PLEASANTON, Calif. — Oh no, she didn't!

Local mother Siah Fried, 40, compiled her anecdotal essays of kids, school, scouts and sports — in short, all things holy in Pleasanton — in her new book set in the fictional town of "Swankville." But now the swank has hit the fan, and her irked neighbors are fuming over what they say is a thinly veiled critique of their parenting.

"It's kind of a pointless attack," said one parent, who read the book but did not want to be named and further dragged into the fray. But Fried insists her book is fiction and its point was to spotlight what she sees as a troubling trend of overly meddlesome parents.

Swankville stands in for Pleasanton, and Fried's main character, Sasha, is a mother of three who struggles with rivaling Girl Scout cookie booths, one-upmanship of kids' Halloween costumes, dance-to-near-death recitals, and the very likely possibility that her toddler accidentally killed the neighbor's pet rabbit.

Fried, herself a mother of three, jabs at what she calls "bad parenting," and is well aware that her book is causing a ruckus among residents in her Birdland subdivision.

"Oh, did you notice?" she half-joked, referring to the anti-Swankville banner covering the garage of her neighbors directly across the street. It's hard to miss the garage-turned-billboard that encourages passersby to "honk" if they agree with its scathing comments on the fictional Sasha.