Samantha Smythe's Modern Family Journal by Lucy Cavendish

What the cover says:
"Very few women think they have the 'perfect' 21st-century family, and Samantha Smythe i no exception. Most of the time she takes that in her stride - unfazed by the amount of time Edward, 8 spends drawing pictures on his willy, Bennie, 2 avoiding a potty and baby Jamie refusing to eat anything but butternut squash. Samantha and her husband, John, are holding it together and embracing the chaos. But sometimes she does wonder: is it possible, when your first son's father is entirely absent, and you are now the mother of two more boys by your second husband, to have a real family? The one you always dreamed you'd have?
And then the absent ex-husband makes a dramatic reappearance and somehow ends up borrowing the spare room. This, of course, is enough to throw the family dynamic entirely off-course. With sanity, and capacity for rational thought in short supply, can Samantha protect everything she hold dear, without disappearing out of sight herself...?"

The 'aside' parts of this book that deal with life with children are sadly more interesting than the main story. The characters of the boys are probably the most realistic; but I found Samantha to be neurotic and irritating, John 2 to be far too patient and too good to be true, and all the other characters just too one-dimensional and contrived. Ok, but not a must-read.

7/10