What a lovely little read.

I really enjoyed this as a cleanser between reads. This was quick and easy book to enjoy.

I really liked the characters especially Dolly.
Maggies determination and hard work was amazing, even when the world (her world) was crumbling she got up and worked so so hard to achieve what she wanted.

The idea of ideal housewife was an important part of the post war culture and Maggie was the perfect face for it.

Her struggles and heartbreaks might sound trivially to us now, less important and smaller but we have to remember the setting and time period was way different than what we have now.

Really enjoyed this read

I enjoyed reading this book. One of my favourite time periods to read is women in the 1950s to 1970s. I am amazed at the strength of women to live then and push to make changes for those of us that followed.

Even though there’s not a lot of emotional depth to this story, it was a great read that was fairly quick that had me engaged from the beginning.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the opportunity to read this book!

Narration was well done and helped add to the whole book overall!

American Housewife
By Anita Abriel
Narrated by Jennifer Jill Araya

Published April 1,2025

This was my first book by Anita and it wont be my last. It’s the 1950s and radio personality Maggie Lane’s dreams came true when she gets her break on tv with her own show The Maggie Lane Baking Show. Maggie just had to act like the ideal housewife, created delicious deserts and knock the socks off her sponsors. She loved living in New York City but as she became more famous things with her husband become more difficult. I feel like they do love each other but it seems like he’s more into the money, well more so spending Maggies money she earned on the show. The flash backs to her first love really hit my heart and not to spoil it I wont go into more.
This was an easy listen and I couldn’t put it down. I loved how historically accurate this was about how things were in the 1950s for men and women. I highly recommend this if you like books that are historically accurate and women’s fiction.


Thank you NetGalley and Brilliance Publishing for the ALC audiobook. All opinions are my own.

A baking show, a swoon-worthy love story, and the magic of New York—what’s not to adore? American Housewife had me hooked from page one! Maggie Lane is an absolute delight, and her journey is as sweet and satisfying as a perfectly baked pie. The narrator brings the whole story to life with charm and flair. Total five-star fun—highly recommend for your next cozy read!

A baking show, love story and New York setting, what’s not to love! I loved Maggie Lane and everything about this book! The narrator is fabulous! Highly recommend.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC opportunity!

I really loved this. Im a sucker for a pretty accurate historic fiction book. I loved Maggie as a main character. I wasnt sold on Teddy but i really came around to him. His ego struggle felt pretty true to that scenario for the 40s-50s.

Maggie has it all now. Everything she could ever wish for. She has a career as the host of the beloved TV show The Maggie Lane show, a cooking show that proves to be everything the American woman wants and needs in their lives. She teaches cooking along with being the friend that every woman wishes she has. But to have that show, she had to marry her boyfriend (though he has tried to get her to agree to marry him several times) and provide the persona of the all-American happy housewife. What the world (and her husband Teddy) cannot know is that she holds a secret, one that could ruin her name and her marriage.

This book is told in spurts of the current time of the book to the past before she met and fell in love with her husband, Teddy. Her backstory is riveting and full of twists and turns you aren't really expecting.

I found the book to be well worth the read. The characters all had such wonderful backstories and played such a great part in the FMC's life.

The narrator Jennifer Jill Araya was outstanding in this book, and I would love to listen to more of what she reads. She brought the characters to life... magic.

I'd like to thank the publisher, NetGalley, and the author for the opportunity to review this book.

ARC from NetGalley
Thank you to the author and publisher.
Publish Date: April 1, 2025

Rating: 2.5/5

Plot:
In the 1950, Maggie Lane is an up-and-coming star on her own baking show where she pretends to be a perfect housewife. She seems to have it all, a husband, best friend and more money. The problem? She doesn't cook and wants to have her career before children. Coupled with this her new husband struggles with her new found fame. But these are not their only issues. He has a past, but so does she.

Praise:
Likeable main character
Touched on antisemitism, body image expectations, PTSD etc...

Critiques:
Seemed to have started as one book and ended as another
Characters and discussion of difficult topics seemed superficial
Husband was not likeable so there was no desire to root for them
Predictable, especially the ending
Unrealistic at times

Fav Quote:
None that struck me as profound.

Would I recommend it to a friend?
Unlikely, this needed more depth.

An interesting story about Maggie Lane’s rise to stardom and the men she was associated with. I found the story compelling enough, though it did bounce around between different time periods, which made it a little confusing. There wasn’t much conflict in Maggie’s life so there wasn’t really any meat to the story. Any issues she had were quickly resolved without much issue and then it felt like it ended abruptly also. Otherwise, it was entertaining and held my interest.

Narration was well done, no issues.

Maggie Lane is America’s darling. She’s got the pearls, the posture, the picturesque husband, and a hit 1950s TV baking show built on a lie so big it’s practically its own character. Because Maggie? Can’t really bake. And she didn’t marry her husband for love — not entirely. She married him for the network. For the contract. For the image.

"American Housewife" is less “fun retro fluff” and more “woman gaslighting herself into a mental breakdown in front of a live audience.” Maggie’s rise from radio to TV hinges on perfection — not just in her cooking, but in her character. There’s a morality clause. There’s judgment baked into every shot. One crack in the façade and the entire empire crumbles. So she plays the part. Smiles wider. Lies better.

And just when she’s balancing all the lies — boom. Her past walks in. A man. A horrible secret. The kind of trauma you wrap in silk and bury under mid-century floral wallpaper. Suddenly she’s not just pretending to be a housewife. She’s pretending not to be haunted.

Then there’s Dolly — her best friend and fellow survivor of the glittering, backstabbing circus of early television. Dolly is charming, complicated, and popping "harmless" pills like Tic Tacs while masking enough pain to drown in. Their friendship is soft and sad and real in a way nothing else in Maggie’s life is allowed to be.

The setup should sing. There’s so much here: the cost of ambition, the mask of femininity, the quiet desperation of being a woman in a world where success comes with handcuffs. But the delivery? It drags. Big emotional reveals get papered over. Moments that should land with a face-punch drift by like set dressing. The pacing meanders when it should snap. You keep waiting for Maggie to crack, to scream, to fight. But instead, she politely simmers.

It’s frustrating, because this story has teeth — it just won’t bite.

Three stars. One for Maggie, whose quiet unraveling deserved a louder story. One for Dolly, who could’ve carried her own novel of glitter and grief. One for the ambition behind it all: the tension of wanting to tell the truth while being contractually obligated to smile through it. But those missing stars? That’s for the book this could have been — sharp, scandalous, and soaked in the kind of feminine rage that no perfectly iced cake can hide.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the ARC.

4.5 stars. Perfect for readers who enjoy female-centered historical fiction, especially those who loved Lessons in Chemistry!

Maggie is a farm girl who moves to Manhattan after WWII with aspirations of becoming a successful actress. After a few bumps along the way, she meets her dream man, Teddy, and lands a role as the host of a daytime baking show, aimed at catering to housewives, of course. However, the novel alludes to secrets from her past that threaten her burgeoning relationship with Teddy and her blossoming TV career.

The easy-to-read story engrossed me from the get-go, and I couldn't put the audiobook down, listening to it on my commute and as I did chores around the house, much like the viewers of Maggie's show. While Maggie is considered a trailblazing career woman of her time, many of the themes in the novel still resonate today. Can women really have it all? How do men react when their female partners are more successful? How do women handle the constant pressure to maintain their youth and beauty?

My only criticism of the book is that I think the plot was wrapped up a bit too neatly and felt rushed at the end, which did not feel realistic to me. It you appreciate a happy ending, however, this one is definitely for you!

Thank you to NetGalley and Brilliance Audio for an advanced audiobook for me to enjoy and review!

An entertaining look at a 1950s New York CIty television star, Maggie whose life is like a soap opera as the story goes back and forth between her first love, a soldier lost during WWII, the man she met after him and her current husband. Sure to appeal to fans of Lessons in chemistry by Bonnie Garmus and good on audio. I did find the story jumped around between timelines/men a bit and those parts were a bit confusing while listening at times. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early audio copy in exchange for my honest review!

CW: drug abuse by a side character

1Thank you NeyGalley for the advanced listening copy

First of all I wanted to love this book but I ended up absolutely hating it. It's the authors and ability to tell the story succinctly and constantly repeats themselves over and over and over again. After the 15th time of hearing that she loves her husband Teddy I think that we got the point. Other than that there was very little tension in there was no real conflict resolution. The book seemed like something I would read in middle school as it had that much depth. By the end of the book I just wanted my time back. The story could be told in half the time and have the whole story.