Mom Com

Mom Com isn't really a comedy-it's more of a heartfelt tale of growing up and finding peace with your past. Maddi hasn't had an easy life. A teenage mother, she left her home and went across the country to try to make it on her own. After losing a reality baking competition, she heads home where she is confronted by her past and left to figure out what she wants for her future. The characters and the writing in this book are so strong that I couldn't put it down! I can't wait to read more by this author.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

This one was cute. I liked the small town and the cozy Christmas feel. Maddi is a single mother trying to do what's best for her son. When she's embarrassed on TV after a baking show she comes home for the holidays to learn some news about her father's will.
While she is home, she seems to butt heads with everyone and everything seems to be going wrong.
Liv is a good friend to Maddi and wants her to be happy, with a little nudging she helps Maddi see things in a different light.
I liked the flashbacks we see of her relationship with Wilder, leading up to her and him talking again.

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC.

I'll start by admitting I hate second chance romances. And then I'll add that this is an exception. This book was funny and heart breaking and heart warming and lovely and all the other things you want your romcoms to be. I am about to reach the incredibly old age of 24 (ancient, I know), so I am completely over YA romance and even a little hesitant about college-student protagonists. So I was immediately intrigued by a mom as a protagonist. It brings some maturity to the book, and some stakes. I am also from New England so I loved the emphasis on Massachusetts. And despite the "second-chance" of it all, I found myself rooting for these characters and enjoying every second of their journey. I highly recommend!

This rom com had more tears than laughs for me. Lots of emotion with family and the significant others. Pleasant and enjoyable. I quickly read it in one day. A delightful second chance romance. Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary.

5🌟

Wow. I was not expecting this book to hit me deep in the feels but that’s exactly what it did. I went into this book thinking it would be a fluffy, heartfelt romcom and was hit in the heart with a angsty, heartbreaking story. Don’t get me wrong it still had its cute, fluffy, romantic moments but it was so emotional as well.

I loved Madeline and Wilder and the second chance/small town romance. Their story was sweet and heartbreaking all in one. I also thought the relationships between Maddi and her parents was so hard to read. I really felt for Maddi in the flashbacks. I’m so glad that Maddi and her mother managed to resolve their conflict and it did manage to bring me to tears, which is rare for me when I read, so that’s saying something.

Reading the back and forth between Maddi and Wilder was so frustrating but to me that means that it was written so well. I was on the edge of my seat, flying through this book to see how it would all turn out and to say the ending was exactly what you’d want in a romcom is putting it lightly. The ending gave me such warm and happy feelings and I really didn’t want it to end.

This book is also perfect for you Christmas lovers as the main story is set around the Christmas season🎄So make sure you get this book on your TBR ready for the festive season.

Anyway, I feel like I could go on and on about this book and how it made me feel but we’d be here for ages 😂

Thank you to @netgalley @adriana_mather and @blackstonepublishing for the chance to read this ARC. This book gets released on the 14th November, just in time for the Christmas season.

Maddi and Wilder had bake-offs every Sunday afternoon at Maddi’s father’s bakery. Now, many years later living in California she feels she should go back to Haverberry Cove for the first Christmas since her father died. She has never really gotten along with her mother, and she is not looking forward to the visit. Spence, her nine-year-old son, is looking forward to Christmas and the chance to see his father, Jake. Maddi and Wilder were best friends and inseparable until late in high school when he distanced himself from her without much reason. Trying to forget him, she dated Jake and became pregnant. Now, ten years later, the will is read and Maddi and Wilder find out her dad left the bakery to both. Both need to spend a year together in the bakery, or they lose ownership. I found the time Maddi spent in high school to be very realistic. When embarrassing things happen, teens can be very cruel as well as the entire town. Wilder has a deep connection to Maddi, and I found learning about what went on with Wilder as he went back and forth in the relationship to be fascinating. I loved Spence and the positive relationship between Maddi and Spence shared. As the story unfolds between 10 years ago and today, there are lots of secrets to uncover. Great book with wonderful characters.

4.5*

Despite the ill-chosen title, this is NOT a romantic comedy. There is no humor to be found in this painful second-chance romance. In fact, reading about the teenage friends-to-lovers relationship between Maddi and Wilder and the lengths his mother went to separate them is incredibly triggering and anxiety-inducing for anyone who has had a toxic relationship with a parent. It’s a tribute to author Mather’s skill that she is able to elicit such a reaction from readers.

Set in a small town in MA at Christmastime, the misnamed Mom Com opens with Maddi and her 9-year-old son Spence traveling cross country after she humiliated herself on TV upon losing a baking competition and then was summoned by her estranged mother to discuss an issue with her late father’s will. In a surprising twist one year after his death, she learns that he actually left his bakery to her and Wilder with no explanation and with stipulations that will require her to run it with him for a year or lose her share. Given how devastated she was by Wilder’s rejection of her at age 17, she feels betrayed by her father’s decision. How can she possibly give up Spence’s and her life in LA (one she struggled to build on her own as a teenage single mother) to live with her cold, judgmental mother and work side-by-side with a man who she can’t trust but is still drawn to?

Over the course of two weeks, poor Maddi not only has to deal with the grief over her dad and the stress of being with her mother and Wilder, but she also has to face the judgment of the town’s citizens, the unwelcome attention and jealousy of her sperm donor Jake, and the viciousness of Wilder’s mother and on-again, off-again girlfriend. The bright spots are her precocious son Spence and her renewed friendship with Wilder’s older sister Liv, both of whom provide much-needed levity to this oft-times heavy narrative.

This is a worthwhile read, but don’t let the extremely poorly-illustrated, off-putting cover and title fool you into thinking that this is a fluffy holiday offering. It’s not tragic, but this clean, slow burn romance isn’t the least bit lighthearted.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Blackstone Publishing through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Such a heartfelt book. I loved that it wasn't just about the main characters and that there was so much healing within these pages. Loved every second of it and didn't want to put it down!

In all honesty, I wasn't sure what this book was about when I first requested it. I just knew that it was a romcom and that if Emily Henry was endorsing it, I had to give it a go. I can't even begin to tell you how surprised I was at how much I loved this story. I was consumed by it, savouring each word and simultaneously devouring it at the same time. 

I listened to the audiobook while also reading my copy and just a little heads up, the book alternates between two time periods (then and now) so it can get a bit confusing to listen to as there is no warning with the back and forth. The time periods are highlighted in the book through different fonts though and it is much easier to follow. 

This second chance romance will definitely be featuring on my favorite books of 2023 - it's that good. Do yourself a favor and grab yourself a copy!

This was one of them books, that once I'd picked it up and started I couldn't put it down!
It's a small town, second chance romance. The flashbacks and real time blend so well that the smoothness in the switch is brilliant.
I loved Liv, what a fabulous secondary character that totally deserves her own book.
The main character at times made me want to shake some sense into her, but you get so attached from the get go that you can't help but root for her.

All in all it was a fan, adorable, emotional, easy 5 star read.

Mom Com
By: Adriana Mather
Available November 14th, 2023

"Haverberry Cove is Massachusetts' standard for elegance. It's three-quarters New England charm and one-quarter brine-scented driftwood, which is to say it's basically perfect ‐-- except for the fact that I can't stand being in it. Rambling historical houses with ocean views surround a postcard-worthy square where the aesthetic is hand made, hand-carved, and locally sourced." - Adriana Mather, Mom Com

With a release date set in November, just in time for the holiday season, fans of Adriana new and old will be sure to find Mom Com quickly become a favorite to add to their shelves and gift to their rom-com loving friends and family.

While romance isn't my typical go to genre to read, I was not disappointed and this one from Adriana has already earned five stars from me!

Those whom have read any of Mather's previous books set in New England, such as How To Hang A Witch, will find themselves sucked into Haverberry Cove, MA as the story unravels about Maddi's complicated past and buried, unresolved feelings tied to the fictional New England town.

Through Adriana's detailed and descriptive writing, I found myself whisked away through various scenes such as the decorated and lit up seaside square, the holiday market, The Corner Bar and Tony's pizza and bar, and of course, There's Nothing Batter Bakery.

Mom Com truly is as heartwarming and sweet as the pastries described in the book and as the titles of each chapter. As a thirty something year old woman from small town, coastal Maine myself, it was easy for me to relate with the setting with winter and holidays a main theme. Of course it's nice to escape to other worlds when reading, but sometimes we crave what's already familiar and need some of that "magic" restored through the story in a cute, feel good book.

Adriana manages to do just that, bring back magic and connection for her characters that they thought they lost in themselves, their friends and families, and their home. I think everyone can remember times where we dealt with grief, tried to run away, wanted to handle life on our own without any help, and ended up isolated, missing pieces, having wrong ideas, or lost along the way.

Mom Com brings Maddi and Spence back home all the way from California where she's been trying to make it for herself and Spence his whole life. Upon returning to Haverberry Cove, it dredged up a lot of heartbreak and memories Maddi tried to move on from. But through seeing Haverberry from the perspective of her son and his wonder and amazement that she hadn't felt herself since her childhood, and through reconnecting with her mother and her old flame, the handsome, rich Wilder, Maddi begins to rediscover what she loved about home. In a series of appropriate and semi-dramatic events, Maddi finds out missing puzzle pieces and is on the way to mending relationships with her mother and friends, and falling in love with herself, with Haverberry, and with Wilder again. She finds that the magic of baking and her father, and even love, were never truly gone, she just needed to see it for herself.

I am honored to have had the chance to read and review Mom Com, and I can't wait to add it to my shelf and share it with others! Mom Com had the sense of familiarity and New England setting I always love, and it has relatable emotions and some sad but also realistic life events. Adriana's characters are like people we all know in our own lives, the rich ones, the gossips, the ex friends and lovers, the children and cousins, the new or reconnected flames, the family that are sometimes difficult to get along with, but they're still family and the loved ones or community members gone, but not forgotten or who have left their trademark or legacy, like a bakery.

Like the icing on a hot cinnamon bun on Christmas morning, Mom Com and Adriana really do bring a taste of that holiday spirit and that magic of love and more deep human connection that we all need more of all year round, whether in sunny California or snowy New England. Mom Com will fill you up, just like every treat at There's Nothing Batter Bakery would.