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jacki_f's review against another edition
4.0
Anne Goldsworthy is an Australian classical pianist. This is an account of her first pregnancy and the early years of her son's life. It's written in the second person, as if she is speaking to her son, which means that we never learn his name (it's Reuben), which I found a little irritating. But aside from that, this is a wonderful, near flawless book. Goldsworthy has a wonderful way with words - her distraught son has a "mouth turned down at the sides like a ferocious carp". His newborn hands "engrave your skin with the fine stylus of your fingernail". So often I found myself re-reading paragraphs for the sheer pleasure of the words.
The book feels very honest and I could completely identify with so many parts of it. How unreal motherhood feels until the baby arrives. How exhausted you feel, how protective to the point of irrational anxiety that keeps you from sleeping. How supportive a mother's group can be but conversely and how judgemental other mothers can be. Convincing yourself that having the right baby accessory will make you seem a better mother. Being secretive about the tricks you employ to snatch some sleep for fear of being judged. Feeling secretly jealous your partner gets to witness a first milestone.
If this makes it sound like a negative book, I'm portraying it wrong because it's not, at all. Goldsworthy adores her child and that is evident throughout. There are also parts that are simply hilarious - as in grab your husband and read them aloud hilarious. One of my favourites is when Goldsworthy consults a hypnotist before birth in anticipation of labour pains. The hypnotist is a total nutter who is convinced that Goldsworthy really needs help with marriage issues. Another section about a weekend getaway that goes horribly wrong is also very funny. I would like to give this book to every new mother I know - and I wish I'd had it to read when my boys were smaller.
The book feels very honest and I could completely identify with so many parts of it. How unreal motherhood feels until the baby arrives. How exhausted you feel, how protective to the point of irrational anxiety that keeps you from sleeping. How supportive a mother's group can be but conversely and how judgemental other mothers can be. Convincing yourself that having the right baby accessory will make you seem a better mother. Being secretive about the tricks you employ to snatch some sleep for fear of being judged. Feeling secretly jealous your partner gets to witness a first milestone.
If this makes it sound like a negative book, I'm portraying it wrong because it's not, at all. Goldsworthy adores her child and that is evident throughout. There are also parts that are simply hilarious - as in grab your husband and read them aloud hilarious. One of my favourites is when Goldsworthy consults a hypnotist before birth in anticipation of labour pains. The hypnotist is a total nutter who is convinced that Goldsworthy really needs help with marriage issues. Another section about a weekend getaway that goes horribly wrong is also very funny. I would like to give this book to every new mother I know - and I wish I'd had it to read when my boys were smaller.
ms_dzt's review against another edition
5.0
Absolutely amazing, cannot recommend more highly to parents!
elizaeliza's review against another edition
5.0
This is a remarkable memoir about pregnancy, birth and parenting a newborn. It is not an instruction manual nor a polemic and it hasn't even a hint of the sanctimoniousness or melodrama that normally taint motherhood memoirs. It simply shows what this period of life was like for the author. It is gloriously understated, funny in parts, and the language sparkles as it rolls on by, so beautiful that I slowed my reading to savour it. An amazing book.
avrilhj's review against another edition
4.0
Fascinating, and a little terrifying. Anna is amusingly self-aware in her son-absorption, but sentences like: "Although I love all babies in the abstract, there is really only one baby" (p. 160) frighten me while also answering a question I've often pondered. How can some parents, who love their own children so greatly, not empathise with other parents whose children are hungry or cold or locked up in immigration detention? Is it because "there is a clear hierarchy of babies"? Does loving one's own offspring make one care a little less about the rest of the world, all those other babies who are not 'the one'? The blurb on the back of the book says that it reveals "the love that binds families together". This book is indeed funny and moving, as the cover promises, but it seems to me that it also reveals the love that turns its back on the wider world.
oanh_1's review against another edition
4.0
This cover makes me laugh so much.
I don't remember when I finished this book - very shortly after I started it anyway. Clearly I finished it during a phase when I was not using Goodreads because I failed to add it...
This was an enjoyable, enlightening book. It all felt truthful (not that I would know) and I've always enjoyed Anna Goldworthy's writing in The Monthly. That did not change with this book.
I don't remember when I finished this book - very shortly after I started it anyway. Clearly I finished it during a phase when I was not using Goodreads because I failed to add it...
This was an enjoyable, enlightening book. It all felt truthful (not that I would know) and I've always enjoyed Anna Goldworthy's writing in The Monthly. That did not change with this book.
elysecmcneil's review against another edition
3.0
First half was a bit slow but the last few chapters were absolute gold. The insights and thinking about parenting in the modern world and the external/internal pressures that make things more difficult that necessary were hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure.
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