Book Review- The Baby Planner

I just finished reading The Baby Planner by Josie Brown for a Gallery Book Tour.

From Goodreads:

The Nanny Diaries meets The Wedding Planner in this smart, dishy novel from the author of Secret Lives of Husbands and Wives—featuring a woman who runs San Francisco’s premier baby planning company and the mommies-to-be who seek out her services.

Katie Johnson may make her living consulting with new moms on the latest greatest baby gadgets no parent should be without, or which mommy meet-ups are the most socially desirable, or whether melon truly is the new black, but the success of her marriage to her husband, Alex, depends on controlling her own urges toward motherhood.

He's adamant that they stay childless. Sure, Katie understands that he's upset over the fact that his out-of-town ex-wife rarely lets him see their ten-year-old son, Peter. But living vicariously through her anxious clients and her twin sisters' precocious children only makes Katie resent his stance more deeply.

While helping a new client—Seth Harris, a high tech entrepreneur who must raise Sadie, his newborn daughter, as a single parent after the tragic death of his wife in childbirth—maneuver the bittersweet journey from mourning husband and reticent father to loving dad, Katie’s own ideals about love, marriage, and motherhood are put to the test as she learns ones very important lesson about family: How we nurture is the true nature of love.

At first, I dove into this book.  A baby planner job?  Maybe I should have gone that route!  I sympathized with Katie.  I wanted her to get pregnant and have a baby.  And from the very first page, I absolutely HATED Alex, Katie's husband.  I couldn't see what Katie saw in him at all.  How was he her "Mr. Right?"  They didn't have anything in common and he was always such a jerk to her.  Ugh.

But I loved how the new job grew.  And how Katie became so close with the women who were pregnant.  I was so absorbed in the book.  Until about two-thirds of the way in.  Then it just got too much for me.  Too much happened all at once, and while I definitely think that every good story needs a climax, there was too many in this book and it kind of turned me off.  And while Katie had every right to turn as bitter as she did, she didn't do it in a way that still had my sympathizing for her (if that makes any sense--I'm trying not to give it away).  And the ending just kind of...ended.  I don't feel that there was any real conclusion to one of the biggest issues.

Oh well, I liked that I learned about the baby planner job and still like the way that Josie Brown writes.

I gave this book a rating of 3.5/5.

This book fulfills items in the following challenges:
2011 100+ Reading Challenge: 27

*FTC Disclosure: I was given this book for free Gallery and Pocket Book Blog Tours for an honest review.