“Abbi Waxman is both irreverent and thoughtful.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Emily GiffinSquashed among a bus full of strangers, mother-daughter duo Jessica and Emily Burnstein watch their carefully mapped-out college tour devolve into a series of off-roading misadventures, from the USA Today bestselling author of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill. Jessica and Emily Burnstein have very …
Jessica and Emily Burnstein have very different ideas of how this college tour should go.
For Emily, it’s a preview of freedom, exploring the possibility of her new and more exciting future. Not that she’s sure she even wants to go to college, but let’s ignore that for now. And maybe the other kids on the tour will like her more than the ones at school. . . . They have to, right?
For Jessica, it’s a chance to bond with the daughter she seems to have lost. They used to be so close, but then Goldfish crackers and Play-Doh were no longer enough of a draw. She isn’t even sure if Emily likes her anymore. To be honest, Jessica isn’t sure she likes herself.
Together with a dozen strangers–and two familiar enemies–Jessica and Emily travel the East Coast, meeting up with family and old friends along the way. Surprises and secrets threaten their relationship and, in the end, change it forever.
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I received an e-book from Berkley Romance in exchange for a honest review.
I fully need to admit this up front… I do not think this author is a good fit for me. I wanted to love this book but the writing style just didn’t grab my attention. Maybe her other work has more potential for me? I have it downloaded on my Kindle and will attempt it in the near future.
I Was Told It Would Get Easier shares the story of a mother and daughter who have grown apart and attempt to use a college visit to help bring them back together. Do they? I won’t spoil it but will say, it’s a bit of a painful experience.
What I do think hurts this book the must is how overdone some of the themes are: a hormonal teenager and a workaholic mother. That’s been written about. I also didn’t love how the book played into the recent college admissions scandal.
Sometimes in a pandemic, you need a little fun reading. This fit the bill.
Man I love Abbi Waxman so much! Last year when I read The Bookish Life of Nina Hill I knew she was going to become an autobuy author for me, and she definitely didn’t let me down with I Was Told It Would Get Easier. This book is filled with humor, mother-daughter bonds, and wonderful friendships and it made me smile, laugh, and tear up (this was at the end) the entire time I was reading. I ended up listening to the audio and Lisa Flanagan & Bailey Carr did such an amazing job voicing Jessica and her daughter Emily. Their voices sounded just the way I would imagine the characters to, and both were incredibly easy to listen to. I also loved the formatting of the book, and I love that other things are mixed in with the chapters besides just the different viewpoints.
Both main characters were wonderful, and Jessica was such a great female lead. I Was Told It Would Get Easier touches on inequality in the workforce and I loved that Jessica was a force to be reckoned with. At its core though, this book is about the bond between Jessica and her daughter, along with friendship. I loved the attention both of these things got and just how much humor was mixed in with the serious parts. It is a very endearing and heartfelt read and there aren’t many characters that you want to hate which is always a nice change of pace.
If you want a book that will make you laugh and doesn’t take itself too seriously, I would highly recommend I Was Told It Would Get Easier, especially the audiobook since it was wonderful. Waxman has further cemented herself as one of my favorite authors and I look forward to reading more from her!
Thank you to the publisher for my advance review copy via Edelweiss. All opinions and thoughts are my own.
I Was Told it Would Get Easier by Abbi Waxman
Contemporary fiction. Chick lit.
A mother and teen daughter deal with their relationship with each other and their current life issues during a scouting college trip.
Alternating chapters from both the mother and daughter’s point of view.
Well written from both perspectives showing work and life conflicts of a teenager on the verge of adulthood and a mother with career questions.
I loved the story and the relationships. True to life arguments and self discovery.
Sweet with a bit of humor and wit.
“OMG, I’m turning into my daughter!”
“OMG, the boy showed up and offered my furious daughter some chocolate. There goes her virginity.”
I’ve been a fan of Abbi Waxman since her debut book, The Garden of Small Beginnings. While I don’t think I’ve rated any of them a full 5 stars, they have never failed to be witty, poignant, and all-around great reads.
I was a little iffy about this book, because I really enjoy a romantic element in my women’s fic and I didn’t get the impression that this one would have that. It did end up having some very light romantic elements, but not enough to make it worth mentioning. Mostly, this was the story between a mother and daughter and their changing relationship as they make plans for each of their futures. And I really enjoyed it!
The relationship between single mom Jessica and her daughter Emily rang true for a large part of the story. Using both POV’s to share personal and different insights to some of the same situations really spoke to the differences between generations and interpretations of those events. As a young married adult, I had a conversation with my own mother regarding how we viewed a particular incident in our joint past and it was enlightening how completely different our interpretations were. So much so, that it changed our relationship for the better from that point on. That realistic element helped me to really connect to the main characters.
The events surrounding and influencing the mother/daughter relationship were fun highlights to the main story. I enjoyed the wit, the evolving friendships, and the nostalgia. Although fictional, Jessica was written as a similar age to myself. It was fun reading about her experiences in college that were similar to mine and how so much has changed for our daughter’s generation. Being able to relate made this reading experience even more enjoyable. While this might not be my favorite by this author, it was still a fun story that I’m happy to have read.
A mother and daughter on an organized tour of elite colleges deal with an old boyfriend, Mean Girls, the FBI, and life decisions both large and small in this funny and heartwarming title from one of my favorite authors.
I’m still reading and savoring this well-told story about a mother and daughter who are more alike than they think!
What a great story with many laughs and totally relatable moments! Jessica’s relationship with Emily is your typical mother/daughter teenage relationship and throw in the stress of high school and looking at colleges and you have a great recipe for entertainment. There are a couple of lines in the story that had me really laughing and took me back to my days with my girls. “Parenting teenagers is something of a shit show” is so very true! “They’re really very rewarding, teenagers. They give back a lot” and that they do. A lot of attitude for those teen years.
An uplifting story of the nuances of a mother-daughter relationship and the many complexities that exist in such a bond. Jessica Burnstein is a career driven attorney, a single-mother raising her troubled sixteen-year-old daughter Emily when difficulties at work make it a perfect time for the two to take a college tour in the northeast.
For those who may remember, the relationship between a mother and teen daughter is usually a love /hate relationship, often fraught with drama, histrionics, and screaming matches. Emily is not the best student and feels her mother’s example is a lot to live up to. Jessica has lived such a regimented life for so long she has forgotten what it is like to be young and carefree. The trip proves to be the catalyst that opens the lines of communication between the two. They travel with a group of other parents and students and along the way there are more fights, humor and revelations bringing the two closer together.
This was enjoyable book about coming of age for both the daughter and the mother and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I gave it four stars.
This is a fast and easy read that mothers of teenage girls especially will enjoy, but I’ve only ever had a teenage son, and still very much enjoyed it. Waxman is deft with broad situational comedy as well as witty narration and dialogue, and she’s constructed a clever, very focused plot that moves along quickly. It makes some nice feminist points and critiques the imperative to get kids into good colleges at all costs, which makes it timely, too. Recommended if you have a sense of humor.
*Source: ARC provided in exchange for an honest review
If there ever was a book that I needed to speak to me this summer it’s this one! While it’s not a revolutionary topic – that of mother-daughter relationships – it’s brilliant and witty in displaying the harrowing minefields that come with said relationship. The story itself made me feel as if the author had shadowed me taking notes on all the ups and downs of my day.
As a high-powered attorney Jessica’s worked hard to make a good life for her and Emily. She’s thrived in her career and enjoys mentoring other women to be as successful as she has been. However, as she’s achieved so much professionally she’s also lost touch with her daughter. Emily knows her mother loves her but feels she has to compete with her career to get her attention. She’s also feeling a little lost at the moment not knowing exactly where she fits in especially with all this stress of choosing a college.
While Jessica and Emily had their occasional issues connecting, I found empathy for both of them. I felt solidarity with Jessica for all that she was trying to bridge that divide with Emily. Waxman is amazing at spacing and timing the dialogue. She’ll have the mother-daughter duo either mirroring each other’s thoughts or going in opposite directions with their way off assumptions about the other. It’s comedic gold as it shows how much they in fact do have in common and think alike even if they’re awkward in each other’s company. They’re essentially blundering their way through this trip, hashing out their quarrels while also dealing with new complications at work and school. This will make for a memorable trip indeed!
It’s a special thing when a book strikes a chord with you and helps to make sense of those tumultuary moments. In my case it’s been cathartic. Laughing along with Jessica and Emily, and also at myself while showing me things in a new light, I felt reassured that someone else gets it. Gaining new awareness was an unexpected and welcome benefit of reading this novel. There were a few times when I wished I could jump through the pages (or my Kindle, in this instance) and yell, “Me too, sister!” because wow, Waxman totally nailed all the jumbled up emotions, questions and insecurities that arise throughout the ever-changing dynamics between mothers and daughters. With clever dialogue and humour, IWTIWGE is entertaining summer reading, for sure!
~ Bel