3.5★
“‘You need a change. I think you should do something radical,’ Annalise had said. ‘Get an undercut with patterns shaved into it! Dye it blue!’

‘Are you kidding me? You could get away with shaving the side of your head, I’d just look like I’d been in a terrible accident or had brain surgery.’”

Poppy is a happily married young woman whose life changes instantly when the rug is pulled out from under her. She’s got a good job, has no kids, plays competitive soccer, and finds a new bestie at work in Annalise (who suggests the makeover above).

She and Annalise are getting fed up with the married women who take family time off, leave work early to pick kids up, and generally seem to take advantage of motherhood to wangle free time and expect the single women to pick up the slack.

There is a Facebook group for mums, so they decided to start one for women without kids so they can support each other in their wish to NOT have children for reasons of their own. They want a place where they can speak freely without having to listen to some well-meaning friend or mother or sister warning them they aren’t getting any younger and they’ll change their minds.

Get-togethers with family or friends all mean going somewhere the kids can play, and yell, and spill food on everyone. Poppy and Annalise just want some child-free zones where they can have a coffee and conversation without having to listen to tantrums or be bumped by prams.

Well, not just coffee. The wine flows fairly freely, but to be fair, a lot of it is being consumed by frazzled mums. As a wine-lover who regularly suffers through DryJuly, I feel a little like this myself sometimes.

“One day every week, Annalise doesn’t drink. She figures it’s pretty impressive – her level of restraint. People ought to hold a parade for her. One day out of seven when she doesn’t consume alcohol.”

There are side stories, back stories, and sneaky business with women infiltrating each other’s Facebook groups and starting rumours. It's duelling Facebook posts at 20 paces. Women are a funny lot.

“Sometimes that’s what a new friendship between women was like – a touch of flirtatiousness. Mutual attraction. Didn’t have to be sexual. Could be if you wanted it.”

I very much enjoyed the beginning, I liked the believable characters, and I thought it had a promising storyline. Unfortunately, I wasn’t surprised by the ‘secret’ story, and the way one of the women stumbles across it is far too convenient. I expected more.

There will be plenty of readers who will enjoy the way everything ties up neatly at the end, I’m sure. Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins Australia for the copy for review.

Thank you Harper Collins Australia and Netgalley for an ARC in return for my honest review.
This is the first book I have read by Nicola Moriarty, although I have previously enjoyed books by her sisters. This sister is no exception, I really enjoyed having this book to read amongst a couple heavier books. I especially enjoyed reading a book set in Sydney and relating to places that were described.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this great book and introducing me to another great author in the family.

This is the first book by Nicola Moriarty I've read, but it definitely will not be the last.

The story was surprising and not what I expected. It drew some pictures of "Other" women I did not want to see; women can be so hard on other women and judge each other more harshly than a man would ever judge us.

I'd love to say I have never acted like any of the women in the story, but I'd be lying. Many of the stories told are heartbreaking but excellent writing stops the book from ever becoming maudlin.

I highly recommend this book to married, single, childless women and/or women with children - you may just learn some understanding for each other.

After Poppy's husband and her best friend come clean about an affair they've been having - and their intention to continue their relationship – Poppy is lost, preparing to start her life again.

She meets fiery Annalise, and together they start a Facebook group for women who don't want children. This spurs a conflict between non-mums and an online mum's group, but one of their members is not who she is pretending to be and the conflict escalates into real life cafes and shopping centres.

The different perspectives of the two groups and the insecurities that lead to aggressively defending each group's position is addictive, as you begin to empathise with both sides, regardless of which side you relate more to.

A great read for a book group, opening up conversation about taboo topics that this book isn't shy about addressing.

Wow! What a book! I thrived over the drama but at the same time, as a woman, I found the truth and honestly of the story rather confronting. Brilliant concept creating by Nicola Moriarty about women attacking other women. Judging and confronting women over their life choices and parenting skills - bad parent because you can’t control your loud child; jealously over working mums flexibility in the workplace; mums looking down at other mums because they’ve chosen to work or not to work.

But the judgment and assumptions don’t stop at only mums. There are the women who’ve chosen not to have any children, but everyone assumes they will change their minds one day or because they can’t conceive.

Poppy was one of those women, a non-mum who doesn’t have a maternal instinct in her body to have any children, and is fed up with people and family thinking otherwise, and questioning her decision. She was also quite annoyed with the mothers at the work place, believing they had an advantage over everyone else by leaving early to pick up the kids, days off for sick child etc. After being betrayed by her husband and her best friend, Poppy befriends Annalise a work colleague who also doesn’t have an interest in having children either. When Poppy found out about the online mother’s group called ‘MOP’, and the fact that she didn’t qualify, her and Annalise decided to form their own group, a non-mother’s group called ‘NOP’. NOP was a Facebook page for like-minded women and a friendly place for non-mums to organise meet ups, talk, share advice. But everything changed one drunken night when Poppy vented online and posted a challenge for all non-mums, which caused the MOP online group to explode!

Being a mother myself, I was very fortunate to be surrounded by supportive and helpful women in my life, when my daughter was young. However I do recall being so fragile at the time. Riddled with guilt because I didn’t pick up the signs when she was sick. Or embarrassed and confused when I couldn’t control her temper tantrums in public. But that’s long gone and looking back I’m proud of myself as a mum. But if a stranger openly confronted me in public at the time, judging my parenting skills I would absolutely crumble.

In this book we see all sides of women choices and arguments, and how wrongly they can easily be judge, forming a false picture in ones mind of what someone is like by just one scenario or a comment. Sometime it’s less obvious, it could be a lift of the eyebrow, giving someone the general idea of what you really think of them.

I found Poppy and Annalise to be like that. Hypocrites, childish and nasty women who felt it’s right to backstab, and form an negative opinion about mums at work, yet don’t like it done to themselves and uncomfortable about other NOP members doing the same – due to the response to Poppy’s online post. I do have to give them credit though. When confronted about the nasty behaviour or misjudgement, they owned up to it, admitted their error and were genuinely remorseful. Frankie, on the other hand is someone I could relate too. A mum like me, juggling work, home life, loves her children but who occasionally wants to escape family life and be herself. The ending was surprisingly heartbreaking but uplifting. Makes you proud of the lengths that these women will go through to help another women in strife. Thoroughly compulsive read. I highly recommend it.

Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for my review copy.

EXCERPT: Poppy and Garret's separation was pretty easy. No kids, no pets, no mortgage. Separate bank accounts, one car each. And their rental lease had been due for renewal. There was a shared savings account they'd each been depositing money into to buy a house one day, and they simply split it down the middle. Admittedly, Poppy earned a little more than Garret, so she'd probably put more money into the account than he had, but she didn't care. She didn’t want to have any arguments. She didn’t want to delay things any more than she had to. She just wanted to get Garret and Karleen out of her life as quickly as possible.

Garret got the sofa; Poppy never liked that pattern anyway.

Poppy got the coffee table - it was an antique from her grandmother.

Garret got the bed. Poppy got the bedroom furniture.

Garret got the coffee machine and Poppy got the kettle.

Garret got the toaster and Poppy took the blender.

And of course, Garret not only kept his best man from the wedding - his mate from high school - but he cleaned up with the maid of honour too. How nice for him to collect the set.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: From the author of The Fifth Letter comes a controversial and darkly comic story about the frustrations of being a childless woman in the modern baby-obsessed world . . .

Poppy's world has been tipped sideways: the husband who never wanted children has betrayed her with her broody best friend.

At least Annalise is on her side. Her new friend is determined to celebrate their freedom from kids, so together they create a Facebook group to meet up with like-minded women, and perhaps vent just a little about smug mummies' privileges at work.

Meanwhile their colleague Frankie would love a night out, away from her darlings - she's not had one this decade and she's heartily sick of being judged by women at the office as well as stay-at-home mums.

Then Poppy and Annalise's group takes on a life of its own and frustrated members start confronting mums like Frankie in the real world. Cafés become battlegrounds, playgrounds become warzones and offices have never been so divided.

A rivalry that was once harmless fun is spiralling out of control.

Because one of their members is a wolf in sheep's clothing. And she has an agenda of her own . . .

MY THOUGHTS: I have often said that being a mother is the most demanding job in the world. If you are lucky you have a great support network, family, friends and, these days, the Internet. But not everyone wants to be a parent, and the decision not to have children seems the most difficult one for family members and society as a whole to accept. These women are often treated as 'oddities', outcasts, while secretly being envied their 'freedom'.

Nicola Moriarty has woven a tale of two distinct lifestyle groups, their petty rivalries and erroneous judgements of the others motivations and feelings. She writes about the mothers who resent the career women with their apparent lack of ties, and the career women who resent the mothers for their apparent lack of commitment to the job, about how a few ill-judged words in the heat of the moment pitted woman against woman, sister against sister, friend against friend, and just how far some of those women are prepared to go to denigrate the others choices. And what it takes for them to realise that the grass is really the same shade of green both sides of the fence.

This is my first book by Nicola Moriarty, and I am not sure exactly what I was expecting. And I am having trouble deciding exactly what I felt about this book. It was, in parts, amusing. I did have trouble with the concept that two groups of women would literally come to blows over defending their decision to have or not have children, though I guess world wars have been started with little more provocation. Moriarty has demonstrated a good understanding of the feelings and motivations of a wide range of women with differing lifestyles. But somehow, I just didn't get immersed in this book. I felt like I was ' reading a book '. Yes, I know that is exactly what I was doing, but I like to feel that I am right in there with the characters, and this just didn’t happen.

However, there was nothing I actively disliked about Those Other Women, and overall I enjoyed the read, so 3.5 stars.

Thank you to Harper Collins Publishers Australia via Netgalley for providing a digital copy of Those Other Women by Nicola Moriarty for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the 'about' page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system.

This review and others are also published on my blog sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

It was ok, but I was enjoying it to start with. It was lighthearted and fun.
It just lost me towards the end

I didn't love this book as I thought I would as I have really enjoyed all of Nicole's other books.

This is about women, and how rivals and holding grudges, can come between mums and non-mums.
Poppy and Annalise are tired of mums always getting away with leaving work early, and using their kids as excuses.
Poppy's world has been tipped upside down. Her husband who never wanted children has betrayed her with her best friend, and they are having a baby together.
Her work mate and friend Annalise is on her side. Poppy's new friend is determined to celebrate their freedom from kids so together they create a Facebook group to meet up with like-minded women, and perhaps vent just a little about smug mums' privileges at work. And Poppy get drunk and has a good vent online about her ex.

Meanwhile, fellow worker, and mum, Frankie would love a night out, away from her darlings - she's not had one in years - and she's sick of being judged by women at the office and stay-at-home mums.

Poppy and Annalise's group takes off and Frankie is watching from the sidelines, covering for her boss and trying to cope with a struggling marriage and 2 kids?

The two groups collide and things spiral out of control. Will is all become a big bust up or will the mums and non mums sort out a compromise.
Great story by Nicola. She has a way of getting you entertained and wanting to keep reading more.

My first book by Nicola Moriarty and I wasn’t disappointed. The characters, situations and places all had an authentic and relatable ring to them. Being from Sydney I got a kick out of recognising some of the places mentioned and I could perfectly visualise the scenarios. The story follows two different groups of women, a mother’s online group and a non mother’s group which end up pitting against each other often with disastrous results. The book offers a real insight to the way we women tend to judge each other cruelly and unnecessarily and we often get into our own heads and project our own insecurities onto each other. The truth is everyone is struggling to keep it together! The ending offers a heartwarming conclusion and I am happy to have added this to my read list. It’s also no doubt that these Moriarty sisters are genetically talented writers. I say more please!

I was keen to read this book after reading Nicola's book The Fifth Letter last year. This is a very interesting book - funny and sad at times, a little dark, and a little scary about modern life.
Poppy has just broken up with her husband, he left her for her best friend who is now pregnant with their child. Poppy and her husband had agreed that they didn't want ever to have children, consequently Poppy feels upset, angry and annoyed with them. At work she befriends Annelise who also says that she doesn't ever want children, and together they form a friendship. Time after time they get annoyed with women who have children and seem to get privileges from employers and other friends because of the fact that they have children like leaving early from work because the kids need collecting, time off for appointments for the kids, always wanting school holidays off because of kids.

They hear about an online site for women with kids and decide to start up their own site exclusively for women who don't have children. What begins as a bit of a social meet up place soon turns nasty when the two groups clash and they discover there is a mole in their group. All is not what it seems when a journalist writes an article which goes viral.

Fascinating look at modern motherhood (and lack of) and the dangers of this world where Facebook has become such a part of most people's lives. There are dangers that lurk and what is written can be misinterpreted easily and go viral.

The author captured a very accurate snapshot of modern life and the consequences of social media interaction. I found this to be a real page turner and thoroughly enjoyed it. Recommended for readers of Women's Fiction. She has become one of my go-to authors, now to read her earlier novels :)

Thought provoking, yet fun read that kept you turning the pages. Well balanced arguments for both groups, and reminds us we all have our own problems and we all need other women in our lives.