Thank you netgalley for this advance copy.
Unfortunately this was not my cup of tea. The characters were very unlikeable and I think the author hates being married herself based on his book. I really wanted to like this book but it was not the lighthearted story I was expecting.

This book is about three best friends that start up an app to help the middle load. This is a funny and easy read. I really enjoy reading this book. The characters are likable, relatable, and hilarious. This is the first time reading this author but it will not be my last. I do recommend this book to every book reader. I give this book four stars.

Three divorced New York mothers are tired of the mental load put on wives. Filling out medical forms, arranging playdates, party planning- wives typically do it all. Madeleine, Lauren and Sophie have had enough of doing tedious tasks with no reward. After a night out, an idea sparks the development of the wife app- have a hired wife do the tasks for you, at a fee of course. Once the app launches, it takes off, sending the ladies on a wild ride of running a successful business while juggling their own lives.

The leading ladies in the book are easily relatable for the average woman. As a divorced mother, I enjoyed a story including women who have had similar struggles, thoughts and feelings. I found all three to be strong characters that I cared about and couldn’t wait to read more of their stories. As someone who has no idea how apps are started, the process was understandable and I was cheering them on as they navigated the tech and business world. The relatable situations and enticing story line kept me interested. This book is modern and the LBGTQ+ love story was appreciated. I would have liked to see a more diverse group of ladies. I enjoyed The Wife App and will encourage my followers to pick the book up once released!

Three best friends, all divorced, decide to create an app to monetize all the hidden labor wives do. They also feel like they can get back at their exes this way.

I really liked the idea, especially since women’s labor is often overlooked. The overall story was compelling, but the writing style wasn’t my favorite.

What a fun, yet insightful, novel! Three divorced best friends team up to create a Taskrabbit-like app with a twist. They call it “The Wife App”, and encourage spouses to subscribe and dump their “Mental Load” into the app: from birthday party preparations, to school application forms, to gift shopping. While it’s a practical use case, the friends have lofty dreams of the successful app highlighting all the free labor women are always doing unnoticed by their families. It was fun to see behind the scenes of a startup to create a consumer app, but the plot also followed the women’s personal lives, with a fast pace and some fun snappy humor. The women are all very different – a tech genius, a teacher, and a trust fund baby – and I liked some more than others, but they all held my attention, and this wasn’t one of those multiple POV books where I’m just skimming through hoping to get back to my favorite character’s plotline soon. Overall, I really enjoyed this book.

Talk about the ultimate revenge these three friends get on their ex husbands. Lauren is the mother of twins and also a freelance app developer. She had just found out her husband had been paying for sexual favors. Madeline her friend was well off money wise and her ex husband lived in England and they shared a daughter. Then Sophie had two boys with her ex husband and her biggest problem was very little money to live on and her love of social media. They were celebrating Lauren divorce when Madeleine made a comment about a wife’s app. This would help the women with the mental load that they had. These women were tired of doing chores all the time that other people got paid and without any recognition from their spouses.

Lauren set to work making sure the wife’s app came to fruition. She dumped a lot of money and time into this endeavor. The camaraderie between these women was awesome to see. They each had their own issues that they needed to overcome. For instance sex was used to feel like she mattered, no self confidence for one she didn’t no how to go about her feelings, lied to most of the marriage and the babysitter.

Pick this book up for a laugh out loud about some of the predicaments but also for the friendships amongst these women.

I received this ARC from Netgalley for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

There were several things I liked about this book - acknowledging the common gap between partners in a relationship, even if both partners are working, and especially once children enter the picture. I enjoyed the overall concept of the app and following the three co-founders as they grew and healed from divorces. While the author brings up the topic that gig economy work often exploits lower-income workers (who may be spouses and parents and have high Mental Loads of their own) to the advantage of higher-income individuals, it seems a little off that the character says, "we'll try and find a solution" and then it's never addressed again. I understand that this is not a non-fiction book that purports to have the solution to these questions of gig workers so I'm not knocking down my rating or recommendation based on that, it just feels like a weird aside. Overall, I found this to be fast-paced and enjoyable! 3.5 out of 5 stars.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

THE WIFE APP by Carolyn Mackler
PUB DATE: June 29 (thanks to @Simon.Books & @netgalley for the ARC!)

👰‍♀️📲👩‍💻💖
3.75 STARS

✨ FOR FANS OF: #girlbosses, Sex and the City, tech startup lore like The Social Network or Silicon Valley

⭐️WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Three NYC 40-something friends decide to build an app to monetize the mental load they carry as women of their households, stick it to their exes, & have a wild ride in the process.

WHAT I LIKED:
🌟the three perspectives & characters were all nicely distinct from each other! I enjoyed Lauren’s point of view the most but found myself looking forward to the other two’s sections as well, which doesn’t always happen!
🌟 the premise of a Wife App intrigued me— I actually liked the details around fundraising & the processes of startup tech.
🌟 I found myself liking the humor & dialogue in this novel more than I was expecting! I don’t think it’s the best-written dialogue in terms of length, but I did like the way it helped the story flow.

WHAT I DIDN’T:
☁️ discussions of privilege, gender, & class in this book felt a little Feminism Lite, like a Princess Diaries version of The Social Network.
☁️ all of the men in this story were ghastly in a way that almost trivialized the importance of the book’s premise, like caricatures of patriarchy? Like all three of you have the most idiotic ex-husbands ever? How did that happen?
☁️The ending was a little too buttoned-up for me, but I feel like some would categorize this as a romance? Just a little too improbable for me to suspend disbelief.

⭐️OVERALL: sometimes I feel like I can only recommend some things to specific people, but this would be a good beach read for pretty much anyone!

‼️ Check trigger warnings, as always.

4 stars / This review will be posted on goodreads.com today.


This book was so much fun! A book about women who are fierce, yet still struggle with self-esteem. I loved this one.

Madeline, Sophie, and Lauren are best friends in New York City. Madeline had a very amicable divorce with her ex when he took a job in London. Sophie had a very toxic break from her husband, who has since remarried. And Lauren, well, she’s in for quite the ride with her husband. Sophie and Lauren are practically life long friends, Madeline came into the group when they were in a CPR class together.

One night when the three are out together, the three come up with an idea for an app that would outsource wife duties - not the sexual kind, but the stuff wives/moms do every single day. Errands, school stuff, organizing things for the hubby’s work. All those things that women do but never get paid to do. At first Sophie and Madeline think it’s a joke, but Lauren really dives in and decides to move forward.

It’s a book that allows you to see three women as comrades, not competitors. They cheer for each other’s successes. They work together to find the best way to accomplish things. They grow and change. They learn to say no. It’s really an evolution from start to finish. There are pitfalls along the way but they confront and deal with them. A great novel about moving forward.

Mackler is a fabulous writer. The story is full of charm and wit. (And a little bit of sex here and there.) While she does somewhat wrap up the women’s stories, I would still love to see more of them, and where the future takes them.

I had such an emotional response to this book!

As a wife and mom I know all to well the mental load that we carry. I was fired up by all the unfair situations The Wife App illuminated. After reading I felt the need to thank my husband for sharing our load and being a true partner in our relationship.

I thoroughly enjoyed each individual story in the book as well as the overarching story. It was a truly satisfying read.

Thanks so much to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this beautiful story.

I loved the storyline of this book! I felt the need to write down whose exes and kids were whose to keep track while I was reading, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. My biggest issue was the use of the c word during some of the spicy scenes. I grew up being taught that it is a bad/derogatory term towards women, so it is off putting when I read it in a book. Other than that, I loved the LGBT representation that I wasn’t expecting but was a pleasant surprise.

Pros: This book delves a bit into emotional labor. We should be talking more about the invisible burdens that fall to default parents, and how those default parents tend to be female.
Women are shown having sexual agency.
There's a queer romance!

Cons: It's never clear how the characters or the author feels about sex work, it's place in our society, and then emotional and social burdens that come with that as well.
There's a fair amount of hand-waving to make the app and all that it can do feel like a success.

First thank you netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. I was immediately intrigued by the concept of this story - an app that monetizes the load that wives/mothers carry for their family. While the story was interesting it fell a bit flat for me and was hard to stay engaged with. The characters were a hard to relate to and some of the intimate scenes were cringey at best. That being said I do appreciate the acknowledgment of the mental labors wives/mothers deal with and some of the representation the book has.

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read this book as an advanced readers copy.

This was my first time reading Carolyn Mackler and I LOVED the book. This is a quick read! First off, where is this app in real life? This book is so incredibly relatable as a mom, wife, daughter, etc.The book takes the viewpoint of 3 different women (switching pov throughout - my favorite!), all with different lives. Single mom, recently divorced mom and chooses to be single mom. This is LGBTQ+ supportive. I found it to be a wonderful take on the real life mental load that we are expected to take on as women. While reading this I felt heard but I didn't feel like this was a biography, I liked that it was a book of fiction still with humor sprinkled throughout. There is romance in the book too which is always a plus!

My only complaint is that the ending feels almost abrupt. It was a decent ending but leaves you wanting more of the book. What happens to the women, the app, the kids? I'm,? Just hoping this leads to a second book to focus on their new lives.

9/10 for this one!

I really enjoyed the premise of the book and it was compelling enough to keep my attention but I really wasn’t blown away by it. It wasn’t boring per se but it also wasn’t exciting. There were a few weird plot holes and storylines that made you scratch your head. I really enjoyed the characters though and how they were relatable in different ways.
Thank you to NetGalley for the advance review copy in return for an honest review.

Okay so we know as wives we do soooo much to keep our units functioning in daily life. The mental load can get heavy..and can get heavy quick. Well one night bestfriends, Madeline, Lauren and Sophie are having drinks and the app is brought up in a “wouldn’t this be great” type of convo. Fast forward and they come together to make it a reality. We get to follow their individual stories and see how they manage everyday life and how the app is truly life changing for all of them. Just imagine how many downloads this app would have if it was in our real lives. Highly recommend this amazing book!!

Is there an app for that?

Behold, The Wife App! This story gives us some laughs and some thoughtful moments.

A lot of women will relate to the difficulty of balancing work, family, and friendships, in a world that expects so much and gives so little.

While I was nodding along to a lot of the commentary, I didn't really like or connect with any of the characters. I did, however, appreciate their emotional growth along the way.

The app this story revolves around was designed to help ease the mental load of the average woman. But most middle class families in need of the services don’t have expendable income. This issue, mentioned in passing at one point, was never fully addressed, which was unfortunate.

Overall, an interesting premise that missed the mark for me.

I really liked the concept of this book a lot. I was instantly intrigued by the idea of an app where you can sign up and then fairly pay someone to do the never ending tasks that seem to traditionally fall on the wife in our society. I loved that a piece of what they were doing was to help highlight the value of that work and hopefully change the way marriage works in our society. The three main characters all take turns telling their story and while the story was well written, there was something that made it hard to truly connect with the three women. I did love the queer representation, and I don’t just mean with a relationship but in the positive support for a child questioning gender identity and having women/men/non-binary folks be Wives on the app. This was my first one by Carolyn Mackler, but it was a light, fun, and entertaining read so I will definitely find more of her books.

The premise was interesting, but there was a lot of dialog with "As you know," and "You remember that." The reader wasn't trusted to be smart and able to follow along--there was a lot of reminding the reader of things. Then, too, there were some come-on, not credible moments.

This book was funny and light-hearted while taking on the hard task of mental load in relationships. Mental load has started taking the spotlight recently and I love that it was brought to light in a story. I very much enjoyed reading it!