Story for the Week
If you’ve been a reader of my blog for a while, it should come as no surprise that I was a Girl Scout for a decade. Girl Scout cookie season just came to a close, and as I saw the cookie displays at the grocery store and saw the Facebook posts about cookies, I couldn’t help but reminisce a little bit. I may have even bought a box or two…or four…or more to put in my freezer because they freeze really well.
Daisies and Ambassadors didn’t exist in the Girl Scouts in the early 1970s, so my first year as a Girl Scout was Brownies. I loved everything about it—the crafts, the camping trips, the service projects, even selling cookies. When I started, though, I sold cookies with my sister, who was already a Junior, because Brownies didn’t sell cookies. We didn’t sell anything.
Cookie sales are different now. You can order online, in advance. More troops set up at local businesses. In the ’70s, each troop had to plan how many boxes of each flavor they thought they could sell. You picked up your cases from the cookie mom, and the troop sold the cookies until they were sold out.
When my sister and I sold cookies, which were only $1 a box at the time (yes, I’m old), we packed cases of cookies in a wagon and went door to door. We learned customer service, how to make change, to thank people whether they made a purchase or not. And we saw the fruits of our labors in the events and experiences that the cookie profits paid for.
Even as the boxes have gotten smaller and more expensive, I try to support at least one troop every year, even if I just give them a cash donation or donate boxes. And as much as some of the flavors have changed over the years, my go-to choices have always been the Thin Mints and the Do-si-dos (called Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies back in the day).
One of the key things cookie profits paid for was the badges we earned. Just like the cookies, the badges have changed over the years, and mine would be considered vintage. I can’t identify them now, but I still have the vest that was part of my uniform as a Cadette and Senior. It’s not something I would ever think to get rid of because it was such a formational part of my life.
As adults, we don’t earn badges, but wouldn’t it be something if we did? The main character of the book reviewed below celebrates with badges. Not real badges, badges in name only—a Sommelier Badge, a Help a Neighbor Badge, a Sewing Hack Badge. And when she goes on a drunken rant when she discovers her husband wants a divorce, she decides that she has acquired her Righteous Indignation Badge…and then goes on a wild ride.
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐
4 Stars for Nobody’s Perfect by Sally Kilpatrick
333 pages
Publisher: Montlake
Publication Date: December 1, 2024
This title was an Amazon First Reads selection.
Publisher’s Description
Vivian Quackenbush enjoys a typical life. She has winesday evenings with her two best friends. Her son is in college. She and her husband, Mitch, are planning the next move for their empty-nester future. But to Vivian’s blindsided surprise…not together.
After nearly twenty-five years of marriage, Mitch wants a divorce. He confesses that he doesn’t love her anymore. He never even liked her chicken salad! Brutal. What is Vivian to do but channel her anger, frustration, and pain into a video she posts online. Ill advised? Perhaps. Cathartic? Absolutely. Overnight, Vivian goes viral. Millions of views and counting—to Mitch’s fury, her son’s embarrassment, her mother’s support, and the media’s delight. For Vivian, it’s a moment of truth: hide or lean into it. Vivian 2.0 chooses to lean—maybe even toward the younger single father next door.
Now Vivian is wondering where she goes from here. She’s discovering that somewhere in her trending if upended life, she’ll have to figure out who she really wants to be.
************
Main Characters:
- Vivian Quackenbush – stay-at-home mom who lives in Georgia, married to Mitch for the last 25 years, mom to Dylan who is a freshman in college, dabbles in YouTube videos about Mom Scouts
- Heidi Stutz Vance Smith Rodriguez Malone Quarles – Vivian’s five-time divorcée mom, lives in Florida, her relationship with Vivian is a little distant
- Rachel – one of Vivian’s best friends, lives in the same cul-de-sac, elementary school teacher who always brings the best wine to “Wine Down Wednesdays”
- Abi – one of Vivian’s best friends, lives in the same cul-de-sac, private investigator who always beings Cheez-Its to “Wine Down Wednesdays”
- Parker – widowed single father of Cassidy, recently purchased a home next to Vivian in the cul-de-sac
I wasn’t sure I was going to like this book when I started it. Vivian Quackenbush (yes,that’s her real name) is a stay-at-home mom in Georgia. Married to her college sweetheart with a son in college, Vivian fills her days taking care of her home and her husband and working on a YouTube channel. Mom Scouts is about showing women that they should celebrate even the smallest milestones. Vivian’s tagline for the channel is “Sometimes you deserve a glass of wine. Or a badge. Or a badge and a glass of wine. The Mom Scouts have your back.”
Vivian is naive in a lot of ways. She feels that her YouTube channel is more than a hobby—actually gets offended when one of her friends calls it that—but she’s only posted about 20 videos in total to 500 subscribers. Oblivious to her husband’s feelings, she suspects nothing wrong in her marriage until she finds divorce papers in her husband’s sock drawer…papers that he filled out years ago. When she then posts a drunk rant video that goes viral, we discover how truly uninformed she is about her online presence.
This story shows Vivian come into her own. She realizes that she spent her entire life doing for others and never doing for herself. That’s an important lesson for anyone. While I rolled my eyes a lot at the constant references to this badge and that badge at the beginning, I realized pretty early on that it’s a key personality trait for her. It’s how she quantifies all the accomplishments in her life—big or small. And she stumbles…a lot…but she strives to learn from her sometimes huge mistakes and comes out the other side better and more confident.
Once I got past the moments of thinking “how could you not realize how bad that is,” I enjoyed Vivian’s growth. She puts several of her relationships at risk because of how completely oblivious she can be. But I loved seeing how she picks herself up and works hard to right her wrongs, even when she makes more mistakes in the process. She obviously loves her friends and her family. With the help of her mother, who just wants to love and support her daughter, there’s a little bit of pettiness toward Mitch as well that provides some giggles.
By the end, I appreciated what a fun read this turned into. I’m proud to have earned my Sally Kilpatrick Fan Badge in the process. 😉
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