I received this book free of charge from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

What a fun read. Agnes is married to a big shot Hollywood producer and one day she comes home and finds out that he has changed the security code to the gates and can't get it. Her husband, Trevor, wants a divorce. Trevor being the man-child he is, gets a fancy lawyer and just wants to win. At any cost. Agnes is going to fight him tooth and nail and eventually they comes to a compromise. Along the way, there are some antics like a stint in rehab for an almond addiction and some grief sex that make the story entertaining.

The hilarity never really surfaces in a novel which feels like too much surface: it's hard to empathize with or even to like these characters. Gigi Levangie nails Hollywood and its glitz: but a novel lives and dies in its characters...and these don't come to life.

Unfortunately, I did not like this book. It read like it was written in a rush. It had a cute enough premise but it was silly, vapid and full of plot holes.

I will gratefully read every book this author writes and join her for wine as well! An absolute perfect representation of the vapid and plastic environment called Hollywood and those who choose to be part of it. I laughed out loud at this book.

I've been struggling with what to write in this review. I honestly did not like Been There, Married That, at all for at least the first quarter to one-third of the book. I kept reading only because I promised to give this honest review in exchange for the ARC I received from NetGalley.
As I powered on through pages and pages, I found some parts that I really did enjoy and that kept me wanting to read. However I also encountered long stretches of verbal vomit that made my face do strange things, and I would get to the end of a paragraph and think, what on earth did any of that mean?
It's a little frightening to think that there might be actual people out there walking around in Los Angeles who even remotely resemble some of the characters portrayed in this book. I had a hard time differentiating between some of the lesser characters (friends and house staff) because there was no clear definition, and/or they were referred to so often by something other than their name.
I gave this book three stars because in the end I was glad I had continued on, and I did find some of the linguistic acrobatics entertaining; some (many) of them, not so much.

I really had a hard time getting into this book. I read about 1/4 of it and still wasn't hooked. From some of the reviews it seems to be good and very funny. But, I think it just wasn't for me. I got confused with all of the characters and the dialogue was hard to follow.

I could not finish this book as my distaste for all of the characters was immense. None of the characters had any redeeming qualities and I really didn't care what happened from one chapter to the next. I gave it my all 50% in.

I think the storyline here is engaging and the characters themselves are interesting, but I had a difficult time with the writing style. It felt opaque and confusing and left me uninterested in the story itself.

I really thought I would love this book but it was just trash. I rarely hate a book but I could only get 3/4 of the way through this book and had to stop. I loved the cover thought the story sounded cute but in reality the author just wrote long drawn out not funny story. Seemed as though the author was trying way too hard to get us to laugh. I was gifted this book from Netgalley. I was asked to leave an honest review and I have.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC version.

The cover and premise of the story really drew me in. I was excited to read this - jumped right in. Unfortunately it fell flat for me. At times I found it difficult to read, it seemed like scene transitions were missing, I had to go back and make sure I hadn't missed something.

I found most of the characters unlikeable or not well fleshed out. With that being said the last 1/4 of the book was good. While I had a hard time with 3/4 of it - I enjoyed the latter part of the book.

It almost felt like 2 different people wrote it - typically I find most books start off strong and fall flat - this was the opposite. I almost gave up and put it aside.

The premise is enticing and the cover is cute, but the execution doesn’t work for me personally. However, it might be a good read for anyone who lives or has lived in the Southern California area or is affiliated with the entertainment industry. I get the feeling that many of the jokes went over my head and that others more familiar with the setting would think it hilarious.

More details on why I struggled with it:
1. There are way too many characters introduced in the first chapter. I can’t keep them straight for the life of me.
2. I don’t understand why the MC makes decisions and behaves the way she does, making the book hard to relate to. This could definitely related to my unfamiliarity with the setting of the book.
3. I can the MC is supposed to be funny with lots of pithy thoughts, but it comes across as scattered. Her thoughts jump around and are difficult to follow. Again, this might make more sense or be funny to someone who is around people like the MC all day.
4. The narrative occasionally jumps between past and present tense. It isn’t confusing necessarily, more so that when reading, I felt like SOMETHING in the prose was “off” but couldn’t put my finger on WHAT was off.

Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy!

Agnes is a very likable character that is married to a Hollywood producer. She is living the Hollywood-wife life but she doesn't really fit in. When her husband decides to divorce her after 20 years of marriage, Agnes finds a lot out about herself, the man she married, her friends, and her family. In this whirlwind of a story, Agnes really discovers who she is, what (or who) is most important, and how to survive when the life you know crashes down around you.

Been There, Married That is a good, easy read. I really liked Agnes, Pep, Finn, Trevor, and Gio. Yes, I even liked Trevor! He has the biggest ego but doesn't know how to "adult" so I couldn't help but feel sorry for him at times. There were a lot of funny scenes in the book that I really enjoyed. I like the author's sense of humor and how she brought it into the characters. Lots of sarcasm and snarkiness.

However, I could have done without some of the language that is used somewhat sporadically throughout the book. It goes from being a funny, light story to some raunchier descriptions that, in my opinion, were unnecessary. I usually have no issues with sex scenes or language but it just didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the story as it was only in a handful of scenes. The other problem that I had was the introduction of a bunch of sub-characters all at once in the beginning of the book. I found that hard to follow because it was just an introduction and at that point, the characters had no bearing on the storyline.

The scenes and chapters need to be defined better as I felt like there was a lot of jumping around from one scene to another with no indication if it was going from present-day to a flashback or if the story moved on to another scene. One, in particular, was Agnes and her sister drinking wine and her description of being drunk and then the next line is Agnes driving to (I think) her daughter's volleyball game. So, the story had issues structurally. That was the main issue that I had because it made parts difficult to follow.

Overall, I liked the story. I wish that some characters were better developed and the writing was cleaned up a bit but, still, it was enjoyable.

The write up was way better than the book. I DNF this book. The slingshot between characters descriptions and the past and present tense was difficult to follow. I read about 100 pages and gave up. The I didn't know half the hashtags so I am sure that would help if I was younger.

If you love a book full of snarky one-liners, then this is the book for you. Gigi Levangie writes this story with so many quips that it's challenging to engage with the characters. I realize that there is definitely a market for this, it's just not for me. I really struggled to get through the first half of the book.

The snark was very thick and I truly didn't find myself rooting for any of the characters, who all seemed to be exaggerations of the very worst people on the planet. The story did pick up about halfway through, once the true battle of the divorce went underway. For readers who love a story with a gossipy tone and that Hollywood vibe, I can see this being a fun read, I just wanted to engage with the characters more.

I am a huge fan of GiGI Levangie and was super excited to get an advanced copy of this book, I have to say it was not a favorite of mine. I don't know if it was just not laid out properly since it was an ARC, but I felt a bit confused the entire time I was reading it. Characters were introduced into the story and I would have no idea who they were or how they fit into the main characters life. Overall I enjoyed the plot but it did not leave me wanting more and I finished it just to finish it.

I had thought that I would be writing a different feedback about this book. I had expected it to be a light and fun bon bon of a book about Hollywood and Birken bags and the trophy wives who carry them. Instead I found it a bit of a tedious read. Obviously, given the author’s history, she is knowledgeable about the story she is telling and has a sense of humor about her subject matter. My problem with the novel perhaps lies in her humor. Instead of the narrative going smoothly along for the most part it seems that every sentence has been constructed as a pithy remark making, for me, a disjointed reading experience.

From the blurb this book sounded like something that I could get into, however, it was really difficult to read and not all that funny. I was really hoping to like much more than I did.

Gigi Levangie has definitely mastered a sense of the absurd. Hollywood, being what it is, helps when writing about the day to day, behind the scenes life. I know this is fiction but a tiny part of me thinks some of craziness might actually happen.

The book is entertaining and it's an easy read. If cursing bothers you, this is not the book for you. The characters live lives I don't recognize and for that I'm thankful.

I received an Advanced Reader's Copy from St Martin's Press through NetGalley. The opinions expressed are entirely my own.
#BeenThere,Married That #NetGalley

This book would make a fun movie. Although I skipped large portions of it because the machine gun style writing was overwhelming to me, it definitely relayed the main character's frustrations with her kooky life. This book will probably appeal to younger adults more than those who have already lived through life's upheavals.

This book is funny and smart. I really liked it. I would recommend it to someone who is looking for an escape from the daily grind.