REVIEW: Mom Jeans and Other Mistakes by Alexa Martin

I've been enamored with Alexa Martin's writing from the first novel I've read of hers; her novels contain a great mixture of humor and emotion and friendship and romance. While Mom Jeans and Other Mistakes focuses more on the friendship aspect, there's definitely a nice dose of romance that is threaded throughout. 

As noted in probably many other reviews, this novel is really an ode to female friendship. Lauren and Jude, lifelong best friends, become roommates for a variety of reasons, we come to learn. Lauren needs to escape her overbearing parents and has some financial constraints and Jude needs to escape her overbearing mother and also has financial constraints. Naturally, it stands to reason that they would room together, despite the obvious differences in their lifestyles--Lauren is a single, working mom working on some issues with her ex and Jude is a social media star, working through some issues with her formerly famous mom. Despite those differences, as it often does in real life too, their friendship works with and through these differences and makes for a sweet living arrangement. Until it doesn't.

One of the things I really appreciate about this novel is that it doesn't idealize friendship. It shows the challenges and strains that exist and the worries and concerns we all have when our friends are in trouble. It shows Jude and Lauren love each other and struggle with each other and how even best friends have challenges that aren't easily overcome. Rather than write a novel that romanticizes best friends, Martin shows the strength that a true friendship has, even with all of the missteps and dumb things we do to sometimes sabotage things. 

I also enjoyed the ode to the repeated image of how powerful and wonderful being a woman, having strong female friendships ,and lifting up other women that this novel had. Mom Jeans and Other Mistakes was a slight shift from the novels Alexa Martin has written before and I enjoyed the experience. 

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SYNOPSIS: 

Two best friends say "I do" to living together, for better or worse, in this bold women's fiction novel from Alexa Martin.

Jude Andrews is famous. Well, at least on Instagram. Her brand is clean eating, good vibes, Pilates, and casually looking like a sun-kissed goddess. In real life, however, she’s a total disaster. She has a strained relationship with her fame-hungry mom and her latest bad decision emptied out her entire savings account.

Lauren Turner had a plan: graduate medical school and become the top surgeon in the country. But when she became unexpectedly pregnant, those plans changed. And when her fiancé left her, they changed again. Now navigating the new world of coparenting, mom groups, and dating,  she decides to launch a mommy podcast with all the advice she wishes someone had given her.

Jude and Lauren don't have much in common, but maybe that's why they've been best friends since the third grade. Through ups and downs, they've been by each other's sides. But now? They’re broke, single, and do the only thing that makes sense—move in together, just like they talked about when they were teenagers. Except when they were younger, the plan didn't include a five-year-old daughter and more baggage than their new townhouse can hold.