So here’s the personal conflict. It comes in two parts - the privileged and non-privileged parts. I am currently living with long Covid, and I spend 70-90% of my day in bed. I get exhausted by doing one load of laundry. That part of my life super sucks…but my husband has absolutely picked up the slack and taken care of our house and both of our needs without complaint for the past 11 months. So I can’t handle reading about these trash men - one of whom “doesn’t believe” in invisible labor.

So, I quit and am going to go back to my fluffy rom coms where men are written by women to be better than they often are in real life. And a thousand thank yous to my husband for making this book unrelatable.

🎧 The narrators are fantastic. The book doesn’t have chapter numbers and is just labeled by the character POV (at least the ARC I received was written that way), so if you like to go back and forth, make sure you have a player that has percentages or it’ll be very difficult to switch!

*A note about my rating: I know my toxic trait is not rating below 3 stars. I think this book will be super relatable to a lot of people, and is pretty well written. So it gets stars for that. I could see myself liking this book in a different context. Based on the reviews I'm seeing, I think I would like this book ok if I made myself finish it...but why finish a 3 star book when there are 5 star books in the world, you know?

Madeline, Lauren and Sophie are the three female cofounders of The Wife App. Their ex-husbands took their roles as wives and mothers for granted and didn’t value the invisible, unpaid workload that they carried.

Thankfully, I have a wonderful partner! While that mental load is certainly still there, we share it pretty well and value each other’s contributions to helping our household run smoothly. Considering my marital experience has been very different from the female leads in this book, it was difficult for me to connect to them and their motivations. However, I know that so many women do share in this narrative, and I appreciate the author’s desire to tackle this conversation in such a unique way in her adult fiction debut novel!

Here’s what I enjoyed most about this read:

• Taking place in New York, I instantly got Sex & The City vibes from their friend group!
• I loved that these women in business were looking out for one another and building each other up rather than tearing one another down
• I also enjoyed seeing a woman taking the tech industry, a traditionally male dominated field, by storm
• The back half of the book featured some very unexpected and beautifully compassionate LGBTQIA+ subplots
• I enjoyed getting this story from multiple POVs, especially Sophie’s!

I think many women will find themselves nodding along in agreement with the thoughts expressed in this book. While I didn't have anything I particularly disliked about this book, there also wasn't anything that propelled it beyond a 3 star read for me. A solid, good read! I will be posting my full review to my Instagram and Goodreads accounts on Pub Day.

A fun, escapist read that I couldn’t put down.

Many women have bemoaned the mental load, but no one has monetized it. Yet. Enter the Wife App, where you can hire a gig worker to be a “wife,” taking care of all those pesky chores that tend to fall on women.

The protagonists are a trio of divorced women struggling to raise kids in New York. They join forces to create the Wife App.

I loved the supportive friendships and strong sense of place in the New York City setting. Moms will be able to see themselves in the challenges of child rearing the protagonists experience.

This isn’t a lifechanger of a book, just a fun, easy read that will keep you company as you put one foot in front of the other in mom life.

This is a great women’s non fiction novel. Three women Madeline, Lauren and Sophie who were friends for a long time start an ingenious business together. Out of the ashes of divorce they find a way to make life better. It is told from from the point of view of the three main characters and gives the reader great insight into their lives. The story is an interesting page turner that showcases the modern independent woman.

Best friends Lauren, Sophie, and Madeline are divorced mothers who have to do all the work of running their families - buying groceries and clothes, planning playdates and vacations - but they also had to do all that when they were married. They come up with the idea of a "Wife App" that will allow customers to outsource this labor and the people who do it to be appreciated - and paid.

I really enjoyed <i>The Wife App</i>. It was a well written, quick read, with three very different but likable and believable main characters. Each of their journeys - in career, parenthood, and romance - was multi-faceted and interesting, and the overall story felt propulsive without too much angst or drama.

I was less interested in the fictional Wife App, which essentially provides a part-time household manager or personal assistant. Maybe there is a niche for this! But the idea that households require management, and that often the wife in heterosexual couples much of that management without pay or thanks is hardly revelatory, and I was frustrated by how all the characters acted as if it was.

4.5 stars, rounded up.

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the E-ARC. First and foremost let me just say where do I sign up for this app because Life. This was a good solid read I loved how the 3 MFC navigated life and motherhood. I enjoyed seeing them grow and feeling confident in their own skin. This book showed BTS of what it is to be a wife and a mother and a woman. It showed how FOMO is very real and messes with our minds and our self worth. But more importantly it showed that it does take a Village or in this case a APP.

Alright, folks, buckle up because we're about to dive into the wild and wonderful world of "The Wife App" by Carolyn Mackler. This book takes the concept of "every wife deserves a happy ending" to a whole new level, and let me tell you, it's one heck of a ride!

We're introduced to three best friends who have had enough of their ex-husbands taking them for granted. Lauren, the supermom of twins, wakes up to some serious Wife Alarm Bells and uncovers a dirty secret that explodes her marriage. Madeline, the epitome of having it all, faces the possibility of losing her child to her ex in England, which stirs up a personal tragedy from the depths of her past. And then there's Sophie, who's got FOMO and a serious shortage of cash, all while keeping her true desires hidden even from herself. Talk about some complex characters!

But fear not, my friends, because these ladies have a plan. It starts with a tipsy night out where they decide to monetize the mental load of being a wife. I mean, why not, right? So they come up with the brilliant idea of creating the Wife App, a genius invention that not only seeks revenge on their exes but also becomes the hottest start-up in New York City. These ladies are on fire!

But as we all know, life has a funny way of throwing curveballs at us. Love gets in the way, ex-husbands make surprise appearances, and before you know it, the consequences of their actions become larger than life. Mackler takes us on a rollercoaster ride of revenge and redemption that will have you laughing out loud one moment and holding your breath the next.

What makes this book truly special is the celebration of female friendship and love in all its forms. The bond between Lauren, Madeline, and Sophie is unbreakable, and their journey reminds us of the power of sisterhood. Mackler effortlessly balances the send-up of modern marriage with heartfelt moments that tug at your heartstrings.

And let's not forget the humor! Mackler's writing is witty, sharp, and oh-so-entertaining. You'll find yourself snorting with laughter as these ladies navigate the highs and lows of their newfound venture. The author's debut into adult fiction is an absolute triumph, and I can't wait to see what she brings us next.

So, if you're ready for a wild and hilarious adventure filled with revenge, redemption, and a whole lot of heart, "The Wife App" is the perfect pick for you. Grab a copy, cozy up with your favorite drink, and get ready for a ride you won't soon forget. Cheers to Carolyn Mackler for delivering a fantastic debut into the world of adult fiction!

The Wife App is definitely an original read! The concept of using an app to pay someone to do many tasks that are usually placed on a wife is something that I have never read before. IT follows three women, Lauren, Madeline, and Sophie, and gives the audience three different POVs as we follow their journey of life. I enjoyed the premise of the book thoroughly but the execution was not performed well enough for me. Because of this I was not able to connect to the three main characters at all, which in turn left me not caring about their stories.


This was a very quick read and I would recommend it to someone I believe could relate to the main characters. .

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read the arc in exchange for an honest review.

I'm wondering if this didn't land for me because I don't have kids.

Three female friends, all divorced, come up with the idea to create a Wife App to monetize the mental load and other work that wives do for free in marriages. It was an interesting concept and I liked the main characters but I never felt strongly about anything going on in the story. There are a ton of characters so I got confused at times as to who was who.

I'd recommend this for readers of women's fiction.