Smells Like Tween Spirit
A Novel
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- £8.99
Publisher Description
Even with the cutthroat days of being Class Mom behind her, as a freshly minted mat mom of the Pioneer Middle School (PMS) wrestling team, Jen Dixon cannot catch a break.
This year, as her son joins the ranks of the PMS wrestlers, Jen faces mystifying new social dynamics with her trademark combination of reluctance and resigned acceptance. The sights and smells of her son’s wrestling matches are more than enough for her to deal with, but Jen also finds herself fully immersed in sports-mom competitiveness. These parents all seem perfectly unassuming until their kids start to wrestle, and then some become raging momsters.
Jen steels herself for the indignities of middle school life, but she cannot quite fathom the extents to which some kids (and moms) will go for the sweet taste of victory. Add to this some truly bizarre encounters with students from her spin class and deeper challenges managing her parents, and Jen has more gum than she can chew...and even her riotously funny one-liners might not get her through it this time.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the winsome fourth installment of Gelman's Class Mom series (after Yoga Pant Nation), a middle-aged woman balances supporting her son's newfound interest in wrestling and caring for her aging parents. After Jen's seventh-grade son, Max, decides to join his school's wrestling team, Jen surprises herself by signing up to be a team "Mat Mom" and getting sucked into a wrestling mom subculture with tacky custom T-shirts, road trips to matches, and a feud with another mom who challenges Jen to a charity wrestling match. Jen also juggles the demands of her job as a spin instructor with caregiving duties for her elderly father, who has dementia. She devotes an increasing share of her time to watching him while her mother plays bridge at an assisted living center where her mother's ex-boyfriend now lives, raising Jen's suspicions. As Jen's commitments begin to overwhelm her and her father's health deteriorates, she relies on her fellow wrestling moms more than she ever expected. Readers will speed through this witty, pithy tale that brings back Jen's lovable snark to delightful effect. This winning sequel lives up to its predecessors.
