It feels way too lazy to describe this novel – journalist Lucy Mangan’s first – as Bridget Jones meets Motherland, but the narrator Liz (thrillingly) bears so much resemblance to both iconic representations of contemporary womanhood that it’s hard not to mention. And it’s no bad thing at all! This is a superb book, tracking a year from January to January in the life of London-based Liz and her attempts to navigate modern existence peacefully, constantly thwarted by the demands of her husband and two children and of course, her relationships with other parents, which Liz describes as “Game of Thrones without the bloodshed“. “You think you’re in a gang,” she states, bleakly: “you think that the experience of creating and successfully expelling via whatever means possible an actual new human life from within would form some kind of universal unbreakable bond between you – and then, too late, you realise you’re not.” Her perfectly depicted close circle of friends, however, provide support for Liz and get it back in spades when facing their own crises, including (but not limited to) unforgivably errant husbands, heartbroken babysitters and the annual challenge of World Book Day. It’s a fantastic read, wickedly sharp and gloriously funny, and highly recommended.

Liz Is a worn out mum of 2, She loves her kids, which seems to be the trouble- she's now aware of any possible danger which might befall them. She's reduced to acolyte around the pusher mothers and lives for coven meetings were other Inferior mums. Add to this stressful working and a high powered barrister husband. PMT is the final straw.
If this all sounds a bit dull it mist definitely isn't. It's extremely funny. Mot just her inner dialogue but the husbands conversations overheard and various asides.
On the death of a friends battle-axr mother in law, the grandson is told he needn't attend the funeral and instead, can remember her how she was asks, "Are you sure?" is an example.
The only question is why do they rejoice at a friend's IVF success when it seems child rearing is the downfall of them all?
Really funny a d it goes beyond the simpler stressed working mum scenario to dredge up ever worsening horrors

Meet Liz, a working mom who just wants some peace and quiet (every woman’s dream). Her family have other plans however and we watch as Liz juggles the madness of her own life as well as her family’s.

This is a fun book with many laugh out loud moments. As a teacher some of the questions that Liz’s children ask her were far too accurate at times. Although I liked Liz, her daughter Evie has to be my favourite character. A budding sociopath according to her parents, Evie is hilarious and there are too many funny moments to just pick one. Liz’s husband however is rage inducing at times, I question how he made it to adulthood without being able to do anything for himself. The man does nothing!

I think what stopped me enjoying the book as it progressed was that it got a little repetitive with no development. Essentially there is no plot. I enjoyed the diary format, but I was following a person’s everyday life over the course of a year where nothing really changed. I had hoped that her husband might realise that he needed to pull his weight, that Liz might find a solution to give her some peace and quiet, etc. But no, it was pretty much the same throughout and the humour couldn’t make up for this by the end.

What an absolutely joyous read. Lucy Mangan's debut novel Are We Having Fun Yet? looks at the mundanities of everyday life and oddly in doing so she celebrates them too.

Are We Having Fun Yet? follows a year in the life of Liz as she notes down the humdrum in her diary. The dishwasher breaking, school events, yummy mummy spats, visits to the grandparents all feature in this epistolary tale. You get the sense that Liz is a little let down by life and she expected a lot more from it. The question of "is this it?" remains unspoken but lingers in each chapter.

We see pure joy when Liz is with her friends and see the person who she was before life, family, marriage and mortgages got in the way. It was funny seeing the contrast but the overall message that I took from Are we Having Fun Yet? is that while Liz feels like she is no longer the person she was and is sometimes dissatisfied with the person she is now she is really an amalgamation of them both and whilst the every day doesn't seem exciting, contentment shouldn't be sniffed at.

Are we Having Fun Yet? is a cracking read that will leave you with a smile on your face and will have you laughing out loud.

Are We Having Fun Yet? by Lucy Mangan is available now.

For more information regarding Lucy Mangan (@LucyMangan) please visit her Twitter page.

For more information regarding Serpent's Tail (@serpentstail) please visit www.serpentstail.com.

I didn’t enjoy this book, the diary style narrative didn’t seem to have a plot thread that carried through so it was a bit too disconnected for me to enjoy it and keep my interest.

I enjoyed this very witty book which sees Liz navigate the trials and tribulations of having two small children through her diary over the course of a year. It has some very acute observations of modern middle-class parenting. If you like the TV comedies Outnumbered and Motherland, then this book is definitely for you.

Easy to read, highly relatable and full of humour. This book spans one calendar year in the life of Liz and her family. I enjoyed the way the story was told from one sole perspective, and I loved the diary style daily entries that narrated the story. This made it easy to follow and allowed you to understand exactly how much time had passed and what we could be expecting soon; be it summer holidays or Christmas. This book was also quite realistic in the sense that the whole narrative was lead by the day to day occurances. If the star ratings allowed halves I would have given this book 3.5 stars, as it does not I have rounded up the rating to 4.

Brilliant! So funny and true to life. Roll on the next one from Lucy !! Every mother with 2 young children will identify with this.

I laughed out loud at this on many occasions. I can't help thinking of Bridget Jones, similarly this is diary format, a year in the life of charity worker Liz, married to barrister Richard, with 2 young children. Liz is essentially negotiating marriage, friends, school playground/politics, and friendships, it is credible, human, realistic and more importantly the funniest thing I have read for years. A must read for those raising young children whilst juggling your way thru life, family and friendships. Simply fabulous!

Family life and parenting are popular twenty-first-century themes. Humorous and insightful with believably flawed relatable characters and everyday life events that most parents can relate to, this is an easy to read, engaging book.

The ups and downs of family life, parenting and relationships are captured succinctly and sprinkled with despair, laughter, pride and tears. It immerses the reader in Liz's world in a way that is comforting and familiar.

I received a copy of this book from Souvenir Press via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Hilarious..loved every last bit of this book. Liz just wants the simple life..but with her family that's not to be!
I think every woman who's been married, had children will identify with Liz...the cliques at the school gate, giving birth, birthday party one upmanship...the list is endless and Lucy Mangan gets it...and Liz says what we've all thought at times.
A really enjoyable read.. especially when you're family are grown up and you've been there, done it and got the t shirt!!

I adore Lucy Mangan's bookworm so was delighted when I saw she had written a fiction book, essentially about being a new parent, which I also am!

This was fun, light hearted and certainly relatable!

Liz is simply looking for just five minutes to herself to unwind. But her hapless husband Richard, sensitive 8-year-old Thomas and probable sociopath 5-year-old Evie are determined not to let that happen. Throw in the school mum politics, unsuitable babysitters and teenage bosses and it’s clear that Liz is clearly not meant to catch a break. This hilarious, relatable novel reads almost like a memoir and I think that’s because Liz is so believable. I’m not a mother but I know that women like Liz exist and it was so easy to root for her mission to just get a bit of time alone. Every character has a likeability and on finishing the book, I simply didn’t want to leave them.

I love Lucy Mangan's writing for The Guardian, so was quick to request her first work of fiction despite the subject matter. A sort of Bridget Jones' Diary for elder millenials, 'Are We Having Fun Yet?' charts a year in the life of a working mother to young children and wife to a useless husband who talks like something out of Regency Britain and is apparently a successful barrister yet is incapable of Googling "how to deal with threadworms". If that describes your situation, you'll laugh, cry and rage at this book, which is warmly and wittily written, with (other than the ridiculous husband) really well-drawn, engaging characters. If it doesn't? You'll find yourself struggling with the fact that there is LITERALLY NO PLOT. Everybody is pretty comfortable and extremely ordinary. It's... nice. But it doesn't feel like a novel.

Unlike other books I've read recently featuring an ensemble cast of Women Of My Age, Lucy has at least included a Glamorous, Jet-Setting and Completely Unrealistic Childfree Character for the Rest of Us, in the form of narrator Liz's younger sister - and, while it would have completely taken away from the point of the book, which is going to go down extremely well with its target audience, I really could have done with reading more from her. As it is, I got however many days of Liz complaining about her miserable existence, but with that underlying air of smugness about there being no better life that rubs non-parents up the wrong way. For example, there's a scene where Liz and all her mum pals check themselves into a hotel without children and husbands for the weekend, and dream about what it would be like to not have them. I actually read it... while checked into a hotel for a couple of days. It was even BETTER than the ladies described, because I didn't have to spend the whole time catching up on sleep. And yet, it's *my* choices that are strange and unusual?? *ME* that will never know love like it?? Okay, the second part is probably true but I already had it as a 100% worthy trade before I read this book and now I'm at at least 350%.

Maybe it's that all my favourite podcasts coincidentally ran deep-dives on the concept of "weaponised incompetence" just as I was starting this book. Maybe it's that I was raised by a working mother who was the breadwinner, and who treated PTAs and dress-up days and school disco volunteer drives and the urge to compete with the stay-at-home Savannahs who can afford their own cleaners of this world with the contempt that they deserve (admittedly I also did not grow up in an aspirational middle-class enclave and there were no stay-at-home Savannahs who could afford their own cleaners, HOW IS THIS A REAL PROBLEM). But it's okay to say no. To co-parents who sleep through breakfast duty when you BOTH have work to get to. To children who refuse to write their own Christmas cards. To rich bitch SAHMs who sneer at screen time and expect you to bake for the Christmas fayre. And, yes, even to reproducing. If that's the life you want to live.

If you DO have young children, please ignore this review and follow the five-star ones.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC, I am truly sorry.

'Get up! Get up!'. We have overslept. It's good to start the new day - and in this case a new term and a new year - with a familiar failure, I think. Eases you back into routine.

This book follows a year into Liz's life, a mother of two. It's very funny and it's written in diary form, which sometimes reminded me of Brigdet Jones' diary. Totally recommended if you are a mother, because you're going to see yourself reflected in most of the situations.

** Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion. **

First novel tin the format of a diary, in the style of Adrian Mole and Bridge Jones.. A year in the life of Liz, a charity worker turning 40, her barrister husband and two primary school kids who lives in south London suburbia. She works part time and with days working from home for a charity, and deals with regular domestic crises, the school parent teacher association and news from her friends.. Quite funny as readers of Lucy Mangan's journalism and non fiction work might expect, not really much escapism for middle aged parents but lots to identify with. I can relate to many of Liz's thoughts. and I enjoyed it.

Sorry, not really for me. I just couldn’t get it into it. Felt very bitty and I couldn’t really tell you what it was about except someone not enjoying motherhood much.

Are we having fun yet? is a hilarious journey through a year in the life of Liz – a woman in her early 40s juggling life with a highly intelligent but infuriatingly inept husband, two beautifully characterful young children, a hectic job, and the demands of a school community that expects her to have way more time on her hands than any person possibly could!

There is SO much to relate to in this book – anyone with a busy life, a partner, and/or children, will be “oh yes”-ing along to many many parts, and there were many laugh out loud moments. At times it reminded me a little bit of Bridget Jones’s diary but it is also very different, and more of a snapshot in someone’s life rather than a journey and a detailed story.

And I think that is what felt missing for me. Whilst it was very funny and astute (especially some of the descriptions of her husband Richard, and the absolutely hilarious 5-year-old Evie), I wanted there to be a story - a real narrative arc - to get my teeth into and keep me turning the pages. I kept finding that I couldn’t read more than a few diary entries at a time and it took me longer to read than I expected.

Thanks to NetGalley and Serpents Tail for ARC.

This is a terrific comedy of manners, focussing on Liz, her desire for a quiet life amid the boisterous reality of balancing work, children, husband, parents and the alpha-mums at the school gate. Bolstered by friends and quantities of chocolate rolls and wine, somehow she muddles through the school year.

This is so deftly written it could seem slight, but it's keenly observed at every turn and deserves to be a classic. I loved it and there are several copies going to friends this Christmas!

Funny and warm, this was a lighthearted mummy diary with plenty of laughs and glasses of wine. It's an easy read and if you liked Motherland on the BBC, then this may welll suit you. Enjoyable!