Almost a good book. I liked the concept. I wish some of the men weren't awful characters. It did seem kind of dumb that the main characters had the use the app for themselves. My biggest complaint - the crude sexual references - they seemed forced in and did not fit with the rest of the book.

Thank you for the advance copy!

This book was such a fun read! It was interesting, funny, heartfelt, and I loved it so much. I can’t wait for what’s next from the author.

The Wife App by Carolyn Mackler has a publication date of 6/26/2023. Ever wish you had a wife? A “wife” to do those pesky chores: picking up cleaning, scheduling appointments, applications for summer camps for the kiddos, and other delightful (and often time-consuming) chores?
This cute rom-com’s main characters are three divorced mothers, Lauren, Madeleine, and Sophie. Each has had a different journey in their divorces, but have been friends for several years. The women all have children and ex-husbands who drive them crazy! Along with all the ups and downs of single parenting, the three devise a solution to not enough time to do everything: creating a “wife app”. The app hires a “wife” to do those chores. It’s not for sex or raising children, but solutions and help to help wives, and husbands, singles or married manage their time and find help. It’s silly, it’s funny, and it’s real. Delightful read!
I did have a few concerns, which led to a 4 star rating. One was Lauren’s last name. Zuckerman? Really? There are several prominent Zuckermans, and it might (?) be confused with Zuckerberg. Second, was the length of time to get to the plot. Background is necessary, but it seemed a bit overkill. Finally, I needed a more developed and detailed conclusion. It felt flat, especially considering the last couple chapters. Perhaps an epilogue?

Thank you to NetGalley, Simon and Schuster, and Carolyn Mackler for allowing me the honor of reading the ARC. All opinions are mine alone.

I really wanted to love this book. The concept was great. However i feel like it was drawn out too much to keep my attention. Unfortunately I did not finish it.

Great concept, well-paced, timely and relatable. I breezed through it, it’s a good time, lots of Mom-content that made me smile. I love a women’s friendship story & I miss Laurie Sophie & Madeleine already.

This was an intriguing read! The premise was interesting and creative - three female friends find themselves divorced with children and learn and grow through the creation of The Wife App where “Wives” get paid to take care of the “mental load” of “Spouses”. As someone who has to remind her husband to take the dog out, and then when I suggest he sets an alarm to remind him so I don’t have to, but then he doesn’t, so then I have to remind him to set the alarm that will remind him to take the dog out (💀) I GET the mental load and the desire to offload it (or be fairly compensated for how much damn work it is!) on a deeeeeeep level. What didn’t totally make sense to me was that in order to hire someone else to handle your mental load, you need to get all your ducks in order (like if you want someone to fill out your medical forms for you - which would be a HIPAA nightmare they they just write off in the book by the way, you’d need to provide the Wife with soooo much background information that you may as well just do it yourself). The tasks that make sense for the app are things people could mostly do on other apps like taskrabbit. So it felt like I had to suspend some disbelief. But even if the idea of the app was flawed, I loved the growth of the characters! This was definitely more character driven than plot driven, so given that, I would’ve preferred to love them, and I felt at arms length from each of them at all times. So that’s one way it could’ve been improved. But overall, this was a really different and satisfying read!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review. 3.5 rounded up to 4/5 stars!

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy..

What a magnificent idea, an app that would pay you for all the things wives do daily for free. That is the premise of this book. This story follows three middle age moms who start playing with a brilliant idea and make it happen while completely changing the course of their lives.
Madeline, Sophie, and Lauren are 3 best friends who are separated from their husbands. The overwhelming responsibilities of a wife and mom inspire them to develop this magnificent app.

This is a fun and easy read that everybody can enjoy and feel related in a profound way. The main characters are well developed and admirable.
I highly recommend this book!

Ebook received for free through NetGalley

I absolutely adored this book and had trouble putting it down. The perfect blend of mental load, hilarity, sadness, and perfection.

Thanks so much Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an advance read in exchange for this review.

Lauren, Madeline, and Sophie jokingly discuss starting an app where they get paid to do all the labor that a wife does. It turns into an app that is popular! Life happens. Love happens. Ex husbands happen.

I really liked the idea of this book. Go get paid for the mental load. I liked the 3 women together, but I didn't really connect to one individually. I liked the app too much and didn't care for their individual stories. It's a quick read that has laughs though!

I want to start off by saying: I loved the concept of this book. In the age following Eve Rodsky and her blueberries, I think the idea of an app that takes away the 'mental load' and makes it monetized: absolutely brilliant! I also loved the idea of three friends coming together to build this app, all with different viewpoints on marriage, child-rearing, and the role women play in life.
That being said...I thought the middle to last third of the book got a bit strange. The one 'twist' relationship was really very out of left field and just left a sour taste towards that character. Some of the additional points added to almost 'check boxes' just felt very forced and really not related to the overall message of the book. I loved when they pitched for funding, and I loved most of the child-based interactions...but just the B plotlines left a ton to be desired.
That said: GREAT concept. I read this in about four days and I found myself going back for more. But I would caveat my enjoyment a bit

Tired of the Mental Load of being a wife to not only your kids, but your spouse? Lauren, Madeline, and Sophie were, so they decided to build an app. The Wife App. Designed to take the load off of other spouses minds, they embark on the journey of a lifetime while dealing with lots of changes and challenges in their own lives.

Although I feel like I wasn’t the target audience for this book, I enjoyed it. I liked seeing the character development between not only the three main characters, but also the side characters of the children, exes, step-parents, etc. I really liked the story that was being told and following not only everyone’s life, but the life of the Wife App along the way.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the eARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for this ARC of The Wife App.

The title and premise of the book grabbed me instantly!
Three divorced women create and launch a digital app to monetize the free mental and physical labor (non-sexual) that women - wives - have been burdened with without compensation forever.

Brilliant! I would not be surprised if a real-life app became available after the publishing of this book.

This story is much like the film, “The First Wives Club,” but the modern utility to me was far more interesting. I enjoyed reading about the success of an app that outsourced the mundane concierge of domesticity, far more intimate than a handyman app.

There is the reality of affordability; only well-to-do can afford such services as the app delivers, even though its memberships are price-tiered. I happen to love peeks of elite lifestyles and enjoyed some of the “Spouse” luxury jobs!
Also, many people today choose and depend upon “gig” jobs to make a flexible living, so I saw this as a win for all socioeconomic levels.

The three wives soon become burdened by their success though, and find they have to hire their own Wives to handle their own “mental loads.”
The question of where work/life balance begins and ends is present.

A fun “girl-power” book (though some of the gig-Wives were men!). Four stars.

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.

Lauren, mother of twins, wakes up one morning to her Wife Alarm Bells sounding. She sleuths on her husband’s phone and stumbles on a dirty secret that explodes her marriage. Madeline has it all—a penthouse apartment, a perfect daughter, and no-strings-attached romps with handsome men. When she learns that she might lose her child to her ex in England, it stirs up a decades-old personal tragedy. Sophie, with too much FOMO and never enough money, obsesses over her ex-husband’s Family 2.0—all while keeping her true desires hidden, even from herself.

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.

Awesome plotlines, strong female friendships, and great character development. I really loved this story. Will recommend to others.

Lauren, Sophia, and Madeline are three best friends and divorced single moms living in NYC. The book starts off with a celebration dinner for the finalization of Lauren’s divorce and that is when the idea for The Wife App comes alive. The Wife App allows busy men, women or non-binary people to take the mental load off of themselves and put it onto “the wife.” The wives then sign up to do tasks that they normally wouldn’t get paid for. The App takes off and the woman learn more about themselves and their families. I really loved the concept of this book. I think some of the dialogue and relationships between the characters wasn’t always realistic

The Wife App is a modern revamp of the The First Wives Club. The original motive, unlike the First Wives Club isn't revenge (though revenge enters the picture). Rather, the 3 main characters, 2 of whom are newly divorced decide to create an App to relive wives of their "Mental Load". Users of the app can hire a "wife" who will do such tasks as shop for presents, write and mail cards, fill out and submit private school applications, grocery shop etc. - an app somewhat similar to TaskRabbit.
Of course, along the way they find new loves (one is rather unexpected) and new lives - after all it's "chick lit".

This was a fun read that touches on both age old subjects such as the "second shift" and the unpaid labor of wives as well as modern ones such as the power of influencers. Almost all the characters come equipped with a large helping of "white privilege". Almost all the worker bees are stuck on the treadmill of the gig economy and the App users are high powered people with more money than time.
Some of the tasks undertaken by the "wives", such as escorting children to hundreds of special classes or helping navigate the private school labyrinth are quintessentially NYC but others are tasks just about every women has undertaken at one time or another.

While it's not set on the beach, The Wife App is perfect to tuck into your beach bag. I'd also suggest it for a Book Clubs that enjoy reading fiction that's not overly serious or literary.

A thank you to NetGalley for this E-Reader ARC.

I loved the premise of 3 divorced women working out a way to get paid for the Mental Load that is typically borne by the wife in heterosexual marriages by creating a "Wife App" to monetize and assist with those jobs. It's a brilliant concept and I liked the challenges and characters.

Great read about wives who work together and create an app that helps themselves and others to try and do it all and to have it all. Juggling soo many things all the time with kids, errands, trips, and everyday tasks who wouldn't want to have someone to help. Would highly recommend reading

In 1971, I purchased the first copy of Ms Magazine and read Judy Brady’s essay, “I Want a Wife.” It certainly resonated with me as I saw my mother and friends’ mothers juggling numerous tasks and never having a moment to themselves. Who wouldn’t want someone else to handle all the tedium of daily living? Surely, I thought, with the Women’s Movement, that will not be my lot in life when I am of age to marry.

Fast forward 50 some years, and things have not changed very much. Carolyn Mackler’s first adult novel, The Wife App, addresses this in a very entertaining and satisfying way. The book will remind you a bit of First Wives Club and Sex and the City because of the Manhattan upscale settings and the three women friends who meet for drinks and lunches. In fact, it is at one of their get togethers that the wife app idea is born. Why not get paid for all the du.ties (but not sex) that wives handle on a daily basis. I like that the characters chose to constructively be the saviors of their own lives and did not just get together to complain about the men who did them wrong. The app proved there is a market for women wanting to relieve their mental load.

The reader becomes invested in each of the women’s stories. They are all different, and they all grow as individuals. Interactions with children, ex-husbands, and friends are all realistic. I was engaged throughout the novel. It was also great fun to see what the various consumers of the wife app demanded.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuyler for the ARC. Such a fun read!

This story is told recognizing the often times imbalanced responsibilities of couples in a relationship that mainly falls to the wife.
Keeping the home and family running smoothly is most often a thankless, but necessary job.
Every working woman and man needs The Wife App to keep their home life running smoothly, so they can keep their sanity!
This book is humorous and brilliantly written!
#TheWifeApp
#CarolynMackler

I liked this a lot. The mental load (or "Mental Load", haha) is real! I related to all of the characters and their different versions of modern wife-/mother-/parenthood, and it was interesting to think about what might make these gender inequities more balanced. I did think it went on too long, and the last hour of the book could have been seriously edited down. It felt like it was wrapping up when all of the characters were getting their resolution, but there was still so much more to go! And while I loved Sophie's story, hers also felt particularly saccharine at the end.