Moms’ Night Out is a novelization of the hilarious family comedy that celebrates real family life—where everything can go wrong and still turn out all right.
All Allyson and her friends want is a peaceful, grown-up evening of dinner and conversation . . . a long-needed moms’ night out. But in order to enjoy high heels, adult conversation and food not served in a bag, they need their husbands to watch the kids for a few hours—what could go wrong?
Chronicling one night out gone awry, three harried moms, their husbands, a sister-in-law with a misplaced baby, a tattoo parlor owner, a motorcycle gang, and a bewildered cabbie all learn to embrace the beautiful mess called parenting. This book spotlights the unfulfilled expectations and serial self-doubts many moms feel . . . then reassures us that the key is raising kids in a loving home. Mom’s Night Out is an endearing, true-to-life comedy.
Tricia Goyer has written more than thirty-five books, including both novels that delight and entertain readers and non- fiction titles that offer encouragement and hope. She has also published more than 500 articles in national publications such as Guideposts, Thriving Family, Proverbs 31, and HomeLife Magazine.
Goyer’s fiction and non-fiction books have won awards from the American Christian Fiction Writers and Mt. Hermon Writers’ Conference. She is also a two-time Carol Award winner, as well as a Christy and ECPA Award Nominee.
Tricia has authored several books on family and parenting, as well as co-written with Max Lucado and Robin Jones Gunn. She collaborated with Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges for Lead Your Family Like Jesus, published by Focus on the Family/Tyndale.
Tricia’s contemporary and historical novels feature strong women overcoming great challenges. She recreates historic wartime eras with precise detail through perseverant and comprehensive research. Tricia speaks to groups interested in these eras, with the intention of preserving and honoring the memory of the men and women who served.
She is a beloved author of Amish fiction, as well, writing the Big Sky and Seven Brides for Seven Bachelors Series. Tricia is currently working on The One Year Book of Amish Peace: Hearing God’s Voice in the Simple Things and a true Amish story co-written with Ora Jay and Irene Eash (contracted to release in 2013 and 2014 respectively).
Tricia is also the visionary force behind the new website, Not Quite Amish. Inspired by the writing process of her Amish releases, she wanted to create a community where Amish and simple living experts can become contributors. Launched in the fall of 2012, the Not Quite Amish lifestyle blog features daily posts about recipes, repurposing, simple style, beautifying your home, sewing Amish proverbs, and more. In addition to having more than fifteen regular contributors, readers are also encouraged to submit ideas, questions, and posts for topics they’d like to see written about.
In addition to Not Quite Amish, Tricia also posts regularly at her personal blog and is a contributor to other family and homeschooling blogs, such as The Home Educating Family, The Better Mom, Allume and MomLife Today. In 2010, she was selected as one of the Top 20 Moms to Follow on Twitter by SheKnows.com.
My Impressions:
I think it must be really hard to write a novelization of a movie. After all, film is all visual, giving the viewer what you want him to see. Books allow the reader to add his/her own imagination to the story. I have not seen Mom’s Night Out, the movie, but I did read Tricia Goyer’s novelization by the same name, and I think she did a great job with it. Filled with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and some great aha moments, the story follows 3 friends and mothers looking to unplug from their busy lives. What ensues is definitely not what they expected, but perhaps it was what they needed.
Allyson is a mommy-blogger wannabe who feels the need to fix everything around her. Phobic about messes she is surrounded by them. Sondra is a pastor’s wife who feels the need to be perfect even if it means shutting down who she really is. Izzy is a mom dealing with a husband who doesn’t have a clue what to do with his twin children. All need a quiet night out to connect and relax. What they get is a missing child, a snooty restaurant hostess, and a biker/tattoo artist, among other things. There is non-stop action, plenty of noise and revelations of who they just might be in Christ.
I liked Mom’s Night Out. While my kids are past the baby and teenage stages, I could really relate to the women who are all things to all people, except themselves. For all the busyness, craziness and mayhem that accompanies life, the message that God has it all in His very capable and loving hands is clearly articulated. I recommend this book to all who have or haven’t seen the movie. (I did find the abundance of grammatical errors to be a bit of a distraction, but the book overall outweighs that.)
Recommended.
(Thanks to B&H for a review copy. The opinions expressed are mine alone.)
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