My Wild and Sleepless Nights: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

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This is not a quick, tear-through-it book, but it is remarkable at answering what being a mother feels like. Although I’m over that now, I am wondering if, at the age of 49, I still have time to have another 3 children.

The only thing I didn’t like, and which seems to be a trend in books I’ve read recently, is her references to drug taking in the past and intimate details of her relationships. Ale možná jsem jen zbytečně kritická, určitě jsou tam i světlé momenty (aneb třeba se k tomu vrátím, až sama někdy budu mít děti). It’s not about duty, or even about juggling the demands of kids and work; mothering for Stroud has more to do with hedonism and adventure, about escape, and exploring the outer limits of human experience. A beautifully written, brutally honest dissection of motherhood by a woman who has five children, from pregnancy to teenagers, covering both the extreme highs and lows. At seven hours long, the audiobook was on the shorter side and I could happily have listened to another two hours at least.She pulls no punches about the complex emotional space motherhood inhabits, both the extreme love and the extreme boredom. The best evocation of the all-consuming, self-eroding reality of motherhood, while also being luminous with love. I both read and listened to Clover narrate the book herself which she does beautifully and probably brings it more to life. Stroud has hit the nail on the head in describing what life can be like with children, and the quiet struggles we have to swallow as a mother, for the sake of keeping the train moving. I almost stopped reading it early on for that reason, but am glad I persevered, and have just bought her first book (the second sounds too emotional for me!

I am nosy about how other women 'do' motherhood, but mainly I feel a need to share, to be seen, to speak uninhibited about the extraordinary experiences, challenges, changes being a mother brings. Stroud was incredibly raw, honest and emotional with the reader throughout her book where sometimes it was to the point of being uncomfortable. After all, where’s the fun in providing boring old steadfast support when you could be out there getting buzzed on oxytocin?This is an engrossing read about women’s bodies and birth, the mothering of babies and teenagers, that will make mothers feel seen and allow anyone with a mother to empathise in myriad ways with what women give of themselves to their children, even when they don’t always get it ‘right’. The book follows Stroud and her family through a tumultuous year, in which her fifth child, Lester, is born. As someone going through the empty nest phase I was drawn back to the wonderfulness of wee ones as Clover reminded me of the beauty of being the whole world to tiny people and then to becoming a satellite to teenagers, all the while maintaining your own identity and sense of self along the way. So much spoke to my heart, it made me laugh out loud nod and agree out loud and possibly cry a little, quietly and with a mixture of joy and sadness. Some beautiful writing and captures moments in motherhood so well, but overall I don’t relate to the author and I find some of it a bit needlessly melodramatic.