Back in the Burbs by Tracy Wolff and Avery Flynn

Narrated by Sophie Amoss

Contemporary RomCom/Womens Fiction

Back in the Burbs by Tracy Wolff and Avery Flynn is a combination of Women’s fiction and romantic comedy. It’s more about the heroine standing on her own two feet than romance, but that’s ok with me. Mallory is 35 and just found her husband of 10 years going down on his paralegal. He’s a lawyer, and Mallory dropped out of law school to support him and run the office while he built up the firm.

Mallory never made waves and just tried to keep everyone happy. But leaving her husband after catching him left her with no job, no apartment and no money. Her favorite aunt also just died and left her with a run-down hoarder-filled house with over 40 HOA violations. Having no place else to go, Mallory moves into the house while she tries to fix it up.

Her hot, grumpy, HOA rule-following neighbor starts out as an enemy and almost stays that way because Mallory pushes him away so much. Then there is hot Mikey, the younger contractor who is really into her. She also has to deal with her evil ex-husband and her parents who are even worse, taking his side.

And the hits kept coming. Mallory had to deal with a LOT, and her inner monologue was funny most of the time, but her stupid decisions, her obsession with wine and coffee and her continually pushing away help started to piss me off.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Back in the Burbs. In fact, when I didn’t review it right away I decided to listen again and still enjoyed it, but there were a number of times I just wanted to throttle her!

Likes:

I liked watching Mallory get her groove back.
Nick…sigh, I loved him.
Mikey was a sweetheart.
Though we never really meet her, I love Aunt Maggie.
I laughed a few times.

Dislikes:

Her parents, especially her mom, were so freaking horrible at first that it drove me crazy that she still spoke to them. They redeemed themselves a little though.
Mallory just couldn’t catch a break, the hits kept coming.
She made some really stupid choices throughout the book and ignored what was right there for her.
It needed more romance and less cleaning.
I’m not sure how I feel about the surprise visitor in the end—it wasn’t really necessary.

The Narration:

Sophie Amoss did well with this book but she just didn’t have quite the right voice for Mallory in my head.

The Down & Dirty:

I enjoyed Back in the Burbs by Tracy Wolff and Avery Flynn. I liked it enough to sit through it a second time to refresh my memory. I think it was more about a woman finding herself rather than finding love, in fact she avoided love almost the entire book. There were some fun LOL moments, but I think some may struggle with liking Mallory. Nick though….he was amazing and worth reading for.