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jesslolsen's review against another edition
4.0
Catastrophic happiness
This was a really easy book to read, the layout of the chapters - with each chapter being a short story from her parenting experience - made it easy to pick up and read one or two in spare moments. Some chapters I liked more than others, and some chapters I disliked more than others.
I liked the brutal honesty (pg 153, I’m sure we all think something similar at some stage during pregnancy) although it was sometimes to the extreme. My suggestion for an alternative title: “Catastrophic Mindset...How to Chronically Overthink Yourself into a Nervous Breakdown” 😂
Birdy sounds like a character with some of the things she says. She has very intelligent conversations with the kids, it’s hard to imagine if I will too, when my children are a similar age.
A book I’d recommend to all my mum friends.
This was a really easy book to read, the layout of the chapters - with each chapter being a short story from her parenting experience - made it easy to pick up and read one or two in spare moments. Some chapters I liked more than others, and some chapters I disliked more than others.
I liked the brutal honesty (pg 153, I’m sure we all think something similar at some stage during pregnancy) although it was sometimes to the extreme. My suggestion for an alternative title: “Catastrophic Mindset...How to Chronically Overthink Yourself into a Nervous Breakdown” 😂
Birdy sounds like a character with some of the things she says. She has very intelligent conversations with the kids, it’s hard to imagine if I will too, when my children are a similar age.
A book I’d recommend to all my mum friends.
nattygsmith's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Ever since I had a child of my own, I have steered clear of parenting memoirs. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's a fear of what might feel like judgmental advice, or of the kind of saccharine sentiments that follow parents around, or an absurdly confident feeling that I already know what anyone else might have to tell me. I am so glad that I suspended my skepticism and read this book. Newman threads the needle between hilarious journaling of her children's hi-jinx and vulnerable reflection on the emotionally fraught roller-coaster of parenthood. There's an earnestness to her writing that feels par for the course when writing about raising children—but in my opinion, when it becomes sentimental, it's for good and entirely relatable reasons. There was a refreshing lack of judgment, and an honesty about the aspirational values parents might hold versus their family's daily reality. She captured so many of the absurdities of parenting a small child, and also so much of the bittersweet love, hope, and pain that come with it. I may have to revisit this book in a few years when my own child is older.
amibunk's review against another edition
5.0
I have never wished so hard to be actual friends with an author I was reading as I have with Catherine Newman. I'm convinced we'd be best pals if we could only meet. Her writing style, her pop culture references, the stories she tells about her children and their misadventures, her ability to instantly see the worst case scenario in any situation: these all point to our complete compatibility as bff's.
Ms. Newman? I'm your number one fan!
Ahem, back to less stalker-esque things.
I absolutely adored Ms. Newman's first memoir/book of essays. But this second one? I love it even more. Perhaps it's because the author (and myself) are in a much more gentle time period of parenting- past the poopy diapers and sleepless nights but not yet into the dating, driving, and college admission years. I'm truly finding it to be the Golden Age of Motherhood and reading about Ms. Newman's experiences only reiterates how much I'm enjoying this time of my life.
If you like good writing, humorous parenting essays, and insights into mothering, this book will be right up your alley.
Ms. Newman? I'm your number one fan!
Ahem, back to less stalker-esque things.
I absolutely adored Ms. Newman's first memoir/book of essays. But this second one? I love it even more. Perhaps it's because the author (and myself) are in a much more gentle time period of parenting- past the poopy diapers and sleepless nights but not yet into the dating, driving, and college admission years. I'm truly finding it to be the Golden Age of Motherhood and reading about Ms. Newman's experiences only reiterates how much I'm enjoying this time of my life.
If you like good writing, humorous parenting essays, and insights into mothering, this book will be right up your alley.
nssutton's review against another edition
4.0
I can't remember the last time I saw reflected in a book something I needed so badly. As I move from a mom of babies to what comes next, I feel a little adrift. I vaguely remember people feeling this way after weddings although I never did. If I am not and never again will be constantly nursing, what am I? Newman was right there, from the first page, exactly in my head but also just ahead, telling me all of the things I needed to hear at the exact moment I needed to hear them. "I'm trying to believe that I won't be punished for my happiness - that we aren't jinxed by the very fact of our healthy, joyful lives." Such a serendipitous read, a true balm for my soul.
courtandspark's review against another edition
5.0
I loved Waiting for Birdy and I loved this book, too. I appreciate the way Newman celebrates the seemingly mundane parts of parenting that make it so joyful and full of beauty.
“I used to picture time as a rope you followed along, hand over hand, into the distance, but it’s nothing like that. It moves outward but holds everything that’s come before. Cut me open and I’m a tree trunk, rings of nostalgia radiating inward. All the years are nested inside me like I’m my own personal one-woman matryoshka doll. I guess that’s true for everybody, but then I drive everybody crazy with my nostalgia and happiness. I am bittersweet personified. Mostly, it just gets better and better..”
“I used to picture time as a rope you followed along, hand over hand, into the distance, but it’s nothing like that. It moves outward but holds everything that’s come before. Cut me open and I’m a tree trunk, rings of nostalgia radiating inward. All the years are nested inside me like I’m my own personal one-woman matryoshka doll. I guess that’s true for everybody, but then I drive everybody crazy with my nostalgia and happiness. I am bittersweet personified. Mostly, it just gets better and better..”
megatsunami's review against another edition
4.0
Catherine Newman is so great.
The opening piece of this book, which I read back when it first appeared in Brain, Child, is really the best piece of writing about parenting pretty much ever.
On the whole, I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as "Waiting for Birdy", because there are only so many short, pithy essays you can read in a row - it didn't have the continuity of "Waiting for Birdy." Still though. This book was super funny and touching.
The opening piece of this book, which I read back when it first appeared in Brain, Child, is really the best piece of writing about parenting pretty much ever.
On the whole, I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as "Waiting for Birdy", because there are only so many short, pithy essays you can read in a row - it didn't have the continuity of "Waiting for Birdy." Still though. This book was super funny and touching.
lexiww's review against another edition
4.0
Catherine Newman has been my parenting soothsayer for more than a decade, and this collection of essays portends the wild, delicious Big Kid years I have ahead with my son.
(An aside: Newman and I were once at a holiday party together for a publication we both worked on. I embarassingly fangirled over her, hard, and mustered the courage to say hello. I asked her whether it ever got old to have a harem of childbearing women wanting to hang on her every word.
"It's not like they're trying to sleep with me," she'd said.
Bazinga.)
(An aside: Newman and I were once at a holiday party together for a publication we both worked on. I embarassingly fangirled over her, hard, and mustered the courage to say hello. I asked her whether it ever got old to have a harem of childbearing women wanting to hang on her every word.
"It's not like they're trying to sleep with me," she'd said.
Bazinga.)
mamalemma's review against another edition
5.0
I have been following Catherine Newman, Michael, Ben and Birdy since her earliest days on BabyCenter, when I was a new mom. She has always written my heart, what it truly feels like to raise these incredible little people we've created. I loved her first book, about the pregnancy and birth of her second child Birdy, so I was overjoyed when I saw her newest book. I was not disappointed! Her voice, so strong and clear, and the voices of her sweet and spicy children, are voices I'd recognize whether I saw her name on the cover or not. They are a special and loving family, and I've learned from them as much as I've recognized my family in them. It's a genuinely wonderful read, and such a blessing to watch Ben and Birdy grow along with my children.