Like a House on Fire by Lauren McBrayer

Tell me if you’ve read or watched this one before – two women with considerable age difference begin a passionate romance, only one of them is married and a mother and is so profoundly entrenched in her conventional life that she is torn between what she wants and what she believes she ought to be happy with.
Yes, that is essentially the plot of Carol, a stunning novel and its superb cinematic adaptation, for which both of its leads were robbed of Oscars, it stands to mention.
Now, switch a few elements around, tweak a few things and rewrite it Sex and the City style and you’ll get this debut. One the author interestingly enough specifically describes as close to her but not a memoir. Um…no one probably thought that until you said something and now it’s one of those a lady doth protest too much things, but anyway….
Meet Merit. Merit is a devoted wife and a mother, who’s been with her husband Cory since college. They’ve made two young kids, an endeavor Merit doesn’t seem to get a lot of joy out of, because she misses having a proper life out in the world, not one circumscribed by wailing babies and dirty diapers. Why did she then have a second child with that attitude, you might ask? Well, because apparently motherhood is like that…thoughtless.
Mind you, as a society we’ve come a long way from not wanting to so much as show pregnancy back in I Love Lucy days to Lost Daughter present, where it’s ok now to admit that motherhood is difficult and may not be for everyone. So, this book, hip to that, is all about how difficult motherhood has been for Merit.
She slaps on a t-shirt and some pants, walks in and lands a good job, despite her on and off employment history - there was that time she took off to be an artist too. Because it’s that kind of story.
Continuing with the wildly realistic streak there, her boss is stunning. And awesome. And fun. So much wordage is devoted to it, that you’d have to be an idiot not to see where this is going, but it nevertheless is going to take its time getting there. Until there, there will be a very close friendship the likes of which most women don’t really strike up after college days, and a lot of drinking.
And a lot of calling each other the B word, which is apparently ok because these people are straight of the Sex and the City production lot extras, so much so they actually believe that the only people who understand them are gay men. And honestly, the B word in a causal situation seems stupid and in one of the more sincere heartfelt moments is just grating. But there it is, anyway. Over and over again.
Anyway, eventually Merit realizes her attraction is more that friendly and the two proceed to have an affair. This is where the women’s fiction conventions slide further down into the cheddary romance.
But Merit is torn between her familial obligations and her heart/other organs. The author chooses to address it with a cheap trick of an ending. Because she wants to play with your emotions. Because she believes you’ll care enough and forgive her cheap trickery. I dunno. Something like that.
And so, there you go, behold a conglomeration of clichés, repackaged into original estrogen heavy romance of love and motherhood and sex.
And oh, let’s mention the fact that when a condom malfunction leads to another pregnancy, Merit who can barely handle the two kids or in fact can’t and has pawned them off onto a FT babysitter, appears immediately and completely on board with having another kid. WTF? Why?
 If you end up just feeling sorry for Cory, it’s well justified. There’s nothing really wrong with him and he tries his best, but Merit is just impossible to please because the author told her Cory isn’t her person. It’s almost comical the way she hates every single thing he does and yet seriously considers staying with him anyway.
Anyway, there you go. If nothing said in this review deters you from reading this book, then you and it will get along like a house on fire. Any critical discernment will probably be very much like a fire to a book. But then again, who knows, Lifetime television is popular for a reason. And this is totally their movie of the week. Thanks Netgalley.