I love January LaVoy’s narration, so I was excited to see her on board. She’s probably one of the only reasons I stuck with this audiobook.

I felt like there was a lot happening in this book but no real excitement until the end started to wrap up. I am not sure what I was expecting because when I go back and read the blurb, it’s spot on what the book is about. That being said, the moms are awful, as to be expected of the rich and powerful. And I’m not sure what the point of the epilogue was because I didn’t feel like it did anything to improve the ending.

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and Emma Rosenblum for the chance to listen and review.

Mean Moms by Emma Rosenblum was different than I thought it would be. These moms are MEAN and are not your average suburban moms! Nude pics, affairs, poisonings! This group of moms is intense. The story was far fetched (well, at I hope so 😳😳) but enjoyable. January LaVoy is an awesome narrator. I always enjoy listening to this narrator.

3.5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the advance listen in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

~Pub Date: July 29, 2025~

👒The elite, fancy moms of Atherton Academy spend all of their time planning school parties for their kids. They know they are better than the regular moms and don’t really want to let others in. However, in walks new mom, Sofia. She is interesting and pretty and has a wonderful accent.

👒Things were calm but now they are getting stirred up. Someone is ruining the perfect mom’s reputations and causing havoc in their lives. But who?

👒Although the mean moms/mean girls trope has been done many times before, this one is truly in a class of its own. The story is fun and interesting from the start. I listened to the audiobook and narrator, January LaVoy, was perfect! Just like the perfect moms, she gave the characters perfect voices. She masterfully brought this story to life!

👒I couldn’t get enough of the problem causing, tea spilling, and airing of dirty laundry! Everyone has secrets and someone has to share it (or make it up).
Fun book! The ending was a surprise too. That’s always great.

I've never seen someone nail over-the-top, hysterical NYC private school mommies quite like Rosenblum does here. It's like Real Housewives meets Parasite but with more Beyond Yoga and self-hatred. There were many genuinely funny lines, and I had low expectations since I didn't care for Rosenblum's other books, so I was pleasantly surprised.

I think that because I spent my twenties in New York, I could viscerally see how many women I knew could absolutely morph into these characters if you handed them enough money, a black Amex, a surrealist party, and a competitive preschool admission process.

A little bit Gossip Girl, a little bit Society of Lies (by Brown), Mean Moms follows elitr mom friends throughout a school year. When a new mom (Sophia) moves to NYC from Miami, following a nasty divorce, things start happening. Bad things. All signs point to the new mom being at the center of it - cue the dramatic music: DUN DUN DUN!

We got to hear from several perspectives, but the characters were all memorable enough, so it was easy to keep things straight.

This was a salacious read, with lots of liars and cheating and even some choking. But would I consider this a shocking thriller? Nah. Was it fun? Sure! Wild but also wildly predictable - save for maybe the very last 5 minutes.

Thanks to #NetGalley for the audio ARC for review.

This is a delicious and super funny story! A group of well to do Moms in NYC at a private school, what could go wrong. A new Mom enters the group and all hell breaks loose. I really enjoyed this story and all the different characters.

I love stories that focus on rich people problems and Rosenblum is the queen of rich people problems. Mean Moms really kept me wondering who was to blame for everything going bad for a group of moms living in New York City. This story had it all; drama, cheating, private school problems, and so much more. Sophia is new to town and somehow gets her children into an exclusive school where she meets a group of friends that welcome her in. Little does she know, jealousy and hatred with drive them all apart. The all-school mom group chat was a fun addition and definitely kept the drama going.

Not at all what I expected in the absolute best way!
I really enjoyed this book.
Wealthy New York Moms. Cliques. Stereotypically over involved parents. Sex. Cheating. And of course, drama.
Sophia is the new girl in town. Her two children are mysterious granted admission to an exclusive school that all of the rich folk fight to gain admission for their children.
One Mother befriends Sophia but the rest talk about her and question why she is there and are skeptical about her life.
The characters are fantastic. I love to hate some of them.
The drama is ridiculous but wonderful.
I enjoyed every bit of this book.
The plot is well structured and the pace is great.
To have so many characters, they were well developed.
This was such a well written synopsis of the rich behaving badly.
Twist of an ending!
Quick read. Certainly a good one for your summer TBR.
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to read and review this ARC!
Happy Reading!

Mean Moms is generally about the privileged mothers of elite, New York private school children, and centers around three best friends: Belle, Morgan and Frost. Soon the exotic, curvaceous Sofia, arrives in town - freshly divorced and hailing from Miami - and breathes new life into the friend group, until an unfortunate series of events leads them to believe someone is clearly plotting against them.

This reminded me of Mean Girls, except with grown adults, and it leaned more toward dark comedy - though it wasn’t very funny. I did laugh a few times, but I wouldn’t call it hilarious. I disliked most of the characters, but ended up really rooting for Sofia by the end. I think fans of the movie Heathers will especially enjoy this. I was satisfied with the overall mystery, and enjoyed the little surprise at the end as well. 3.75, rounding up to four stars.

🎶Bad Blood- By Taylor Swift 🎶

"Mean Moms" by Emma Rosenblum is an absolute ride and I devoured this story. . If you love stories about unhinged, ultra-wealthy women behaving badly, buckle up. This one delivers drama with a capital D.

The book follows a group of privileged moms whose kids attend the most exclusive private school in Lower Manhattan. Think designer handbags, curated social lives, and constant one-upping all wrapped up in sabotage, gossip, and infidelity. It’s like Big Little Lies meets Real Housewives, but with sharper claws and better Botox.

The characters are deliciously over-the-top, and I was hooked watching them flit from one high-society event to the next, each trying to outdo the others , until someone starts playing dirty. Really dirty. A mystery troublemaker is targeting the friend group, and the question becomes: is it an outsider, or is someone inside the circle stabbing backs with a smile? Oh, and of course, someone’s sleeping with someone else’s husband. Because why not?

Add in the chaos of the all-school mom group chat (yes, it’s as messy and judgmental as it sounds), and you’ve got a fast-paced, scandal-filled thriller that’s impossible to put down. Sharp, gossipy, and wildly entertaining this is the kind of book you inhale in one sitting.

This was such a fun read! The drama, savagery and pretentiousness kept me listening intensely. I never saw the ending coming and it seems like the story could continue in a second book.

Mean Moms, by Emma Rosenbaum, narrated by January Lavoy, is an absolutely over-the-top, delicious romp through the NYC private school mommy sphere. Like Gossip Girl, but PTA moms. It's hilarious and also, at times, sweet. I jumped on this because I devoured Rosenblum's debut, Bad Summer People. Somehow I missed her 2nd novel, Very Bad Company- but I will be downloading immediately! Highly recommend!!!

This book was absolutely absurd but loved it anyways. The craziness of it all just kept me hooked. This book felt like a crossover between gossip girl and real housewives which made listening to the audiobook so fun. I wish there would have been a more surprising ending as I saw it coming, but otherwise it was great read!

4.5 rounded up for the hilarious indulgence of it all.

It’s ‘Primates of Park Avenue,’ but as a thriller - so fun!

Premise - Morgan, Frost, and Belle are the It Moms at Atherton, an elite private school for NYC’s wealthiest. When Sophia, a knockout recent divorcée from Miami, moves to the city and enrolls her children in Atherton, bad things start happening to the It Moms. Every individual incident seems accidental, but these lucky ladies can’t possibly have this much bad luck.

This was so funny! I loved Rosenblum’s voice for this story and it was *packed* with snarky quips, drama, and (fun trope alert) rich people behaving badly. Some of the characters are surely too wicked to be real, but they’re so well fleshed out that they feel real anyway.

Pacing? Tight. Characters? Fascinating. Plot? So fun. Read it!

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by January LaVoy. She delivered the perfect confident confidante read for a story about New York elites.

Thanks, NetGalley and Macmillan Audio, for the audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Oh my gosh, this was a fun read. Mean Moms reminds me of the stuff that was being written around the turn of the millennium, authors like Candace Bushnell, Plum Sykes and Sophie Kinsella.

This story revolves around the uber-rich moms with kids enrolled at a fancy private academy in Manhattan. After a sexy, voluptuous Latina from Miami comes to town with her two darling children, all Hell breaks loose. Suspicious ? Perhaps.

Weird and downright awful things begin to happen in turn to the ladies as they begin to fear that their dirty laundry will be aired in public. Someone is out to get the moms and it's someone they all know !

A++. Hope to hear more from the author. I've missed this kind of fiction.

Let me start by saying that the audiobook narration was absolutely perfect. I’m going to recommend everyone read this book in audio format.

This was catty, petty, messy, backbiting and so much drama – in all the best ways. This is a grab your popcorn and watch the spectacle unfold kind of book, and I loved every deliciously evil moment of it.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Mean Moms by Emma Rosenblum is a glittery, gossip-filled romp through the lives of New York City’s wealthiest, most impeccably dressed mothers—think Sex & the City with kids. The novel follows a group of ultra-wealthy moms who thrive on gossip, parties, adultery, and social warfare. While all the moms are various shades of awful, one stands out: a true sociopath hiding in plain sight. It’s not exactly a mystery who she is, but watching the dysfunction unfold is half the fun.

The plot is a bit weak and slow to develop, but the characters are so entertainingly easy to read that it’s easy to forgive. Overall, it’s a perfect, indulgent summertime read.

I liked Bad Summer People, didn’t care for Very Bad Company, and ate this one up! Wealthy mama drama…I’m here for it all!

This audio by the stellar January LaVoy was a perfect escape from reality. Fans of Real Housewives and Gossip Girl will love it.

Binge it on 7/29/25! Thanks for the audio ARC!

Mean Moms is pure mean girl energy, grown-up edition—where wellness trends are weapons and school drop-off is a contact sport. Its the plastics and gossip girl all rolled into one, for grown ups and not that HBO crap.

The book opens with a dead body at a kid’s birthday party and thats about as exciting as the mystery potion of this novel gets, sadly,. The murder is background noise. The real story is the gladiator match happening under the surface: status games, backstabbing, and perfectly curated momfluencer chaos. Every scene drips with teeth-baring faux-politeness and barely concealed judgment. Not characters may not be likable, but they sure are compelling.

This was the most Amazingly FUN audiobook I’ve listened to all year! Mean Moms is like a twisted peek behind the curtain of Manhattan’s elite PTA mom scene where everyone’s wearing Lululemon, pretending to be supportive, and secretly scheming behind each other’s backs. I was hooked from the start.

The characters are all a little bit awful, jealous, manipulative, and tangled up in affairs (with each other’s husbands, naturally). Their desperate attempts to one-up each other and secure the best for their kids had me rolling my eyes. I couldn’t get enough of the mom on Wegovy, the endless justifications for bad behavior, and the fake friendships.

Each character had the perfect amount of snark and flair and wealth or fake riches. My absolute favorite character was the “friend” who was quietly sabotaging everyone else, she was pure diabolical chaos. That twist at the end-PERFECT!!

If you’re looking for a sharp, juicy, wildly entertaining listen that will make you grateful to be a broke mom from Queens, this is it. Five Stars!!