60-Second Critic: A Different Kind of Mommy War

Months after giving birth, Philly Mag’s Vicki Glembocki wrote an essay for this magazine laying out all her maternal insecurities. “I thought I was going to be ‘happy-happy girl’ once the baby came,” she says. “But I wasn’t. It was harder than anyone ever told me.” Now Glembocki’s frank admissions — she resented the baby weight; her husband was being a “total pain in the ass”; she couldn’t wait to go back to work — have morphed into a memoir, The Second Nine Months (Perseus Books Group; $24). With style and wit, she tackles the taboo topics of the challenges, disappointments and adjustments of modern motherhood.