Since I quit work to take care of my kids
(Check all that apply):

[] I have all this so-called time to sit around and bake cookies.

[] Sex is "kid-us interrupt-us."

[] While driving, I no longer listen to the news but to "The Itsy Bitsy Spider."

[] I want to shout "What you see isn't me!"

For every woman who has made The Big Decision to Quit Work and Stay Home, traded lattés for juice boxes, power suits for spit-stained sweats, and the designer tote for the diaper bag — in other words, chucked it all for motherhood — this novel is a must read. Poignant and wickedly funny, it captures the frustrations, the loneliness, the rage, the guilt — as well as the ultimate joys and triumphs — of being a mom today.

Amanda Bright's college degree from an elite university didn't prepare her for changing diapers or removing peanut butter from her daughter's hair. Once on the career track, she's now "@home," putting the needs of her son and daughter first. But her emotions keep catching her by surprise: the way she feels when her best friend dates a billionaire and her lawyer husband is awarded the case of the decade, not to mention what she secretly wants to do to her son's perpetually disapproving teacher — the one who's convinced her son will never amount to anything due to poor "scissoring skills."

Valiantly trying to, as the magazines put it, "own her housework," wondering if she should flirt madly with a stay-at-home dad, and telling herself that sex with her husband should not be just another item to cross off her to-do list, Amanda picks her way through a minefield of scattered toys and dreams, and struggles to embrace the demanding and sometimes demented life that's hers.

Danielle Crittenden has written an honest, hilarious, and bittersweet valentine to every mother who's had to choose between going to work and leaving a career to be with her kids. The first novel ever to be serialized by the Wall Street Journal, Amanda Bright@Home brilliantly illuminates the dilemmas today's women face...and the sacrifices they make to follow their hearts.

"[A] witty debut....[T]his breezily polemical tale is lively and sometimes poignant....At times [Crittenden] overplays the satire, surrounding her likable 'domestic curator' with a supporting cast of self-promoting narcissists and cutthroat workaholics....Still, this is a fun read, perfect for poolside." Publishers Weekly

"Crittenden is able to pinpoint, with a gentle grace, the small moments of crushing depression that Amanda suffers through, but her heavy-handed tub-thumping unfortunately swamps any positive messages....Humorless policy-paper material, as if a right-wing Naomi Wolf were to write a novel." Kirkus Reviews

Amanda Bright@Home appeared weekly in the Wall Street Journal and continued on its Web site throughout summer 2001. The over one million readers who were left with a cliffhanger will be eager to read the conclusion in this expanded novel, which is certain to appeal to the millions of fans of Allison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It.

Maybe you know Amanda. Maybe you are Amanda. Whoever you are, you will love Amanda. An important, shrewd, and laugh-out-loud funny debut novel that answers the question: What happens when Bridget Jones or the Sex and the City girls get married and have babies?

Danielle Crittenden is an author who has been profiled by Vanity Fair as one of America's most important pundits on women and family. Called "the most dangerous feminist in America" by Mirabella, she lives in Washington, D.C., with her journalist husband and three children.