The Bunko Babes by Leah Starr Baker is the story of Becca Thornton and her eclectic bunch of friends known as the “bunko babes.” When Mary at Blog Stop Book Tours asked me to review the book, I saw the word “bunko” and immediately said yes. You see I play bunco (I spell it with a “c” and not a “k” – both are correct) with a eclectic bunch of women, too – everyone from teachers and stay at home moms to 911 dispatchers and women who compete in rodeos.
I couldn’t wait to read The Bunko Babes thinking it would be something like The Fiction Class, Sandra Dallas’s The Persian Pickle Club,
or Karen Joy Fowler’s The Jane Austen Book Club
. You know, books where a bunch of people (mostly women) come together for a central activity – a writing class, quilting or a book club – and whose lives are full of challenges, romance, revelations, suffering, and joy.
Instead, it’s mostly about Becca and not much about bunco or the babes. Instead, The Bunko Babes as much about Becca’s friends as it is about her relationship with God and her family. She’s a typical mom/wife with all the associated worries, fun, and tribulations. However, she has a funny relationship with her mom (don’t we all?) that doesn’t quite ring true. You see, Becca’s peeved about her mother’s impending remarriage to a minister. She’s a religious woman, so I couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t happy that her mom was was marrying a minister. Geez, that’s almost as good as marrying the Big Man himself! It seemed petty, and too much of a flaw in a character I wanted to like.

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A few months ago, I was at my friend Laura’s house for a meeting of our writer’s group. After lunch, many mugs of tea, and sharing a few of our writings, I stood up to get more food. When I did, I said to Laura, “Great, now I have to pee.”
The average school-age child who packs a lunch generates 67 pounds of waste per school year. That works out to 18,760 pounds of lunch waste for just one average-size elementary school.
They’re looking for witty writers focusing on the unique experience of motherhood. Wendy Walker who wrote the novel 


