About 9 weeks ago, myself and eight of my other Mama friends had a fun night out, we went out for Southwest food, ate way too many chips & salsa and then went to see the movie, Mom’s Night Out. The movie was really hilarious and I throughly enjoyed it! The movie had each of us laughing way too loud, and nodding in agreement at the level of crazy that Allyson’s life with small children contained. We all agreed it was a movie worth seeing and wondered why we waited so long to have a night out together.
I knew there was a novelization of the movie being written by Tricia Goyer and I was very interested to read it. I’m so very happy that I did.
I’ll be honest, I winced my way through the first few pages. Why? The book is such a close novelization of the script of the movie and the plot of the movie is such a close mirror of my own crazy mom life (at times) that I found myself getting a tad bit stressed just from reading it! Usually, I would not choose to watch a movie before reading a book, but in this case I was glad I did as I KNEW the movie was going to go beyond the first few moments of Mommy stress. I mean really, what mom wants to escape for a few minutes and read a basic play-by-play of her day? However, the story quickly moves beyond the initial story-setup and into a really funny book. The plot focuses on Allyson, a SAHM of three cute (and lively) kiddos. Allyson, a mommy blogger whose kind husband travels frequently on business often finds herself asking the question that most moms ask at one time another– “Why is this so HARD??!?!”
In an effort to step outside of her stress a bit, Allyson plans a night to unplug with her friends. The three harried moms (in three very different stages of motherhood) embark on what promises to be a relaxing, stress-free night out. Minutes into their outing, the night begins to unravel one tiny thread at a time. Soon, they find themselves going all over various parts of town on a wild-baby chase, which evolves into a wild-van chase (oh yeah, their mom-swagger-wagon is allegedly stolen– Nice, huh?) and ends with every last one of them in Jail. Throw in a random tattoo parlor, an eccentric cabbie, a missing bird named Mama and the Pastor’s wife getting tased… and you have the makings of a hilarious “Momedy-Book” worthy of your time. Even having seen the movie, I found myself snickering out loud at certain parts and shaking my head at poor Allyson’s view of herself as a mom. Because, really, who of us have not felt that “it’s not supposed to be this hard!!!??” — and wondered what we are doing wrong?!
I really did enjoy this book. Lately, I’ve been reading through a stack of more serious, non-fiction pieces and though I’ve enjoyed them all, this was a welcome break as a book that offered plenty of good, clean humor with a nice measure of underlying encouragement.
If you’re looking for a light bit of fun reading with a nice heavy dose of “Me too” for Mamas– you might enjoy it as much as I did!
You may find the book Here 
and you can also pre-order the Moms Night Out DVD
**I was so honored to receive a free copy of this book from B&H Publishing Company to review. I am grateful for the book, but the opinions are completely mine.
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