BOOK REVIEW: Futures and Frosting

In this hilarious sequel to Seduction and Snacks, our beloved bat-shit-crazy family of three is adjusting to their new life together. Claire and Carter are madly in love with one another, both of them ready to take the next step in their relationship but afraid to communicate that to each other. What follows is one whacky situation after another of failed proposals and faked late-night porn addictions.

The main characters are as loveable as before, two imperfect individuals doing the best they can as parents and as partners, scared to death of being “shitty parents” or of losing each other. Their reactions are candidly honest, hysterically inappropriate and yet totally ‘real’. They have no filters, they speak their minds and they do it GLORIOUSLY. Their life never seems dull or uninteresting – at the end of the day, they are just two normal people who fell in love over beer pong, ended up with a child from a one-night-stand back in college and now have to deal with ordinary challenges such as homicidal fantasies caused by lack of sleep, hyperactive children, pot-laced cookies, visiting in-laws, and indecent exposure on limo buses.

“Maybe Claire has Salmonella poisoning. Is that contagious? Does she need to be vaccinated or have her stomach pumped? I feel like I should know the answer to this since I have a kid. What if Gavin eats some raw chicken and I don’t know whether to give him mouth-to-mouth or Pepto Bismol? Is he even allowed to have Pepto? And where the f*ck is he getting chickens from?!”

All the same secondary characters are there and the book wouldn’t be the same without them. They make fun of each other without apologies but they are fiercely loyal and protective of one another. But the real star of the book is Gavin, Claire and Carter’s son. Everything this foul-mouthed little boy says should be quoted on a T-shirt. He constantly steals the show.

“Mommy and Daddy make a lot of noise when they kiss. Mommy talks to God a lot. I talk to God sometimes too. I asked him for a puppy and a new monster truck but I was nice and didn’t yell at him like Mommy does. He still hasn’t gotten me the puppy though.”

The humour is even more amplified than in the first book, even more outrageous in an oh-my-God-did-she-just-write-that kind of way. My jaw was hurting by the end of it, not sure how much more I could have handled without causing permanent damage. Do real people talk like this? Do real people have friends like these? Why don’t I have friends like these??? The story is really one funny over-the-top sketch after another, and yet if you take the comedy out of it, you are left with a genuinely lovely story of love, parenthood and friendship. All the right messages come across but they are delivered almost subliminally while you are trying to stop yourself from laughing so loud in a public place. These are ‘real’ people with ‘real’ lives, maybe a little bit out of the ordinary and definitely inappropriate at times, but honest in their affection for each other and true to themselves.

If Seduction and Snacks was your type of humour, you cannot miss this book. Tara Sivec should be a personal trainer because I think I got a six-pack just from laughing.

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