Plays Well with Others: A Whip-Smart Satirical Comedy About Motherhood and Kindergarten Rivalry in NYC

by Sophie Brickman

"Funny, relatable fiction for anyone who thinks they're above the fray but still want to read all about it."—People

"Heavenly hilarity for readers."—Good Housekeeping

A whip-smart, satirical romp through the minefield of modern motherhood, in the vein of Where’d You Go, Bernadette and Fleishman Is in Trouble

It takes a village...just not this one.

Annie Lewin is at the end of her rope. She’s a mother of three young children, her workaholic husband is never around, and the vicious competition for spots in New York City’s kindergartens is heating up. An advice-columnist for a parenting website, Annie can’t help but judge the insanity of it all—even as she finds herself going to impossible lengths to secure the best spot for her own son.

As Annie comes to terms with the infinitesimal odds of success, she is pushed to the brink. Of course, this newly raw and unhinged version of Annie is great for her advice column: the more she spins out, the more clicks and comments she gets.

But when she commits a ghastly social faux pas that goes viral, she’s forced to confront the question: is she really any better than the cutthroat parents she always judged?

Genres: Fiction, Audiobook, Family, Contemporary, New York, Parenting, Humor

320 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 6, 2024

Reviews

[Angie Miale · Rating 2 out of 5]

Manhattan Central Park mommy preschool admissions culture. This has been done before, and better. This one is skippable.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The preschool children in Sophie Brickman’s novel manage to get along pretty well together despite their rich, socially elite and somewhat neurotic mothers who play the odds trying to enroll their children into some of NYC’s top kindergartens. Annie Lewin is our main character. She used to be a respected reported for The NY Times but after marrying Dan and having three children in 4 years she now writes an advice column for mothers. Her life has taken on a frantic pace juggling three small kids, giving advice to mothers that she can’t seem to follow herself (all for more “clicks” and followers) and navigating the halls of Bartleby, a prestigious preschool “Where Play is Work.” Tiger Moms abound in the concrete jungle and Annie is on the edge of getting chewed up and spit out. These moms do not play well together although on the surface they pretend to!
I’m an old mom now having raised my own three kids to adulthood. But they were in private school and I can relate to some of what poor Annie is going through. I can’t imagine trying to raise three littles in that environment in NYC today. Not for the faint of heart! This novel is a fast read, has some fun language and humor, and I wanted to see how it would end. If you are raising kids today and trying to keep up but feel like somedays you just miss the mark I think you’d enjoy this. Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the chance to read this!

[Sivani Aluru · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5/5 stars. I did not like this book. I was extremely excited to read it being a recent release and a very interesting topic of elite private school admissions in NYC. However, it quickly became apparent to me that the narrator was experiencing psychosis and wasn’t receiving the help she needs. The narrative is broken up repeatedly by several emails and short stories that further show the narrator’s descent into psychosis and it is quite sad. The end and epilogue were extremely unsatisfactory and brought up her divorce and new marriage along with her ex-husband’s new marriage without anything except subtle hints at their inception. After building a whole novel based on Annie and Dan together, it was a jarring end. I did not like the flow of the story and had to force myself to finish reading it.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plays Well with Others reminded me of a modern take on Mean Girls, but with ambitious, elite NYC mothers instead of high school teenagers. The book focused on Annie, a once well-regarded columnist whose life now revolves around the highly competitive kindergarten selection process, juggling three young kids, and trying to make a name of herself in a literary world that values the number of clicks over quality writing. The actions and reactions within the book feel purposefully exaggerated, so it was fun to peek into this world and laugh along the way.

[Laura Scholz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. I really need to stop reading books about rich white moms with issues that live in Manhattan. I was hoping for more humor/satire but it just read as sad/entitled. And was really boring. Also this character is younger than me and seems so unhip and out of touch with popular culture. Very odd. Who emails their best friend every week? Like maybe Boomers.

[Matt Chisling (MattyandtheBooks) · Rating 5 out of 5]

PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS is a different kind of Meanie Mommy novel, one with perhaps a little more bite and a stronger POV on the dangers of the insular communities formed among Manhattan's most privileged elites.

Sophie Brickman's first novel centers around a dreaded (endless string of) year(s) in the lives of parents with nothing but money and time to worry about this: Where there kids will go to school. Not College, of course: We're talking Kindergarten, here. Annie Lewin is a writer at the end of her rope: frustrated with her flailing career as an advice columnist, frustrated in her marriage to a rising tech industry bro, and frustrated with being surrounded by NYC's most elite women who seem to care way too much about stuff she's indifferent to. She loves her three kids, and she'll do anything for them, but can she survive in this community? And can she survive Belinda, her rival, who seems to have it all, including a better shot of getting her son into the schools of her choice?

There are a lot of great books that eviscerate the elite of New York City, and quite a few authors who built careers doing so. This one takes a rather interesting approach: It gives us a character with enough insight to skewer the world she's in, but also makes her desperate enough to still want to fit in herself. There are some extremely cringe-worthy moments in this book, and Annie is far from perfect, despite how much she seems to hate the parents around her. But this novel feels like the kind of soapy satire we need to have when learning about this culture, while also showing us why these individuals behave the way they do: The anxieties they uniquely experience, their boredom, their wish fulfillment. It gives great color to a community that's easy to make fun of, while also giving us new jabs and laughs. A really fun read.

[Becca · Rating 1 out of 5]

tbh I DNFed this on page 7 after reading the word “biznass”

[Arielle Betlyon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this a lot! A great read on the beach- fast-paced, witty, smart writing and fun but with deeper themes on motherhood. Late 30s with 2 young kids, I am definitely the audience for this book. Glad I live in the nj suburbs and not among the Manhattan elite ;) I read somewhere this was in the same vein as fleishman is in trouble, but I liked it a lot more. (Read an ARC)

[Nina Krasnoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

The concept (rich women, motherhood, crazy private school admission) is overdone (or maybe over-read by me). Vaguely entertaining at times, but ultimately I was underwhelmed. Also I guessed the twist

[Jess Manners · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this, but it was interesting to read it right after Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend, because it sort of confirmed my belief that social satire kind of only really works if you create an external situation that's bananas. Of course all the people vying for spots in private elementary schools in Manhattan are ridiculous, and I think I remember reading that what makes this book stand out is that she's actually still *in it,* burning the bridge while she's standing on it and all that, but...a) isn't that awfully well-worn territory by now, and b) none of it feels THAT insane at this point. (and the more absurd things end up feeling implausible. The central problem of social satire!!). Anyway--this was mostly fun, and she's got some good observations, but the oh-no-I'm-Wendy-floating-away stuff never really paid off for me, and some of the bigger moments felt too small...in part because she whisks us away before the humiliation/horror really sets in, and in part because they, well, feel too small (the fight with Laura (Lauren?) in particular needed to be a bit more explicit...like, yes, she's lost it, and she should have stopped making the kid do the tangrams, but also...he was really good at them? And you could see how someone (maybe not her) could genuinely just be impressed and want to see what he could do? The betrayal and proof of villainy needed to be spelled out for us)
I liked the resolution of the prisoner's dilemma stuff...
And also Sam seems great, which was actually kind of a problem, maybe. Like, obviously this kid is hella impressive and lovely and will legitimately be fine wherever he ends up...on some level, you can argue that's the point--she's lost all perspective--but it also means that the stakes feel lower. He's gonna be fine!!
(Here's a reaction I didn't expect: as she's describing all these absurd schools that we're supposed to be smugly horrified by, because they push kids too hard/too far/too fast, I couldn't help but feel a bit...jealous? Man, I wish I could hold my students to expectations even half that high...)

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 - Features epistolary elements!

Started out strong with its mix of a parenting advice column and traditional narrative tracking the pressure of applying for kindergarten as an upper-class family in NYC but I felt the ending spiraled way out of control.

[Amy Coupe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read via NetGalley; not sure I’m the audience but would be interested to hear what moms of young kids think.

[Cathleen Higgins 2023 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Difficult read. Did not love the prose mixed with emails. Unlikeable characters

[Kristin · Rating 1 out of 5]

No plot. Couldn't finish. Too millennial.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

People hate this book because they’ve never had the misfortune of meeting the lowest life form known to mankind: the New York City wealthy mommy. You think you’ve seen Type-A personalities? Wait until you’ve met a Manhattan mommy armed with a Goop approved Bugaboo stroller, a Goyard bag, a Montessori handbook, and a borderline psychotic need to turn their toddler into the next Supreme Court Justice.
I’ve seen it firsthand: perfectly normal, well-adjusted people who had children and—poof!—morphed into borderline sociopaths with a primal need to cosplay a stepford wife and destroy others in their paths.

Anyway, loved this.
I know this story has been done and has unlikeable characters, but I still liked it.

[Lisa]

This book pretty much didn't work for me BUT I did enjoy the epilogue to see that the narrator marries her pediatrician's son and her (ex)husband does end up with Belinda.

I put part of the blame on the synopsis of the book, which mentions "a ghastly social faux pas that goes viral," which I think happens about 90% of the way into the book? So that set my expectations badly, but really, the pacing of the plot seems utterly off to me. For much of the book, I wondered what the plot was supposed to be - the kindergarten application? The competititive milieu of the parents? Of the mom group? And then most of the plot does happen in the last 15% or so. And the "ghastly social faux pas" not only didn't seem like THAT big of a deal to me, but seemed to only punish the woman involved and not the man. Maybe that was supposed to be a commentary on that common situation, but I don't think there was any mention of it in the book.

Having said all that, I did read the whole book, and I didn't mind the writing. I wished that the hallucination/Peter Pan aspect had been developed a bit more, because that seemed like a nice idea (except that at times I was actually wondering if the narrator was truly losing it), and I liked spending time with the kids (Sam especially - Claire really got the short shrift). And it has the first novel thing of probably too many ideas stuffed in (the prisoner's dilemma at the end was done fine although it seemed to assume the reader had never heard of it - but the resolution was satisfying, in my opinion). And, I am a sucker for this type of book and I did enjoy stuff like:

"For the youngest kids, this would be the first day of a three-week separation period, each morning in the classroom increasing by fifteen minutes, to ensure both that the most anxious two-year-old would feel supported as she began that year’s classroom journey, and that the working parents all lost their minds."

[Sami · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. I really did. It was recommended by Emily Oster as a book she was enjoying which is why I added it to my TBR. I thought this was going to be part humor/part satire but instead it's watching a mother unravel. And worse, we didn't get to see her recover -- we just get an epilogue set 15 years later where she tells us she is good now...

I'd skip this if you're not into the type of mother is losing her mind novels, which there are some good ones, this is not.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was chosen as a reader for THE FIRST NOVEL PRIZE from the Center for Fiction and received a finished copy of the book in exchange for an honest evaluation. 3 1/2 stars. I found this book very funny, but I am a native New Yorker who worked in the milieu of the Upper East Side for 40 years. The scramble to get your 4 year old into the best elite private school is very specific to Manhattan and a certain financial demographic, as are the apartments, the jobs, the nannies and the specific diets of toddlers. Some of the story was cringeworthy and over the top, but this is a light breezy read, especially on the outside looking in.

[Kenzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was genuinely funny at times, but the gimmick got old about halfway through. I think if I were a mom, I’d definitely connect to this book more.

It was an interesting exploration of how motherhood changes you and how trying to do what’s best for your kids can be maddening (especially when it comes to NYC private schools, apparently), but just felt a bit slow overall for me.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book too. On the one hand, it was genuinely funny and insightful in places. On the other hand, it was kind of a slog because all of these people were terrible. When it came to the protagonist's moment of crisis, I was like, GOOD. [Insert Donald Glover GIF] Maybe I just shouldn't read books about rich people making their own rich people problems.

[Kimberly Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not sure why I chose to read this book as I am not a mother. I think the title amused me. As I have learned through each of life's stages, mean girls don't grow up, there will always be cliques, competitions, mistakes made, and enduring friendships even if there are pauses in them.

[Marissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A clever satire on the absurdity of modern parenthood, with plenty of winky moments (hello Lovevery subscription boxes!) and eyebrow-raising laughs. A timely read that I would file under the subgenre “IYKYK”

[Grace Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

relating the most to the gen z editor being bullied by the mommy blogger

[Rachel Kidder · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had potential. Sluggish read. Side eyed how she wrote mom anxiety and how I connected to it.

[Hope Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for providing me with an arc of this book.

Although I am not the primary audience for this story, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I absolutely loved the mix of storyline, email correspondence, text chain, and Annie’s column! Each of these sections’ writing styles were so unique, and perfect for each of their respective mediums, which I think perfectly shows Sophie Brickman’s talent as a writer. I am docking one star simply because I was a little flustered by the ending. I was really hoping things would turn out differently, but I definitely understand why certain choices were made. Overall, a great book that masterfully balances important topics with humor and wit,

[Evangeline White · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve read some terrible books this year so at least the writing itself was fine—good pacing, structure, drama, etc. but the subject matter? Blech. I thought I’d like it because reading about billionaires in Crazy Rich Asians was fun and reading about a tech wife in Where’d You Go, Bernadette was entertaining, too.

But this book about a woman who has full time help yet still has has a mental breakdown over a self-imposed quest to save her first born son from the tragedy of (wait for it) public school felt too close to the actual bullshit reality of upper East Side culture to be funny. The protagonist is completely unconvincing as a former middle class kid. It’s like we’re expected to laugh at the protagonist but accept as fact that the public school system is truly awful? I kept thinking: ok but is this actually satire? Or is the author just accurately representing her viewpoint but hiding behind the premise of humor to distance herself from beliefs she’d expect many of us to find abhorrent? It felt more like the “satire” of the 90s where people pretended to say racist, classist BS ironically only for it to eventually come out that they were just speaking their truth.

[Christina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just didn't connect with the main character Annie. She came off as a total head case, that you couldn't help but watch spiral totally out of control. She refused to get any sort of help even when her friends, her pediatrician suggested she needed someone to talk to. That was AFTER she asked them if she was sounding nuts, and they were trying to be polite, but saying yep she needed some help. The constant digs at homeschoolers was pathetic. There is good, bad, and everything in between no matter how/where you decide to educate your children. Each family just has to figure out what their child(ren) need to thrive academically. That said, why if these kids were supposedly "geniuses" and over achievers in one way or the other, didn't the parents actually discuss the various options with their kids? I mean if they are so special, from the "cream of the crop" in society, and money doesn't seem to be an issue, what's stopping them from actually having a discussion with their kids about their education? I also thought the pressure these small children were put under was insane. That's not a childhood, that's some sort of phycological torture, masquerading as education. I'm wondering if it's because I'm Gen X, that this book just didn't resonate with me on any level. This book was an ARC, and I appreciate getting the opportunity to read it, but it just wasn't my cut of tea, maybe it will be for someone else though.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't like the writing style and I can't relate at all to a story about a mom in NYC trying so hard to get her kid into a private fucking kindergarten like it's the end of the world.

Life is too short to read a bad book.

[Katerina · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you take this book too seriously, you’ll hate it.

If you accept the ludicrousness and the bits of reality that this book incorporates in describing raising kids in NYC, this can be a hilarious, light and enjoyable read.

[MacKenzie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Annie, a former New York Times arts columnist turned mommy blogger, lives in a large Upper East Side apartment with her venture capital husband and three small children. Her son Sam is one of many exceptionally talented, emotionally intelligent, and most importantly, wealthy, 4 year olds vying for a coveted spot in kindergarten at Sawyer, the city’s most prestigious school - a quest which Annie, who grew up self-described “middle class” in New Jersey, initially seems to find silly, yet shortly becomes just as obsessed as her fellow moms “the Bartleby Babes”– an obsession that vacillates so wildly that her marriage, her few friendships, and career are pushed to uneasy heights.

Author Sophie Brickman grew up in wealthy in New York City, attended Hunter, Brearley, Trinity, and Harvard, and has three children; she clearly understands the mechanics of being a wealthy New York mother. What she doesn’t understand is how to write a character who grew up “middle class.” Annie is uncomfortable about her large apartment, employ of a nanny/housekeeper, and private school tuition bills, yet never acknowledges the privilege of being able to raise three children in one of the world’s most expensive cities, and worse, doesn’t seem to enjoy her privilege, ever. Forget appreciating being able to pay private school tuition; Annie doesn’t enjoy a free massage, a party, a free vacation to the Bahamas. She’s joyless, and also at times frighteningly unkind; dismissive of other moms, startlingly rude to her air-heady but well-intentioned employer. Annie thinks other mothers are vapid and silly, yet simultaneously forgets to pack Sam lunch, put him in real clothes, or prepare snacks for the entire class.

Ultimately, the story hinges on two almost equally preposterous storylines: first, that Annie’s advice column is so provocative that Annie’s become a sensation, and second, that her Son’s admission to his second-choice private school hinges on the admittance of Annie’s (inexplicable) mom-enemy’s son. The woman, certainly annoying but not unkind, becomes the ultimate target of Annie’s unkindness, and while theoretically is the villain of the novel, in fact summarizes Annie perfectly: “Since day one your superiority has been impossible to escape. It’s so tasteless, Annie, how you so obviously think you are better than all of us, than all of this. But you chose to send Sam to Bartleby, you chose to live in this world, you chose to come to this luncheon. No one forced you. You’re here: so behave.”

Ideally a line like this would be delivered by the protagonist to the villain in the story, not the other way around. With Annie as a narrator, this book simply lacks the fun escapism that makes stories about ridiculousness of the ultra-wealthy palatable.