I ended up DNFing after more than halfway in, so I am only rating what I did read. I just was not able to connect with the story. The characters / plot were all unlikeable and I had a hard time staying immersed in this story.

This was the first book by Laura Lippman that I've read. The premise sounded interesting- 16 year old girl doesn't know she's pregnant and gives birth in hotel bathroom after prom. From then on she's known in the media as "Prom Mom" and the father of the baby as "Cad Dad." Twenty years later they run into each other in their hometown. While the premise and the set up was definitely interesting, it took forever to get there. Then, by the half way point, it's the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and there's so much pandemic and 2020 election talk that it gets bogged down, and I really just wanted to skim to find out what happens. This one just fell a bit flat for me, the twist in the end was not even that surprising, and felt like it came out of left field. Overall, it was ok- a popcorn thriller that might be a good palate cleanser for some readers. That being said, I know thriller readers really like this author, so I will try her previous books.

Thanks for NetGalley and William Morrow for an eARC of this book.

Amber and Joe went to prom together. Amber thought she was sick and left early. The next morning, she's found with her dead baby in the bathroom. Years later, Joe and Amber reconnect.

I really didn't like this book. For one, it was sooooo slow. The first half of the book was just set-up. The characters were not interesting or fun to read from. Then, the second half of the book heavily feature the Covid-19 pandemic. That's difficult enough to read without Joe being just the worst about the pandemic and election. At the 50% mark, I was skimming. The revels at the end were not worth it, IMO.

a tabloid past that keeps her from her hometown, circumstance that takes her back. and the man she can't shake.. Lippman keeps you guessing

I can definitely appreciate the fact that this book blatantly points out how society blames women. Amber carries her title of “prom mom” with her for the rest of her life, struggling to find jobs, friends etc. While Joe becomes the best guy ever, great job, beautiful wife, huge house. It’s crazy to me how this still continues to happen. I did think there was a lot of unnecessary filler in this book, like truly has nothing to do with the story, but over all it was a decent read.

I read this book in one day. I could not put it down. It did drag a teeny-tiny bit in the middle, but wow, did Laura Lippman make up for that towards the end! A 16 yr old gives birth during prom night, not fully realizing she was pregnant. The baby dies and she goes to a juvenile facility until she is 18. And the 18 year old boy who fathered the baby gets on with his life. Until 20 years later. Highly recommend.

I was so excited to read this book after reading the synopsis. It was just ok for me. Took me a bit to get into and even then it fell flat. Way too slow of a slow burn. Good twist at the end helped a little.

Prom Mom. Is this how Amber Glass will always be remembered? After spending years in New Orleans, Amber returns to her hometown of Baltimore, MD, to see if everyone still remembers... or if she can start over fresh. Never did she expect to strike up a friendship again with Joe, her one-time prom date who she never heard from again after that night.

Laura Lippman is an auto-read author for me at this point - her books bring the Baltimore metro area alive to me in a way that always rings true. No two Lippman stories are alike, and I love diving in blind, knowing that I'll be left satisfied in the end.

Prom Mom takes themes incredibly prevalent in women’s fiction and twists them upside down, making a potent point about revenge, accountability, and pigeonholing. The returning bad girl, the reformed bad boy, the innocent wife – they collide here and live and breathe and twist in the wind. The end result is something incredibly powerful.

Amber Glass gained notoriety at the age of seventeen when she delivered a baby in a post-prom motel room and left the child in a pile of bloody towels to be found dead by the hotel maid the morning after. Amber doesn’t recall if the infant was born alive or dead; she remembers nothing more than the rush of pain and blood. And, most importantly, that her date, Joe Simpson – the father of the child - dumped her there before the birth happened, to go chase Kaitlyn, his long-term girlfriend who had recently dumped him. Amber is more aghast by the dumping than the apparent stillbirth; the prom was supposed to fix things and make him fall for her. Instead, they were boiled down by the tabloids into two simplistic caricatures – the “prom mom” and the “cad dad”.

Years have passed since that night, and Amber - who, after spending a few months in a juvenile detention faculty and then several years in New Orleans - has finally moved back to Baltimore, and plans to use the money she inherited from her stepfather to open up an art gallery.

While Amber has borne the label of the ‘prom mom’ for her entire life and lost jobs and extended family thanks to it, Joe has found popularity and success as a commercial real estate agent working at his father’s company. He’s married to a lovely woman named Meredith, a fastidious, image-conscious plastic surgeon and daughter of notable doctors whose miserable lives – filled with blame for Meredith - convinced her never to have kids of her own. Meredith’s childhood battle with leukemia has scarred her emotionally (she thinks her cancer battle is what killed her parent’s marriage and turned them both into alcoholics) and left her desperate to prove she’s no wimpy charity case. Joe and Meredith occupy their lives with suburban mundanity – tennis, perfect meals, classic movies, and other wheel-spinning ideas. The sterling reputation of Meredith and her family have helped transform Joe’s ‘Cad Dad’ label and – distancing himself from the incident beyond seeing himself as a victim of Amber’s choices – he’s gotten on with his life. But Joe is bored at home and conducts secretive affairs, just like he did when he was a teenager. Then they learn about Amber’s gallery, and their perfect lives begin to shake apart.

It's Joe who initiates contact; it’s Amber who falls back into old patterns. As the Covid-19 pandemic descends upon Baltimore, everything shifts menacingly. When Joe asks something impossible of Amber, will she do it?

Prom Mom is fun for multiple reasons, even though it’s quite a slow burn experience. Everyone involved in the narrative is utterly terrible, from Amber’s blinders-on behavior, to Joe’s selfish hedonism and good-boy blandishments, to Meredith’s fear of any form of physical imperfection and determination to false strength. That makes them complex and real. I mentioned that the novel seems to play with women’s fiction tropes, from the reunited lovers to the return to ones hometown. And the end result is wicked, brutal, and ultimately redemptive.

Amber, at least, is sympathetic – and in the end, quite smart. Joe is such an obviously terrible person – a life of pathetically abdicating blame, and indeed blaming the women around him for his terrible choices, which ultimately ends up – well, you’ll see. You will not root for him to be with either of these women. Meredith cannot settle herself into a real life, and thus she floats on the surface in bourgeois demi-perfection. Do not go to this book looking for romance, for you will not get it.

Together they fall into a year-long pit of pandemic ennui which is a little more interesting than the nineties-based horror which Amber has to live through. The torpor is real, and the emptiness of our protagonists’ lives feels like a fever dream, until things finally begin to happen. And the climax is the book’s biggest problem; it feels like a fitting, but an ordinary, thriller twist. I wanted a little more out of the book than what I got.

But the bloody brilliance of Prom Mom is that it knows the ordinary can be wicked, and that wickedness ought to be answered by justice.

Oh my goodness!! This one definitely was an exciting read and one I did not want to put down! Great writing and the storyline kept on going the entire way through, the ending was excellent! Must read.

Things I liked about this book-just the right amount of characters
Plot was interesting
Things I did not like about this book-so much filler. Information about the covid pandemic, New Orleans, king cakes, which character voted for Trump -none of these details added to the story. At all.

I love Laura Lippman and her novels. Prom Mom is different than most of hers. A young teen girl basically gets used in a relationship and doesn’t realize she’s pregnant. Like a ripped from the headline story - she gives birth, by herself; the night of prom and the baby winds up dead. Lippman makes good points about how society always blames women. There are a lot of twists in this story with a great ending. Def recommend

This was absolutely a hard book to get into but it was a relatively satisfying slow burn of a thriller. I definitely wish there was more edge to it, but fans of Lippman will be pleased.

Prom Mom was quite a story. Every year I am amazed at what Laura Lippman comes up with. This was slow to start but picks up and when it does you can't put it down. The twist at the end blew me away.

Many thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for my ARC!

This nasty rip-roarer of a novel is a riot and manages the immensely difficult task of maintaining a slow burn while keeping the pages turning. It manages to be timely and timeless at the same time while using the pandemic thematically and to drive the plot. The characters feel lived in and their mistakes feel rooted in reality and humanity. There are no heroes or villains, just people.

A very different novel from Laura Lippmann. In 1997, sixteen year old Amber went to her Baltimore prom and delivered her secret baby in the hotel bathroom. Her date, Joe, was unaware. The child didn't survive. A scandal was born with Prom Mom and Cad Dad.
Twenty-two years later, Joe is happily married to plastic surgeon Meredith with a lover on the side. Amber, now a resident of New Orleans, returns home to settle her step dad's estate. Will her new art gallery attract Joe as a shopper?
In flashbacks and a covid pandemic 2020, Lippmann entwines the lives of Joe and his three ladies to a slow burn conclusion leading to juicy vengeance.
I enjoyed the New Orleans references and the COVID-19 angst throughout Prom Mom. However, the set up took too long before a not too satisfying conclusion.
Lippmann's Baltimore crime novels are much stronger.

Amber Glass has tried to put as much distance between her past as possible. She fears she will be forever know as the Prom Mom that killed her baby the night of the senior prom. Her date, Joe Simpson, abandoned her that evening. When Amber returns to Baltimore, her hometown, she is hoping for a second chance and to stay far away from Joe. Unfortunately that isn't possible. The momentum builds in this book as a game of cat and mouse ensues. This will keep you turning the pages.

Unfortunately, I DNF this. I got about 40% in, and I had no idea what the mystery was supposed to be, and there was no suspense to keep me interested. I normally like this author, but this was very slow for me. It took me a week to read 40% and I typically read a book in about 3 days.

A girl goes to prom and gets sick, wakes up with blood everywhere. The police claim she killed her baby. She claims the baby was already dead. Why hadn’t her date came to check on her? Years pass and this girl returns home, she reconnects with her prom date. Probably not the best idea! This one was just ok!

2.5 STARS

I'm truly unsure of how many stars to give this book. On the one hand, it is a very good (if slow) thriller; I guess you would call it. It was a very slow read, with a lot of emphasis in the last half of the book on COVID and the politics of the time.

I could not connect with the characters-none of them, but I will say I disliked all of them and was glad most of them got their comeuppance.

The last 10% or so of the book had me a bit confused. Who really did it? I wasn't sure that I could really believe anything that came out of Meridith's mouth. I would have loved a little more in-depth ending.

I'd love to give this a 2.5 rating, but when all know, we can't do that here!


*ARC was supplied by the publisher William Morrow, the author, and NetGalley.