Fans of Celeste Ng or Liane Moriarty will enjoy this novel about suburban women balancing their friendships, families, and careers as they navigate the teenage drama their children encounter and the controversy and ripples it sends through their relationships and community. Readable, relatable, and to be recommended!

Alice Sullivan is the mom of two and an interior designer. She has the perfect life until one day everything comes crashing down. She finds out that her youngest, Aidy, is falling behind in reading in second grade, and her eldest, Teddy, is bullying another boy in his middle school class. Alice starts questioning her parenting skills, and doesn’t know how to fix it. It doesn’t help that Teddy’s behavior starts spiraling out of control, and the other mothers look down at her.

With all this going on, Alice’s mother drops a family secret, another thing Alice is not sure how to deal with. Alice slowly learns how to cope and soon finds out that she needs live her life under her standards, not everyone else’s. 

I enjoyed the drama and the multiple characters. It sheds realistic light on the dangers of social media and its repercussions.  A great story of parenthood, family, middle school drama, and the unrealistic expectation of “being perfect.” 

I definitely recommend. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for the advanced eARC for an honest review.

An excellent book by an author that I was not familiar with. It was well written with really good plot development and characterization. I would recommend it.

⭐️⭐️.5

This is a story about a group of moms dealing with their young adult children as they make the inevitable poor decisions it takes to become sensible adults. 

I liked that this book made me question different parenting styles and I came out of it feeling like nobody should be judging anyone’s child because no child is perfect; all of them make poor, embarrassing life decisions that are necessary for enlightenment. Also, nobody knows their children as well as they might think. 

Nevertheless, I found the plot line was flat and wasn’t eager to read further at any point. I was turned off by the fact that the moms had male partners who were mostly absent from parenting. It wasn’t realistic to me, this day in age, especially given the extent of issues the mothers were struggling to cope with. I found it difficult to relate to even as a mother myself. 

This story had so much potential. At one point, a child is pulled out of their school to avoid confronting the challenges they face among their peers. Escaping problems does not make for a moving story. I think it would’ve been more entertaining and meaningful to see the young characters learn about accountability and repercussions. I was also turned off by the catastrophic impact of the students’ actions on the relationships of the adults. I felt the parents should’ve set a better example for the kids. 

Look out for this one on March 16, 2021.

A book that left me reflecting. This book takes place in England. Alice Sullivan finally found her groove. It only takes a moment in her life to unravel. However, that same day she learns that her daughter is having problems at school. Not only that, her son was accused by his school of bullying. Alice does not know what to do. Her son has a new behavior, and she wants to do something about it. One of Alice's fears is giving the image of being a mother who cannot control her children. In addition to these new problems, Alice's mother shares with her a family secret that she has kept for more than 30 years. Now Alice wants to rebuild her life in the best way. I loved this book because the author describes the complications Alice faces. I think it must be hard to have children in school and even more to find out that one of yours is bullying. I thank Net Galley and Berkley Publishing Group for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

Alice loves her job as an interior designer. She’s almost a partner at her small firm, she’s getting national recognition for her work, and she’s balancing success while raising her two perfect kids and a husband who always seems to be in the road for his own work. 

But when Alice’s son Teddy is accused of bullying and her daughter (name)’s teacher tells her she needs remedial reading help, Alice sees her perfect world start to crumble. And not all of her friends are understanding of the slip. 


A family drama with characters that are infuriating because—if you have kids—you’ve met these moms before (occasionally even been them) and their flaws, their cringe-worthy obliviousness, the poor choices they make in defense of their kids. 

West draws an ultimately feel-good story that doesn’t drag. She gives each character their own voice to narrate their side of the story and weaves a story that shows just how complicated growing up (and growing old) can be.

Alice has always strived for the perfect life, but everything starts falling apart at the same time. Her daughter is falling behind on her reading, her son has become a middle school bully, and her mom tells her she has a long-lost sister. Following a group of suburban moms and their teenage children, Are We There Yet? poses the question, what do you do when your child is suddenly the problem child?

It took me over a month to finish Kathleen West's family drama which if you know me, is insanely long. While the drama is highly realistic (secret Instagram accounts and judgemental moms), I just struggled to want to read about it. To make matters worse, I don't feel like the moms really learned much from their experiences. They still seemed rather judgemental by the end of the book. To be honest, stories like this make we want to never give my kids cell phones.

Alice’s life is perfect. She loves her job & her hard-working husband, & her kids are incredible. So, when she goes out for coffee with her friend whose son is deemed a behavioral problem she always feels a bit smug. Deservedly so, she believes, until she gets a phone call from her son’s school that forces her to remove her rose-colored glasses and see her life for what it really is: imperfect, just like everyone else’s.

I'm a sucker for a good domestic drama, and this one had it all. Oblivious "not-my-child" parents and entitled children. There were times I was on the side of the parents, times I was supporting the kids, and times I hated them all 😂 The writing elicited a response from me at multiple times, and I absolutely love books that can make me react. There were a lot of characters in the book, and most took POV turns. I enjoyed seeing all the different perspectives. Overall, this was a timely & tidy drama about coming to terms with our reality. 

Thank you to Berkeley for inviting me to read an advanced copy of this book!

Alice Sullivan is struggling.  Her husband works at a law firm and is now flying to Ohio every week to work on a case that doesn't the home situation. Her boss is not showing her an equal partnership that was agreed upon when she was hired.  Her daughter a second-grader she finds out is struggling in reading, and her son just starting middle school has been suspended for pulling down someone's pants at a school assembly and has a further suspension for calling his friend a slut when she spilled his deepest secrets, and on top of everything else she finds out her mom give her only biological child up for adoption at 19 and has now reunited and wants for all of them be a family. This is a multi-point of view book that was not hard to follow.

Thank you so much to #Netgalley and Berkley Books for the ARC in exchange for my review. 

Full review to come closer to pub date! 

However, Kathleen West is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. I loved Minor Dramas and Other Catastrophes so when I saw this on NetGalley, I requested and crossed my fingers.  It worked!!

West has once again, create a character (Alice) who was realistic and relatable!  Alice seems to be a perfect mom almost.  She has two darling angel kids and she seems to actually be adjusting to middle age pretty good.  Well sort of.  Until all that falls apart with her son. 

It gives an honest look at the struggles moms go through raising kids during this age of advanced technology. It gives a look on how hard parenting can be and how many things moms can miss.   Its the story of how a perfect life can become a not so perfect life overnight and how it can happen to anyone! 

I enjoyed this!

A very crowded book with so many characters I was confused at first. It never grabbed my interest. Mothers rivalry over who had the most troubled child isn’t something I enjoyed reading. 

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC.

Women's fiction novels have always been a hit or miss for me because finding common ground with the main characters can be tricky. This one though, I felt an immediate pull to the characters and found myself so focused on this story that I didn't look up for hours. Are We There Yet? is an excellent novel, one that resonated with me, and one I won't soon forget. I recommend it to all readers of the genre.

I really enjoyed this look at family life where things are not perfect . . . and not catastrophic. Alice learns that both her children have some problems that she has failed to notice. Did she not notice because she has been too busy at work? Involved elsewhere? Just because she assumer HER children wouldn't have problems? Now she has to navigate the gauntlet of teachers, school administrators, other moms, her boss, and her husband to try to steer them back on track. In the process, she discovers who her true friends are. While not a life-changing read, I did enjoy the time I spent with these characters.

I didn't like this book. I found the characters unbelievable.  I know some moms are way too invested in their kids social lives but this seemed like too much. I also did not like the relationship between the moms who are supposed to be friends. I particularly found the psychologist grandmother to be the most unbelievable. There is no way someone could be so unaware that she thinks her adopted daughter and the biological daughter she gave away for adoption will become besties overnight. How she could not be aware of how it would seem to the adopted daughter was beyond me.

Alice thinks she is navigating life successfully - parenthood, marriage, work - when things start to unravel; unexpected news at a parent teacher conference, a call from the middle school, her boss taking her clients, and a bombshell from her mother. How did she her perfect life fall apart? How can she fix it? And what really makes up a perfect life? A story of parenthood and family and expectations and finding your own version of a perfect life. .

Realistic portrayal of the horrors of teens and social media.  I really felt for the characters in this one. A quick read!

There is a lot going on in Alice's life. I feel I've read similar stories about the evils of social media and kids. I'm glad there was no suicide in this one. The new 'sister' part of the story was a bit much. An OK quick read. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

A tidy domestic drama about the tribulations of a handful ofmiddle schoolers and the mothers (and occasionally fathers and therapists) who love them to distraction. It's the distractions that give this hermetically sealed novel its flavor, especially the  color swatches and and other accessories that preoccupy Alice, whose 12 year old son, Teddy, seems to be the locus of discontent in this tightly wound community, school, and soccer team. It's not just Teddy that's Alice's problem- it's the previously unknown woman her mother has just introduced to their family, the child she gave up for adoption years before she adopted Alice . Since Julienne also happens to be Teddy's therapist, the ties that bind may also be the ones that strangle them all

This is one of those novels that makes me so glad I raised my kids before the dawn of social media. Not without challenges but bringing kids through the 80s, 90s and into the oughts seems a walk in the park compared to today. I fielded calls from the school principal on an almost weekly basis because of my "naughty one". Thank goodness I didn't have to read about said child on numerous social platforms. Anyway, when Alice's seemingly wonderful life flips on her she is forced to face her reality and rethink what is truly important. Fans of mommy lit, women's fiction will relate because we've all been there or know someone who has.

This book broke my heart in the best ways. I could not put it down.  Relatable and poignant.  A commentary on how society is raising our children and how we must fight to ensure their safety and survival.