Welcome to the very first Crib Notes, a monthly newsletter featuring succinct book reviews for new and busy mothers.
Before the birth of my son, books were the love of my life. Since becoming a mother, reading has become more essential than ever to my sense of self. It helps me feel tethered to the woman I was before I had a baby. With it, motherhood has brought an onslaught of visceral new emotions, and these have coloured my reading habits. In the early days, I sometimes felt so vividly alive that I sought writing to match this mental incandescence. At other times, exhausted from rocking a baby who cried endlessly, I craved comfort. Sometimes I wanted books which dug deep into motherhood and held it up to the light; sometimes I wanted escape. I was also newly impatient when it came to choosing my reading matter: those slivers of time I had to myself were so precious, I could not waste them on books I wasn’t enjoying. Crib Notes is inspired by a year of reading on borrowed time: during night-feeds and nap-times, during rare hour-long stretches and, more often, in greedy snatches whilst my son surreptitiously slides his dinner onto the kitchen floor. Below you will find a handful of books selected for different moods and attention-spans, with my thoughts on how and when to read them. I hope you enjoy your hard-earned, well-deserved reading time, whatever you choose to read! NOTE: After having my baby, I found some subjects more upsetting than usual. For a number of the reviews below, I have flagged ‘sensitive’ content so that you can take your mental and emotional state into consideration when choosing what to read.
The 2am Read
The Need by Helen Phillips
Molly is an exhausted mother caught between the relentless demands of caring for two small children and her job as a paleobotanist. When she unearths strange and unsettling artefacts at the fossil quarry where she works, she begins to suspect she is losing her grip on reality. Then, one night, a masked stranger appears in her home with a shocking demand. This startlingly original novel brings together speculative fiction and horror, whilst probing deep into the nature of motherhood: the darkest fears and the urgent, all-consuming love. An electrifying, riveting read. When to read: When you need a gripping read for sleepless nights. Keep those lights on, though! Sensitive Content: This portrayal of a motherhood might feel wincingly close to the bone if you are feeling particularly burnt-out, sleep-deprived or if the claustrophobia of home is pushing you over the edge.
How to consume: The Need was published by Chatto & Windus in hardback earlier this year (£16.99 from Waterstones). If you are spending a lot of time in cradle-hold, I recommend reading on Kindle instead.
What to read next: The End We Start From by Meghan Hunter: breathtaking prose and speculative fiction overlap in this extraordinarily beautiful tale of new motherhood.
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