When did it become a rite of passage for a new mother to receive a charm necklace with her child’s first initial on it—and are you a bad mom if you choose not to wear it? Why does no one tell you about the “underwear sandwich” you have to wear home from the hospital after giving birth? And why is it that your five-year-old has never eaten a vegetable? New York Times bestselling author and Emmy Award winning writer and producer Jessi Klein explores these questions and more in her incisive, incredibly frank and moving, and often uproarious second collection of essays, NOT QUITE WHAT I WAS EXPECTING. The interconnecting essays that make up NOT QUITE WHAT I WAS EXPECTING hilariously explode the cultural myths and impossible expectations around being a mother. Klein frames modern motherhood as a hero’s journey of day-to-day survival…but one that no one ever talks about: the living nightmare that is strapping your toddler into a car seat; recounting the actual lessons she’s learned from her son’s Little Golden Books; and seriously defending the absolute necessity of drinking (at least a bit) while parenting. With Klein’s signature humor and humanity, NOT QUITE WHAT I WAS EXPECTING will attempt to make sense of this stage of life in all its cruel ironies, absurdities, and bittersweetness.