3.75 ⭐️ An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good is pure, unadultered fun. I wasn't expecting "a little murder" from the summary to be the main plot, but neither was I disappointed when it was. Maud is a hilarious character to follow, and the humorous tone of the writing makes up for the lack of realism. Because of how short this is, we get little to no character work and not much of an overall plot to develop, but I enjoyed it for what it was—a short, light-hearted read that centers an 88-year-old woman using people's expectations against them.

If you're looking for something short to pick up between reads or are interested in reading something lighthearted and humorous, you may enjoy this little book.

I added this book to the website specifically so I could leave a review and put it on my profile

Where do I even start? Maybe from the beginning: I joined an IRL writing group in early 2024, and I've been seeing them at least once every 1-2 weeks for over a year now. I've gone on two trips with them. So, when one of the mods/admins of our Discord server found this book in one of the cafes we meet at, and took it from the shelf (this cafe has a "take a book, give a book policy", so she left them something from her bodice ripper collection in return), then told us the entire group would be required to read it, how could I possibly say no? Peer pressure or not, the jokes were too funny and unhinged for me to resist reading for myself.

To be perfectly clear, this book is a blatant Christian wet dream/fantasy/propaganda. Do not expect any nuance in the storytelling. Also do not expect any true discussion of scripture, because Cheryl Wyatt would rather tell you about how her FMC Sarah is such a virtuous chaste motherly beautiful conservative religious Christian woman than actually get into anything that requires more thought, depth, or even a basic level of literacy and intelligence.

Within the first two pages, Cheryl gives us some of the most hard-hitting sentences in the English language that I have ever had the (mis)fortune of reading: the housekeeper's "wise Hispanic eyes", the FMC's "classy but conservative spiked heels", the obsession over how FMC is so "young and pretty", the manly-man paratrooper/rescue (? his military role is never clear beyond that of "sergeant") widowed father MMC thinking to himself, "major duh, Sergeant Goof". If you think this is cringe, I am very pleased to tell you that it gets much, much, much worse.

The basic premise of this book is that Sergeant Aaron needs to go back to full-time duty (not sure what he does at work other than pray with his boss, because of course Cheryl never goes into it), so he's in a rush to find a nanny for his kids (twins, both four years old). Sarah, our classy but conservative and beautiful but virtuous devout Christian FMC, applies to be a nanny despite her "dark past". For some unconvincing and contrived reason, Aaron is hesitant about hiring Sarah because he wants to be sure she's "the right one for his boys". Sarah on the other hand really wants to prove herself to be capable and a good nanny, because she meets the twins once and just LOVES spending time with them and taking care of them, etc. That's how you know she's good Christian mommy material, amirite?

Eventually, Sarah's secret comes out, and it's honestly really dumb because that secret doesn't actually affect her ability to be a nanny at all? But it DOES mean she thinks she's "cursed" and "could never be a mother" (which is tearing her up inside because all women should aspire to be a good Christian mother, of course. #skill issue #couldn't be me). There's a lot of pointless angsting about that, and the resolution of Sarah's secret - the final cinching plot point of the book, where all is finally forgiven - is so blatantly offensive, insulting, infuriating, and enraging that I don't even have the proper words to express how mad it makes me. And it is CLEAR Christian propaganda - this thought that belief in God and adherence to the Christian religion absolves one of all wrongdoing, no matter what that wrongdoing actually was. Literally, no!!!!!! Without getting into too many spoilers, I think this single plot point in Cheryl's stupid book quite literally represents everything wrong with modern USAmerican society.

However. You will notice that I rated this 5 stars in enjoyment, which is not a lie. This is genuinely a comedy show of a book. The prose is not simply mediocre; no, what God-respecting author could settle for simply mediocre? It's actively unhinged. It's insane. The metaphors bring to mind the "worst sentence of the year" writing contest entries, then slide it even more left. Cheryl Wyatt is making comparisons that contort the English language in ways you never thought possible.

The characters are flat and one-dimensional, but at least MMC Aaron has the grace to drop zingers like "the 'roach motel (and I mean HUMAN roaches)" and "major duh, Sergeant Goof". Not to mention the "Taliban interrogation voice" he uses when interviewing Sarah.

Like, holy shit - I cannot stress enough the sheer entertainment value of this book. It's the perfect thing to read with a bitchy little group chat, because I guarantee you'll get 100 new inside jokes just from the sheer absurdity of the prose and plot events (someone outside the "roach motel" breaks into Sarah's car and steals nothing but a few CDs that have Christian worship songs on them, for example). Because yes, I did lose brain cells reading this book, but those brain cells are a small price to pay for the Soldier Daddy-themed dinner my group had on our last trip (the Mountain Dew apple dumplings are actually FIRE). So thank you, Cheryl Wyatt and Soldier Daddy Aaron, for the incomparable gift of friendship this book has given me, in exchange for the last thread of my mental stability.