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.

It starts as a joke during a tipsy night out, as 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? Soon, the Wife App is born, and before long, it’s the fastest growing start-up in New York City. But then life intervenes. Love intervenes. Ex-husbands intervene. And the consequences are bigger than anything Lauren, Madeline, or Sophie could have expected. Carolyn Mackler marks her debut into adult fiction with a hilarious rollercoaster ride of revenge and redemption that is at once a send-up of modern marriage and a celebration of female friendship and love in all forms.
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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5 stars
My review: I LOVED this this book. Lauren, Madeline, and Sophie are great friends who go way back. And they are all very different. That is the first plus about this book. The second is that they are all smart, resourceful, and interesting.

All three women have husband/exhusband problems. Over wine one night they decide to ease the burden of wives in NYC. Their idea is to hire themselves out to do things women routinely are expected to do FOR FREE. It’s brilliant, they are brilliant. The everyday issues that women face with work, kids, spouses, exes, and parents, added onto their existing “mental load” of keeping everything going can be insurmountable and overwhelming. The Wife App tackles all of it. Through this idea and the work it entails each of the main characters learns, grows, and thrives. I enjoyed their paths and I cheered for them the entire time. Plus, the jerky husbands get their comeuppance and the good ones stay good. This novel has humor, intelligence, highs and lows and contemporary issues. I loved the entire journey. Highly recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Read if you like:
👯‍♀️ Who Runs the World- Girls! vibes
📱 Apps
🚫 Happily Divorced
💋 Romance
🙊 Revenge

This book! It was so dang fun and refreshing! I loved the three characters and how they were so different but all had the same goal- get wha they felt they deserved from their Exes….

I loved the way it was written as it was so smart, funny, and had a surprise romance I wasn’t expecting but worked so well with the book and how it was written!

If you want a f*ck the patriarchy vibe I 100% recommend you pick this one as it has all the vibes!

Thank you to Simon and Schuster for my ARC in exchange for my review!

I really enjoyed this book!! This was a fun, cute, relatable read. I loved getting to know each of the friends and their back stories. The synopsis mentioned revenge on their ex-husbands but I did not really find that anywhere in the book. I guess Joshua and Eric KIND OF got theirs, in a roundabout way... but I would have loved to see THEIR reactions, or in a more upfront way.
I read this book in 2 days. It was easy to read and easy to follow which I enjoy. Overall this book was fun and relatable.

Thank you, Simon & Schuster and NetGalley, for the advanced copy of The Wife App.

If you're like me, you find yourself telling your husband that you need a wife. The cooking, the cleaning, the kids, the husband, the shopping... all of that on top of a full-time job is enough to make anyone burn out and a little mental. I loved this story. It made me smile and laugh and cheer on our super awesome fictional friend group. This was a fun, light read that is a great pick for any Summer reading list.

When three divorced friends get together and joke about making an app where you can hire a wife, Lauren decides to actually go through with developing the app. With the help and input of her other two friends, they are able to launch an app that allows someone to hire a Wife to help with the Mental Load. The story follows the life of our three friends, Lauren, Madeline, and Sophie, as they navigate divorced life, careers, love, and camaraderie.

The Wife App is a cute, chick-lit type story about 3 divorced friends who create the Wife App after commiserating over their failed marriages. They all felt unfairly burdened with the lion’s share of the mental load and the daily tasks. So they create an app in which spouses can hire a wife to fill out medical forms, or apply to preschools, or create photo albums. I enjoyed the premise of the book a lot and identified with the 3 main protagonists. It was a quick read, not complicated at all. There was some romance near the end, but it was more about the women supporting each other and their families.

I enjoyed The Wife App. I love when a book bounces between different points of view. Lauren, Madeline and Sophie (even with their three different lifestyles) felt relatable. I absolutely loved the idea behind The Wife App and how the three of them used the mental load that women carry to become profitable. I feel like the story touched on a number of different topics and how the three women navigated them between themselves and their children. The book read quickly, but more importantly I wanted to know what was going to happen next. I did feel like it wrapped up with happy endings, but not in a corny type of way. The focus remained on the women and how much a wife truly does versus creating a happy ending narrative. It just felt good that every ended up in a sense "where they should be" without it all feeling too far fetched.

I loved the premise of this book, and it definitely had me thinking about sharing the mental load in marriage. It felt a bit long, and the surprise relationship toward the end was maybe supposed to be a surprise but instead felt forced and a bit performative. Maybe that was just me. I did enjoy the book and the ending was great. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

If there was a app that would help you with daily living would use it and what for?
My Thoughts
When life gets hard for three divorced women and they had enough they get together and create an app. The app they create is designed to help them with every day life.
After creating the app the women’s life changes which causes them to go through some up and down and twist and turn. This is story that will make you feel and think about your life weather or not you have anything in common with the characters but I think we can All relate.

A surprisingly fun read. I really
enjoyed this book! Definitely recommend.

I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

Well, this app seems like a winner! If you as a wife, or significant other got paid for all the household, childcare, and yes, husband tasks, you manage, well, you wouldn’t need another full-time job. But wives do all of these things, because honestly, they wouldn’t get done if they didn’t, and most of us have been brought up expecting this(hopefully it’s becoming less the normal every generation).
Lauren, Madeline, and Sophie each have been through traumatic relationships that just haven’t worked out for various reasons. Lauren is the newest member to join the divorced club, and soon they band together to create The Wife App. A place where people get paid for handling all the chores that often fall on a wife’s shoulders. Each of them have experienced different degrees of success(if you can call it that) managing their exes and their children.
Well, now I won’t say anymore, since the fun of this book for me, was seeing whether they would succeed or fail. Also, how this joint venture might benefit them both personally and professionally.
Not my(I’m more of a Mystery and Thriller addict), usual type read,but I spread my bookish wings as outdoor beach reading season gets into high gear. I will say I liked all three women, but Sophie’s growth/transformation won my heart. A page flipper not too light and not too heavy, but with just enough topics discussed to make me think about some things that I’ve probably taken for granted. I look forward to seeing what the author writes next.

Sadly, this was a DNF for me at the 50% mark. The story dragged for me and I did not connect or care for any of the characters. There was character development and the author writes them well, I just didn't relate to any of them.. I felt the story kept repeating the same issues and the story did not develop fast enough, which made me lose interest. It tended to jump around a lot and felt disjointed. It did have moments that made me smile, but then would lose me. Once I set the book down, I did not have any desire to continue, hence the DNF. Thnk you to Net Galley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could get paid for all the tedious wife and mother stuff we do all the time? That’s just what best friends Lauren, Sophie and Madeline think when they create “The Wife App” a way for people to get paid to do all mental work loads that other people don’t want to do! Can the wife app fix even the messiest of lives?

This overall was a really cute read! I loved all the characters and loved their growth and humor and friendship. The book did feel a little rushed and sped up through time. A lot of gaps!! Cute story but could’ve been better!

3.5/5 ⭐️

I really enjoyed reading this book. There were so many things to love. As a society, we are collectively become more aware of female rage. This book embodies women deciding to no longer accept taking on unpaid labor so there spouse can play dumb or ignorant. Each character had their own unique storyline following their relationships with their ex husband's, their children, and their feelings towards the dissolution of their marriages.

Lauren was with a serial cheater. Madeline is the embodiment of fabulous and put together, she didn't want to be a wife, so when her husband got a job opportunity in London she welcomed the divorce. And Sophie, her ex is a real piece of free loading poop.

As each of these women find their own path beyond compulsory domestic labor, they discover themselves beyond the roles they once bore them down. They fought to release an app to revolutionize marriage equity.

Now here is my criticisms. There was a major lack of racial diversity in this novel. One could argue that BIPOC women likely experience a very intense mental workload to maintain a family while also managing a racist system in the workforce, personal life. I think the story could have greatly benefitted from including a diverse character explaining the issues they face as a wife, instead of the message being very white centered overall.

Often a lot of very cheesy (and very millennial cheugy) terms were used frequently that really took me out of the story at times. I know as a Gen Z reader I'm likely not the main audience for a book, especially given that the main characters are in their latest 30's going to early 40's. Clearly there would be a difference in word choice, however it didn't always feel like a genuine conversation a person in 2023 would have.

At times I found the commentary leaning too much towards girl boss feminism, which can sometimes be harmful. However, I think that for these characters it did work, as they felt previously as though they had few options. Going into running the Wife App allowed them much more autonomy over their life, and they frequently showed the management of a work life balance, which I appreciated.

Here is what I loved the most. The mothers became even better after finding their own voice. I have a tense relationship with my own mother, and seeing such healthy relationship building with acceptance at the forefront was very touching.

This was a very solid read for me, and I give it 4 stars. I would have rated it higher if I enjoyed the dialogue more between characters and if there was more racial diversity in the characters. I loved the representation of disability and LGBTQ+ identities. Those two aspects hit it out of the park.

I was very pleased that the story centered the growth and story of the women rather than romance, but when they did get happy endings romantic wise, I loved it for each and every mom.

The concept behind this book was so original! What if there was an app that you could use to “hire” a spouse to do all the work traditionally done by a wife? That is what this explores through the friendship of three divorced women all looking for a way to stick it to their exes. This was poignant and funny - lots of laugh out loud moments. A really great womens fiction book with death to the patriarchy vibes

All I can say is that I need this in real life! But, then again, I know I would feel so guilty using something like this. I am sure there are A LOT of women out there like me, when at the end of the day wonder to themselves.....what would they do without me?! NOTE: I know the same can be said for men in the same situation.

I swear, Carolyn MUST have been reading our minds when she came up with this book! What do you get when you have three best friends (techie, working mom and trust fund baby) go to dinner and "jokingly" suggest the creation of an app where you would hire individuals to help you do the day-to-day chores, running around and scheduling that we do.

Following these ladies through their business and personal journeys was definitely eye opening and even had me dreaming of hiring them...LOL!

#netgalley #thewifeapp #simonandschuster

Close friends and all three divorced, Lauren, Madeline, and Sophie realize that as wives they carried the entire “mental load” in their marriages. They were the ones responsible for the house, the children, their social lives, medical care….everything. Over a dinner out, they jokingly suggest that all these chores should be monetized and maybe there should be a “Wife App” to do just that. What seemed like a crazed idea became reality as techie Lauren worked with the two of them and other tech professionals to create such an app. An app where a “spouse” could hire a “wife”(who could be female or male) to carry out all those tasks that often fall on the woman to complete. As they traverse the pitfalls of their daily lives coping with ex husbands, children, and their needs, the app takes off, becoming hugely successful.

I loved this book (and I am recommending it to my husband!). It is fresh and contemporary, with snappy writing, humorous, painfully on target observations. I have already praised this to all my friends.

Thanks to #netgalley and #Simon&Schuster for the ARC.

Three divorced friends who unite and take on their different problems with ex's, children and life stressors; and create business in doing the mundane tasks of life for others. I was so pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable this book was. The characters were authentic and relatable and the writing was excellent. I recommend this read. Thank you to Netgalley, the author and Simon and Schuster for allowing me the arc copy in exchange for a fair and honest review!

Fantastic, smart, just a total delight to read. I liked the characters, they were wonderful. Now I'll be craving more books just like this one. Highly recommended.

Three friends, Lauren, Madeline and Sophie, jokingly talk about a wife app to take care of the Mental Load wives feel, the overwhelming chores to do without any spousal support. Then, Bingo! Lauren works rto create the app and the three friends are the first wives. Told in rotating perspectives, it is a story of how they deal with stuff in their own lives and how the app affects them.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book and could relate to some of the mental Load duties. The characters are different from each other and have their own unique problems which adds flavor to the story.
I voluntarily read an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I think this book will definitely appeal to women who have married and/or had children. Being in neither category, I struggled to relate to the lives of the main characters, and the ending felt a little too neatly tied up in a pretty bow.