Description:

Does every second wife look like Julia Roberts? Lu Kleincertainly doesn't, and her life is anything but glamorous. When she marrieda man with children, Lu had no idea that she was also marrying his shrewishex-wife, Beatrix. And Beatrix had no idea that making a new home with hersecond husband would mean welcoming her wicked teenage stepdaughter, Liv.And Liv's mother Roxie had no idea that so many new and exciting boyfriendscould make her long for the stable life she and her ex had too eagerly leftbehind.In this tightly interconnected collection of ten short stories, authorLaura Ruby chronicles the progress of Lu, Beatrix, Roxie and their varioussteps and exes as they take the perilous plunge into the maelstrom of theso-called "blended family." Both ruefully funny and wickedly insightful,I'M NOT JULIA ROBERTS offers finely-observed, honest and affecting takes onkids, stepkids, divorce, remarriage...and the movie Stepmom. ** ### From Publishers Weekly Ruby, whose third YA novel *Good Girls* is due this fall, starts off with a fresh, sardonic wit in this linked collection of divorce stories, but the unnerving stepchildren, sordid affairs and malevolent exes soon begin to blur. Suburban, self-absorbed Lu ("Lupe Klein, neither Hispanic nor Jewish") never expected to play mother to Ward Harrison's three complicated sons or have to deal with his ex-wife, Beatrix. While Beatrix is in a state of blind marital bliss with her new husband, Alan, she is not ready for Alan's mean-spirited, teenage daughter, Liv. Liv's mother, Roxie, not yet remarried but dating her friend Moira's unscrupulous ex-, Tate, is desperately trying to figure out how to balance her relationship with Tate while maintaining her bond with Liv. There are five couples in all, including Moira and second husband Ben, and Tate's sister Glynn (divorced from Derek) and her second husband, George—plus assorted children. A chapter moving backward in time and composed of e-mails, instant messages and snail mail detailing their entanglements is more disorienting than anything else. *(Jan.)* Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ### From Booklist With the same kind of emotional understatement that made Shari Goldhagen's *Family and Other Accidents* (2006) so riveting, Ruby tells the interconnected stories of a group of families trying to cope with life in the wake of divorce. Riffing on the idyllic view of blended families presented in the movie* Stepmom,* starring Julia Roberts, Ruby offers a more rueful, realistic, way-funnier version as bitter ex-wives, angry teenagers, and beleaguered second wives attempt to wade through daily negotiations involving clashing schedules and wounded feelings. Among them is droll career woman Lu, who didn't have a clue when she fell in love with handsome Ward Klein and his three cute toddlers. Years later she must contend with hulking teens who speak in monosyllables and address her as Loopy. Meanwhile, Ward's ex-wife, Beatrix, remarried to a cheerful man whose high energy level matches her own, must also learn to scale back her expectations in the face of his adolescent daughter's contempt. YA novelist Ruby captures both warring emotions and fleeting moments of connection in this smart take on fractured families. *Joanne Wilkinson* *Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved*