Publisher: Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, Inc.

ISBN: 1-932279-19-9

The following review was contributed by:  Jennifer Brown & Click Here To View Jennifer Brown's Reviews

Some lives were just made to be made fun of. Some lives are so wacky, so silly, so undeniably cracked up, you just can’t help but chuckle. Kathryn S. Mahoney is living one of those lives.

Kathryn Mahoney, who thinks she was CRACKED AT BIRTH, takes time to sit back and good naturedly marvel at the absurdity in her life. And, like the next door neighbor who keeps us in stitches with her zany tales, Mahoney shares the absurdity with us – one laughable story at a time.

CRACKED AT BIRTH is a collection of Mahoney’s essays from her humor column, “Sunny Side Up,” which has been running in six newspapers published by Nashoba Publishing of Devens, MA, since 2001. In this lighthearted essay collection, Mahoney tackles such hilarities as:

*Attempting yoga with children in the house

*The feeling of being invisible

*How to make your husband leave the room

*Household mishaps

*Valentine’s Day romance failures

Mahoney seems to have mastered the art of being funny without being too sarcastic. Her style is refreshing and fun, and nearly all of her essays end with a feeling that, given the choice of any other life and family on the planet, she’d still choose the life and family she has. Her essays are warm and endearing, with just enough silly thrown in to make them irresistible.

While CRACKED AT BIRTH is consistent – none of her essays are weak or boring – Mahoney’s funniest work revolves around her husband and the relationship between the two of them. Far be it from Mahoney to engage in man-bashing – she’d rather lovingly poke fun at the things that make her hubby so adorably male. This slant on love, marriage, and romance is a refreshing style for all those women who adore their hubbies but sometimes just can’t help but shake their heads and chuckle over something they’ve said or done. Mahoney should follow CRACKED AT BIRTH with another humor book (“Cracked at Marriage,” perhaps?) filled with nothing but marriage and romance-related essays.

Make no mistake, however; CRACKED AT BIRTH points out the sunnier side of so much more than love and marriage. Mahoney has no qualms ribbing her kids, her mother, even herself! It is this quality that gives her work tantalizing breadth.

Good for a light read and perfect for the bookshelf of any aspiring humorist, Kathryn S. Mahoney’s CRACKED AT BIRTH will tickle your funny bone and maybe even make you look at your own cracked life in a little sunnier light.