BE HAPPY OR I"LL SCREAM is for every married woman who has found just the tiniest bit of disconnect between the image of a perfect family in her head—think “The Brady Bunch” or “The Huxtables”—and the evidence in front of her eyes. Instead of darling and compliant rosy-cheeked children and an adorably tolerant husband ready to go along with zany shenanigans, most women are faced with: kids who view family outings with all the enthusiasm of hardened inmates forced to bust rocks in roadside Alabama and a man who would trade every last one of her kooky ideas for a just a teeny little bit more sex and a hot meal on the table at six.

Sheri Lynch is a superb humorist of modern marriage, mores, and motherhood. Her take on what life is really like inside a marriage—as opposed to what it looks like on the holiday card version of same—will ring both wacky and true to any woman who was ever foolish enough to dream of the perfect marriage and family.