Libby, mum to 14-year-old twins, is getting used to having her new partner Nina move in with her two younger children. “I used to imagine family dinners with laughter and shared stories,” she writes in this hybrid graphic-and-text story about a blended family, told in a style reminiscent of the bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. “Now it’s just chaos served with garlic bread.”
From finding time for intimacy to balancing parenting styles, co-parenting with an ex-husband, trying to connect with one’s step-kids, and adjusting to new expectations and routines, there are a lot of challenges. Through flashbacks, Libby also shares her story of coming out and meeting Nina.
Author Callie Cruse gives us a look at blended family life that doesn’t flinch away from the hard moments even as it offers hope that blending can happen. There’s a lot of humor, but also moments of exhaustion, poignancy, and the aforementioned chaos. Still, over the course of the story, we see Libby (and the rest of the family) begin to adjust to their new normal—still loud, still imperfect, but full of love.
A few terms (“mum”; “fringe” [bangs]; “custard cream”; “welly”) reveal the book’s British origins, but should be easily understood from context by readers elsewhere. Backmatter includes room for readers to draw and/or write about their own families.
The book is part of The Blended Diaries, a set of titles that follow the same blended family from different perspectives, and are aimed at different ages of readers, including younger children and teens. Adult readers who pick up the current volume should enjoy this lighthearted and sympathetic look at blended family life.
The family is White. A cousin who appears briefly in one scene is a trans man.
