The Single Mum's Wish List by Charlene Allcott is about a woman's efforts to reinvent herself and how things don't quite go to plan.

After deciding to leave her husband of six years, who clearly is no longer interested in her, Martha Ross seems to be unsure what to do with herself. Living back with Mum and Dad with her 18 month old son is not where she expected to be at this stage of her life, especially since her husband Alexander has immediately moved on and installed his assistant Poppy in their house. Martha has a casual job in a call centre that she hates but seems unable to look for something else she could do.

I found it difficult to like Martha. At times she was selfish and irresponsible and despite having a young baby seemed to spend many nights out drinking too much. Although she had some ideas of what she could do to make her life better she didn't seem motivated into putting any effort in to make it happen. I'm not sure what age she is meant to be but she definitely needs to do some growing up, particularly in regard to appreciating all her friends and parents do for her instead of moaning about being single. Her list of what attributes the man of her dreams should have sounds like something a starry eyed teenager would come up with and not a mature about-to-be-divorced woman. She does end up with a much better future but I'm not sure it's due to any re-invention on her part. The book does have it's humorous moments and if you enjoy rom-coms you could well enjoy this.

I loved The Reinvention of Martha Ross. It gave a really nice twist to the rom com genre, and I loved how independent Martha was.

First off, Martha Ross is a great character. Warm and funny and clever and interesting. I was totally up for going on her reinvention journey with her, and I enjoyed the ride. At the start of the novel, Martha has just ended her marriage and we follow her as she and her toddler move back in with her parents. Over the following weeks and months, she navigates dating and experiments with her career, her sexuality and her friendships.

This is a romantic comedy, so I expected things to turn out well for our heroine. And in fact, I guessed how it would end fairly early on, but I still liked seeing how she got there. Allcott’s writing style is fresh and frank, and she’s great at creating characters you care about.

Martha is a newly single parent and we follow her journey as she navigates her new life. Allcott illustrates the subtleties of the death of a relationship, and the peculiarities that make us individual. The book is laced with a dry sense of humour and clever phrases that were a pleasure to read.

Martha's character was well developed and I thought the online dating sections were particularly believable. I enjoyed this book and found it easy to read.

The Reinvention of Martha Ross is about a woman in freefall. Martha Ross is, to be kind, a walking disaster area. Her useless husband Alexander has withdrawn from the marriage so much she has no choice but to end it. His only redeeming feature is not calling himself Xander. Martha has to move herself and her toddler back in with her disapproving mum.
Martha herself is petulant and self-sabotaging. She expects her friends to hang on her every word, even when she is rude to them. Her ideas to restart her life are lame, and ill thought out. Martha is really lost. She still thinks a new man, or even her old one, can solve everything. Her mum gets to look after her child while Martha flails from one bad situation to another, spending money she doesn't have.
Martha drinks a lot. If this book was a drinking game alcohol poisoning would be a real possibility. It's not all bad, however. Martha's baby son is a sweetie. Her friends, Leanne and Cara, are incredibly loyal. Martha has a steady job, and a work colleague Greg, who is ever so nice. As this book isn't a tragedy you know Martha is going to get it together. It's an entertaining journey for the reader. Three stars.

I'm still wavering between 3 and 4 stars for this book so I have settled for three and a half but have rounded it down.
I'm also still a bit unsure about how exactly I felt about Martha. I flipped between liking and disliking her all the way through the book, coming to no actual conclusion by the end. This left me with very mixed feelings both about her and her story.
So, when we first meet Martha, it's obvious that she's a bit mixed up. Well, completely floundering is maybe a better way of describing her. She has absolutely no idea abut who she is and what she wants, apart from maybe the feeling that she doesn't want her husband or marriage. So she ends it and moves in with her parents, taking her young son with her. She then proceeds to try and work out who she is and what she wants and, strangely, top of that list is to find another man. And that's really when we started to fall out! Anyway, she makes a list and goes on a dating site and finds a potential man. Unobtainable physically due to geography, she then goes all in to make herself what she thinks he wants. Another tick on the list of her questionable actions.
Anyway, thus begins her quest which, at times was interesting, amusing and all sorts of other positive things. Sadly, these went hand in hand with a healthy dose of irresponsible behaviour, aided, abetted and criticised (yay) by her two friends, and her mother.
It's not a spoiler as it's in the blurb but... eventually she does twig and finds a better way of doing things but by then, our ship of camaraderie had long sailed and I got to the end of the book more for completion than actually wanting/needing to know what happened.
Don't get me wrong, there are some really great scenes in this book. Some made me giggle, some actually laugh out loud. There were also some delightfully cringeworthy scenes which made me squirm. And then there are the lighter moments, the ones that I did actually really enjoy. When I started to see glimpses of the woman that Martha actually could be should she choose to throw off everything she was trying to make herself. Happily there were enough of these to keep me reading, although I do admit to shouting at her at times too. Maybe I was secretly rooting for her subconsciously?
Maybe this just wasn't the right book for me. Maybe I just wasn't meant to be a member of TeamMartha. I do wish her well in the rest of her life but I'm happy to have bowed out of it for now.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

A funny enjoyable read about Martha. I laughed a lot. This is an easy read about Martha trying to find her way in life.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

An enjoyable book, not unlike others in this genre, bit heartwarming just the same.
Thank you to Netgalley and the author for the ARC.

Equal parts heartwarming and funny, uplifting and lovely. I can see this going far in the way of Jojo Moyes, Rachel Joyce, Catherine Bennetto.

An enjoyable read .... main character Martha struggles to deal with the collapse of her marriage and we see her fall into the life of a single parent relying on parents and friends to get her through. Good characters - moving at times and a message that what we wish for isn’t always the best thing !