AMATEUR HOUR

"Harrington’s first book of essays explores parenting, marriage, childbirth, education, unemployment — and the special slice of hell that is navigating two toddlers through a rest area bathroom ... [Amateur Hour] is thought-provoking and memorable. The chapter about the day she finally made good on her threat to turn the car around if her children didn’t start behaving will stay with you for a long, long time." —The New York Times Book Review

Read an excerpt in The New Yorker: I Am The One Woman Who Has It All

Read an excerpt in The New York Times: Job Description for the Dumbest Job Ever

Order from Amazon or IndieBound or Barnes & Noble or Books-a-Million or Hudson Booksellers.

Add AMATEUR HOUR on Goodreads, request a copy at your local library, or order from my all time fave bookstores Powell's, Phoenix Books, or Book Soup!

"More concerned with brutal honesty than keeping up appearances, [Harrington] bares all in frank prose covering everything from senior pictures to her deep-seated desire for more family fights—and isn’t afraid to dish it out, either. Required reading for Mother’s Day (and every subsequent day after) is her piece demanding that mothers be given more than one day each year to be celebrated." —Ms. Magazine

“Amateur Hour is a feisty, arresting collection of essays that bring intimate laughter and tears often in the same breath. In a world of endless mommy tell-alls that feel like the literary equivalent of house chardonnay, this is top-shelf whiskey.” —Electric Literature

“Kimberly Harrington deftly and hilariously uncovers all of the lies and bullshit women are told about motherhood. This book made me laugh, sure, but it also made me feel seen."  —Jennifer Romolini, author of Weird in a World That's Not

"Amateur Hour careens from the hilarious to the poignant, eliciting nods of recognition, fists of outrage and many moments of bemusement and reflection. If your throat isn’t constricted, heart not cracked by the end of it, you may consider checking if you have a pulse… if the pitch-perfect book title strikes a chord with you, most of the essays will, too. It’s a balm knowing you’re not the only one on the roller coaster." —Associated Press

"Selling this book as a book about motherhood would sell it short. Rather, it is a meditation on a full, beautiful, and messy life. In her first book, Harrington, a contributor to the New Yorker and McSweeney’s, writes about being a woman in her twenties, thirties, and forties; about being a working woman, wife, and mother; about being a person who struggles daily with anxiety and worry for her future, her death, her children’s safety, and her marriage. No piece in this collection of short vignettes is much like another. Chapters will make readers rotate through laughter, tears, and cringing, and are all written with refreshingly honest and bold abandon." —Booklist

“Amateur Hour finds Kimberly Harrington as funny, cutting, honest, and brilliant as ever.” —Christopher Monks, Editor of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and author of The Ultimate Game Guide to Your Life

"This funny, angry, and moving essay collection from Harrington considers life for women dealing with motherhood, work, marriage, self-image, expectations, ambition, fatigue, and everything else. Per the subtitle, the writing is often profane, but just as often poignant. Full of 'righteous anger' about how quickly new mothers are expected to leap back into full-time work, nostalgia for the 'nowhere-but-here' days spent with toddlers, and grief for lost loved ones, Harrington is at her best in the most personal pieces, including discussions of working from home and of trying to parent without overpraising children. All of the topics covered are familiar, but Harrington’s approach to them is singular." —Publishers Weekly

"Like all effective satire, Harrington’s best bits arise from deep anger, and she reminds readers that, more than meal trains or forced holidays, mothers desperately need policy reform. [Her] dissenting energy should resonate with parents who find little use for the usual mommy-blogger fare." —Kirkus