Jada Marlone does not have the time or patience for nonsense. Successful lawyer, power mom, and the Woman Who Has It All Jada is surrounded by activity, structure, and people.

And she’s incredibly lonely and unhappy with her life.

Jada knows more than anyone that life doesn’t always look like it does on social media, but she can’t help but fall for the allure of a different kind of life. When she finds herself unmoored, she starts having meetings with her deceased loved ones in her dreams. She has strayed far from the path meant for her, and they’re trying to help guide her back.

Fern Ronay’s Better Believe It has a great blend of magical realism and true to life mom-life portrayal that anyone who has ever met a kid can relate to. Not every moment of mom-life is glamorous or instagram-able, and when that’s all you see, day after day… it starts to make you feel like your type of mom-life is somehow wrong. Ronay does a fantastic job of showing how different mom styles aren’t wrong (unless you’re the ponytailed mom of the strangler at the play place. Then you’re definitely wrong for not stopping your kid from choking other kids. That’s a fair judgement!)

Though Jada comes across as abrasive, her backstory explains a lot of her behavior. What she ultimately has to learn is that same rule applies to everyone she knows, from the obnoxious client to her overbearing mother. She may seem brash, but learning to focus her blunter personality traits to help others makes her a fierce woman you’d definitely want in your corner.

Ronay shows Jada as she goes through what will most likely be her most painful adult growing period. There are some hugely embarrassing and cringe-worthy scenes, and I definitely suffered secondhand embarrassment for Jada on more than one occasion. But Jada handles these giant sweeping changes of her life with humor and pluck, and ultimately becomes the version of herself she was meant to be.

This book gave me Emily Giffin vibes, and I loved seeing the not so glorious parts of being a mom included in the plot. It was refreshing to see such a realistic portrayal of motherhood.

Better Believe It by Fern Ronay is available from Bookshop.org here and Amazon here. Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and Amazon. I will earn a commission (at no extra cost to you) if you click through and make a purchase.

Thank you to author Fern Ronay for a digital copy of Better Believe It such that I could write this review. All opinions are my own.