This didn't need to be a book. There weren't things shared in this book that Naomi Davis hasn't already shared on her blog.

A behind the scenes look at the private life of a popular blogger and her family. If you've followed the Love Taza blog you will probably enjoy this quick, easy read that gives some insider info behind what is posted online. It's written in a mostly lighthearted manner, although she does delve into issues like infertility, religious questioning, and dealing with criticism. Her struggles are real and did help give depth to the whimsical family life that's normally displayed on the blog. I did, however, feel that some of the topics got a surface treatment. It could just be a personal thing, as I prefer my memoirs to get down and deep into the life issues. For instance, she has a crisis of faith but then seems to just decide to overcome it and stay with the religion. For me there was no satisfying description of how she processed these big life events, just that she did. Overall I did enjoy getting a little more personal info about her and her family and would recommend to fans of the blog.

I may be one of the only Millennials who hasn’t read Naomi’s Love Taza blog, but it allowed me to go into the book with fresh eyes. Although Naomi has a relatable voice, the essays felt more like blog posts than a cohesive collection. The timeline jumped around throughout the book, and I was never sure why it did. This is the first book I’ve read that includes reflections on the COVID-19 pandemic which was interesting, but overall, the book lacked the emotional depth I usually look for in memoirs.

Nothing new or exciting, I think a lot of this information can be found on the author's blog.

A little muddled in presentation. Found a lot of the text repetitive.

Naomi as she does in her blog brings you into her and her family’s life.I enjoyed reading about them their daily life issues they’ve faced.A fast but relatable read. #netgalley#harperhorizon

Honestly, I didn't love this. The writing felt like instagram captions -- and did not reveal anything more than that. With all 'Taza' has to say, I don't understand why she didn't say anything.

I can't say it better than Stephanie McNeal: "the book is only surface-level, with so little insight into Naomi’s actual life that I am struggling to understand why she wrote it in the first place." First, the good: I liked the format of mini essays over a start-to-finish memoir, and her intros to each (hairstyle, food, children) always made me smile. As someone who followed Naomi for years and stopped in early quarantine, it was nice to revisit someone who felt familiar.
But ultimately, this book was disappointing. It felt like she went through old blog drafts and repackaged those as a book without any additional honestly, vulnerability, or insight. At one point, she mentions that she hopes to fill her daughters' toolkits with ways to handle toxic friendships, but then never dives into WHAT those tools are or how she personally learned how to cope. And I was disappointed that she never mentioned her family's move to Arizona in the pandemic. New York was such a central part of her platform and she's never addressed honestly how a quick trip out of the city during the pandemic turned into a permanent relocation. The title says it all: when writing her story, Naomi slaps a coat of cheerful, "just be positive!" yellow paint over any difficult situation before she can show the readers how she truly felt.

I have followed her blog Love Taza in the past so I was interested to read this book. It was a nice look a little bit deeper into her life, but it still just felt like more blog posts. I like what she has to say about motherhood and how she wrangles 5 kids. But she does make life look easy and "perfect" in some ways. If you like reading blogger essays this is the book for you.

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC!

It has been such a pleasure to read Naomi Davis aka Taza’s first book. As a longtime fan of her blog Love Taza, it was a treat to read her book of short stories. Naomi tells the brutal honest truth about being a young mother and doesn’t hold back. I can imagine that many people see Naomi and her family and assume she has the “perfect life”. It’s so refreshing to read about Naomi’s real life struggles that are so relatable and make you love her even more! I absolutely love the Davis family and can’t wait to see what they do next!

A quick, fun read. This definitely appeals to fans of Taza and readers on her blog. I don't know if people who don't know her would gain any value from this book. I also don't like how Naomi's irresponsible travel across the country in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic was completely glossed over.

I used to read the author's blog way back when but kind of stopped somewhere along the way. I was curious to check out her book. The writing was mostly nice, if cheesy in places, but I remain unconvinced that it really added up to anything or answered the expectations set by the subtitle.

This book of essays has the familiar voice of Naomi Davis from her blog. It is endearing to hear her go deeper on some stories
But ultimately each section is still tied up neatly like a blog post with no real discussing. She touches on IVF, a crisis of faith, and overcoming obstacles from her youth but doesn’t go any deeper than a surface level mention. I wish she had dove a bit deeper on some of the topics. The glaring omission was that although she alludes to being in Arizona once or twice and a brief comment on how spring 2020 went differently than she expected, she doesn’t talk at all about leaving NY, the complicated feelings, or that she now lives in the Arizona suburbs. You end the book with her loving New York and that she knows it’s the right place for her family. The essays are well written and it is nice to have the sort of continuation of some of her earlier stories but I really wish it had a bit more focus.

I love Naomi, her blog, photos and content and this book, being a series of essays about various stages of life, her choices and thoughts, is an extension of her blog. While it is a good one time read, it is not memorable. The message, narration could be stronger.

My thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I've been following Naomi on her blog for the past 5-6 years or so. I absolutely love her writing style, and often want more after finishing one of her posts. Having a book of so many well-written essays to read makes me so happy. While I cannot relate to many of her stories, I know that this is a text that I can revisit in the future and probably be able to relate it even more.

I will agree with some of the other reviews about depth of the essay. There were so many opportunities to go further and deeper with the essays. Every time we got to the emotional pinnacle, I knew that the end of the essay would come within the next few paragraphs. Overall, I think it was a good debut, and I hope she writes more!

I was fortunate to get an ARC copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I’ve been a regular blog follower of Naomi’s for 8-9 years now, so I was looking forward to reading this. While it’s not the most high brow book ever written, I was entertained and I read the book in one sitting. She shares some interesting stories and lovely insights. As a member of the same faith, I was touched by her insights of her faith journey. This was a quick, fun read!

Davis is a blogger, one of whom I have never heard or read. She created a thoughtful book out of those blog posts concerning her family and experiences. Despite fertility issues, she has 5 children. She married very young and the relationship is intact. I found her chapters to be brief, perceptive, and descriptive. She is brave and funny. I enjoyed the humorous parts about her kids the best. She has blogged since 2007, which in online time, makes her an historic vessel. She offers innovative interpretations about life that inspire and provide empathy.

I have been reading Naomi’s blog since I stumbled across it in my high school yearbook class a decade ago. Since then, I have followed her journey into motherhood and living in NYC and traveling the world, so I was excited when her book promised untold, more raw stories.
Unfortunately, this book left me feeling like I still missed out on the stories. I think Naomi has always kept her blog to be a place for positive, happy moments in her life. But as the blog grew and grew, she seemed to remain pretty withheld from those real, raw, harder moments of life.
The book has cute chapter beginnings to set the stage, and it does delve into topics that are relatable to many women (marriage, infertility, motherhood, body image), but I felt like right when she was going somewhere profound and raw, the chapter was summarized sweetly and ended. It never felt like a very genuine portrayal of what was actually happening in that moment, but more of a sugar-coated attempt and showing the harder parts of life. But we are living life and know that it has so many complex emotions and stages, and I think this book would have done better to her readers if they felt like they got to a knew level of intimacy with themselves through her words. That fell flat for me. My advice to Naomi would be to really work on establishing what she wants her blog posts and Instagram captions to look like after this book is released. Because if you are a public figure that touts themselves as discussing motherhood, womanhood, etc., people don’t want a fantasy, sugar-coated version. They want to feel seen and heard and it felt like an attempt but also saying “my life isn’t all put together, but I don’t have any complex feeling or thoughts about it!” When I know she does, and I want to see that side of her.

I started reading Naomi's blog when it was called The Rockstar Diaries and she lived in DC with her husband and baby girl. I remember when she rebranded to Love Taza, and then I kind of stopped reading after she had her third child... until I found her on Instagram and she was about to have twins (!!!)

I think this book is very HER. She obviously put a lot of heart and thought into it, and it's written in her typical, overly optimistic (naively optimistic at times?) style, just like her blog. It was unsurprising yet interesting to find out she's a self-professed "people pleaser" with "thin skin," which clicked a lot of things into place for me. At times when I was reading her book, I wanted to shake her and say "Naomi, choose your choice!" – like when she waxed eloquently about loving the many colors of her tiny apartment, then said she would be the first to express her admiration for white walls and minimalism. Huh? You don't have to please the minimalists. They don't care.

I thought it was brave for her to talk about her infertility, since so many people questioned her experience with it (since it happened when she was 21... ). I wish she had talked more about why they decided to move to Arizona, since it was a controversial move according to her followers. This could have been a chance to show people they did the right thing for their family, no listening to the noise, end of discussion. (Because I cannot imagine 7 people living in a 2-bedroom NYC apartment during a pandemic...)

Like many other reviews have said, I wish it was deeper; I wish she expressed herself fully without reserves and asides. But I also think the book accomplishes what she set out to do. So congrats, Naomi!

I have to start this with, I LOVE Naomi. I started following her blog in 2009 right after I got married and have loved everything she has done. She shares living in the city of New York and DC and provides the most enchanting experience. Watching her raise her littles in NYC made me want to try it too! Gave me this big huge desire to travel with kids, and live in a busy blustering space of excitement like the upper west side. Everything she has shared in her corner of the online world has always been good, kind, and uplifting. She has left the internet a better place. She is a good mom, she respects her kids boundaries of being on the internet, and she is always kind and decent here. She is a quality person to watch and follow.
This book shared snippets further into her life that she had never opened up into before. It was exciting to learn more about this blogger whom I have loved for so long. She surprised us with little facts like the inspiration behind Taza and her experience with juliard. She shared trials of infertility that she never divulged online. She shared fun and scary and heart breaking moments and you can tell the author tried to put her heart out there. But like she mentions in her book, she has thin skin, and it is evident in the book. You can tell she still has walls up. The little insights into her life she shares are just that, LITTLE. There would be these profound pieces shared and an opportunity to truly connect with the reader, only to cut it off right when that line of connection was beginning to form. I believe this is how the author is naturally so I can only imagine the difficulty it would be to share openly with the world when you can see in certain areas of her life she has held up these walls with people she holds dear. But it felt like a forced disconnection and it limited my view and understanding of her stories. For lack of a better word, this book felt shallow. There was so much opportunity to dive in deeper, to share how she handled rude comments from family and colleagues, give more to how they handled ivf and the trials and feelings she went through to get to that point. Her trial with her faith was answered with Sunday school answers that don't dive deep enough to truly touch a heart or make a difference to a reader. I don't think Taza realizes the potential impact she has on the world, that there are women who adore her and have been through those trials and would love to connect on those spaces. It felt like the depth was lacking.
This collection of stories is presented as a personal development book, with the caption showing that it teaches how to quiet the noise and love the life you live--I would beg to differ. It felt more like a memoir of sorts which is totally fine! But that is not how it is presented. I did not take away tips and tricks on how to move through the noise, I just got very simplistic explanations that Naomi *somehow* got over what people said to her and she moved on. There were no tools taught in these pages, there were no lessons to be shared unless the goal was to do it in parable form-but the memories were not deep enough to teach how. So titling this book as anything more than a memoir is a disservice to this book and its author.
Overall I was excited to read this book! I have loved the author for a number of years and looked forward to learning more about her. I hope one day she can open more to her readers because she has a great story to tell, she just needs to break down the walls in order to do so. It's just not a story I would desire to read again. This is a book I would tell a follower of her blog about, but it wouldn't be something that someone outside of her inner circle would be interested in, it doesn't connect enough to pull others in.
I hope to see more from Naomi in the future, just more open and willing to lay it out there because she truly is a wonderful person and the world deserves to know her, it just takes time to open up like that. But hopefully she can be willing to do that because she can make a difference here and leave a wonderful mark on this planet.

I received an ARC copy of A Coat of Yellow Paint from NetGalley and Harper Horizon Publishing in exchange for an unbiased review of this book. No money was exchanged for this review.

I have followed Naomi from the beginning of her blog. I've enjoyed watching her family grow and her insights she shares. I was so intrigued to learn more about her and her experiences when this book came out. The book is more of a series of essays she writes, each one focusing on an event or idea she has and what she's learned. It kind of has a fell of a self-help book in away. While she opens up more in her book than her blog she doesn't really go very deep or go into great detail keeping things more on the surface. I'm not sure if it was necessary for her to divulge more information but it did leave a sense of there's still more or she's holding back. It was a light and happy read which I did enjoy and looked forward to reading. I finished the book with some good takeaways that I could apply in my own life. I do appreciate her being honest about life with children, messes, mistakes, etc. It's easy to forget how similar we are in the day to day when all that is shown on social media are the highlights. I remember reading and thinking... oh good, her kids do stuff like that too, which helped her feel more normal to me. At some points in the book it seemed like she was defending herself and maybe in a way saying to the nay sayers - this is my life and I can do what I please, which is true, but came off to me as defensive. I probably would too if my life were on display and people were openly criticizing it. I can't say the book is worth the price tag, but it is worth a read if you are a fan of LoveTaza.