Have you met Jen Dixon? She's the main character of Laurie Gelman's Yoga Pant Nation, but she's been around for awhile. You may remember her from the first two books in Gelman's series: Class Mom and You've Been Volunteered. If you haven't already guessed, this book series is about a woman named Jen who ends up as her son's class mom and all the antics that go on throughout the school year both at school and in Jen's personal life.
As I had not read the first two books before receiving a free review copy of Yoga Pant Nation, I immediately went to my library and read them. In the first book, Jen is sort of going through a mid-life crisis and, when she's not training for a mud run, ends up text-flirting with an old crush. At the same time, she's got to keep her son's classmates' parents in line, deal with a super strange teacher, and uncover the secret life of a hard-to-please mom. In the second book, Jen gets volunteered to lead the school's safety patrol. It's the last thing she wants to do, especially when she's got her aging parents, overworked husband, and two adult daughters to tend to.
Now in Yoga Pant Nation, Jen is once again asked to take charge of a school-related activity: a fundraiser. Jen finds herself stretched thin as she once again has worries about her parents, is now babysitting a granddaughter, and doesn't know what's going on with her moody 5th grader. I kind of wish there had been more to that moody 5th-grade boy storyline. It didn't really seem to resolve itself as well as everything else.
But perhaps that's why a fourth Class Mom novel is coming out in 2022!
Class moms are not a thing in my daughter's school, but as I'm gearing up to potentially lead a Girl Scout troop, Jen Dixon's bold and sarcastic emails to her fellow parents are my leadership goals. The only thing I would change about Jen's personality is her attitude toward food allergies. Go easy on the mother of the kid who is allergic to peanuts (and just about everything else). If that was your kid, you'd be a little intense, too. And don't knock the gluten-free brownies until you try them! (I was, at least, glad that Jen recognized how happy the gluten-free students were to have something at the snack table they could actually eat.)
So that's my review of Yoga Pant Nation and the overall Class Mom book series. I look forward to seeing what Jen gets up to in the fourth book.
Yoga Pant Nation is published by Henry Holt and Co. and is available to purchase now. I received a free review copy.
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