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Whelp
I‘ve some reading to do 🤭👀

Oh Sailor, I thought, the little size of you. This is what it feels like when everything goes wrong, and by your own hand. When you are caught, cornered, the one to blame, when you discover something in your nature that you did not know was there and which you do not like. Confusion, shame, resentment, regret: it's my area. Don't panic. Sit tight. I can help you with this.

'Hello,' I replied but didn't know what to add nor how to pitch it because she was three and I hadn't gotten to that page in childrearing yet. 'We're not supposed to praise little girls for their looks any more,' I told my friend, 'but for their brains, and my God but your daughter is clever. Such clever hair, such clever eyes.' She really was a beauty, that child.

'Gets it from her mother, obviously.'

I ducked around a corner. Look, Mama's going round the bend! I wanted to tell you, but oh, oh. What struck me as the starkest contradiction of all was that, having navigated this much of life the volatility of youth, of love and loss, the agony and the ecstasy - the closest I had come to losing my mind was during the period known as settling down.

I had listened to him on the other side of that door snoring away in the box room, those snug, contented snores I used to find endearing, the two of us tucked up together in the same bed on a cold night, except we were no longer in the same room. And soon we would no longer be under the same roof, nor even under the same stars. I could not get my head around it: how could my husband sleep under the circumstances?

A woman is taking care of her baby. In her eyes, her husband is never home, but always in the office. So she is left with “just” taking care of the baby and house 24/7. A grim portrait of the early days of motherhood.

‘I get just two days off, you know?‘ my husband was complaining. ‘I get just two days off a week and I have to waste one of them in IKEA?‘
‘Two whole days? I haven‘t had a day off since he was born. Unless we count the time I was hospitalised with pneumonia. And then you got your mother in.‘

‘Our marriage. Where is it going?‘
‘What do you mean? I just got a promotion.‘
‘How could you not get a promotion?‘
‘You mean congratulations?‘
‘No, I mean, how could you not get a promotion when you‘re always in the office? You‘ve a wife who does all the cooking, cleaning and child-rearing. She pairs your socks, she books your dental appointments . She sorts out all this shit,‘ I said, tapping the tax and insurance discs displayed on the

A powerful evocation of the raw emotions of early motherhood. As the narrator talks to her toddler 'sailor', she describes with brutal honesty the contradiction of loving this new person so much you would kill for them but also run away. The loss of individuality is powerfully expressed, while the device of an old friend brings hope but also realisation that you can't go back. A brilliant piece of writing, tough, funny, heartbreaking. ⬇️

An only very slightly exaggerated portrayal of life with an infant. (Her husband was almost unbelievably useless, and she was definitely enabling his behaviour in the worst way.) Emotionally intense, funny in places. Entirely accurate about the equal parts love and terror involved in having a child.

#WomensPrize #WomensPrize2024

The narrator doesn‘t recognize herself in the woman‘s she used to be before she became a fulltime mother. It drives her mad but she‘s also madly in love with her little son Sailor. Her husband is worthless, doing nothing to share the responsibilities for their baby, he is just working and living his life. And loving her. But is it enough?

A very recognizable read about the struggles and blessings of motherhood. #womenprize

I remember this feeling so well! #motherhood

The MC talks to her young child as she struggles through the change in her life since giving birth to him, along with coping with a seemingly absent husband who prefers to work long hours.

I don‘t have kids so can‘t speak to the veracity of this novel but I certainly found the MC‘s stream of consciousness thoughts really stressful to read, but incredibly compelling.

Another great read from the #womensprize long list.

Oh wow - what a real story about how hard motherhood is. And how lonely. The gendered differences are interestingly depicted - in the husband and the friend. Ultimately makes you really appreciate your mom!