You have to appreciate book publishers who publish bloggers. They might have considered online scribes as competition, giving away for free what they charge for. Then again, blogging authors are not creating competition for Madame Bovary or Nabokov; they are narrating their own lives. Their personal experience is much like everyone else’s, but they tell it funnier, a little more personally and a lot more self-deprecatingly.
Parenting: Illustrated With Crappy Pictures
By Amber Dusick (Harlequin, $16.95)
In Parenting: Illustrated With Crappy Pictures Amber Dusick focuses on those recognizable experiences you might want to forget (or feel relieved that they didn’t happen to you). For instance? “Putting a disposable diaper on a baby with diarrhea is kinda like putting your thumb over the end of a garden hose.” She’s good to read as a comfort and companion who has it just a little worse.
Moms Who Drink and Swear: True Tales of Loving My Kids While Losing My Mind
By Nicole Knepper (New American Library, $15) 
On the other hand, Nicole Knepper makes your dirty little secrets seem like nothing. Our Nikki has a belief that cussing (actual words omitted) “never fails to help me burn off some frustration and collect my thoughts.” She takes on the world by swearing back at it, describing the good fight in a way that no one can take away from her — assuming censorship is held at bay.
It Takes Balls: Dating Single Moms and Other Confessions From an Unprepared Single Dad
By Josh Wolf (Grand Central, $25.99)
You would not want to end up in a dark alley — or on a blind date — with Josh Wolf. Though he doesn’t name names, it would be pretty embarrassing to be among the single moms he’s dated and outs here. He’s trenchant and observant about life as a young dad of three kids not that much younger than he is. His male take on the same routine of raising children and getting by in the modern world is even less inhibited than the moms’. It’s also consistently funny.
Frank Lipsius is a contributing writer to MetroKids.
