by Robin O'Bryant ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2014
A cheeky, amusing motherhood memoir.
An inside look at mothering three small children.
For most parents, O'Bryant’s (A Second Helping: A Collection of Popular Columns, 2013, etc.) humorous, offbeat and nonglitzy examination of her life as a mother of three girls will feel normal. Readers without children may wonder how the human race has survived as long as it has. Babies, breast-feeding and boobs play major roles in the narrative. "I have a fascination and fixation with boobs, not just my own,” writes the author. “I am enthralled by your boobs just as much as I am my very own." Her Big Berthas feature prominently in many of the sassy and outrageous moments she relates, whether trying to breast-feed her youngest daughter in the family car or the struggles she had to feed her first newborn, who refused to latch on. O'Bryant brings the nitty-gritty, often taboo subjects of personal body functions to new heights as sweat, body fat and vomit all play roles—as does poop, whether from a child or adult, in all its various shapes, sizes and moments of expulsion. Whether going shopping, attending PTA meetings, or traveling long distances to visit family and friends, each episode is full of the unconventional behavior of three rambunctious daughters and the mother who struggles to keep pace. Although the baby talk of her daughters is age-appropriate, some readers may tire of some of the childish speech—e.g., "But Momma, I wub her, and I want to pway wif her.” Nonetheless, these behind-the-scenes observations of one woman's version of motherhood dispel the oftentimes gussied-up descriptions of blissfully raising a child while providing much-needed comic relief for other parents struggling to survive. “All the screaming, dirty diapers, tantrum throwing, and sleepless nights are worth it,” writes the author. “It is worth every heartache and tear we shed as mothers.”
A cheeky, amusing motherhood memoir.Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-05414-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
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by Helen Fremont ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 11, 2020
A vivid sequel that strains credulity.
Fremont (After Long Silence, 1999) continues—and alters—her story of how memories of the Holocaust affected her family.
At the age of 44, the author learned that her father had disowned her, declaring her “predeceased”—or dead in his eyes—in his will. It was his final insult: Her parents had stopped speaking to her after she’d published After Long Silence, which exposed them as Jewish Holocaust survivors who had posed as Catholics in Europe and America in order to hide multilayered secrets. Here, Fremont delves further into her tortured family dynamics and shows how the rift developed. One thread centers on her life after her harrowing childhood: her education at Wellesley and Boston University, the loss of her virginity to a college boyfriend before accepting her lesbianism, her stint with the Peace Corps in Lesotho, and her decades of work as a lawyer in Boston. Another strand involves her fraught relationship with her sister, Lara, and how their difficulties relate to their father, a doctor embittered after years in the Siberian gulag; and their mother, deeply enmeshed with her own sister, Zosia, who had married an Italian count and stayed in Rome to raise a child. Fremont tells these stories with novelistic flair, ending with a surprising theory about why her parents hid their Judaism. Yet she often appears insensitive to the serious problems she says Lara once faced, including suicidal depression. “The whole point of suicide, I thought, was to succeed at it,” she writes. “My sister’s completion rate was pathetic.” Key facts also differ from those in her earlier work. After Long Silence says, for example, that the author grew up “in a small city in the Midwest” while she writes here that she grew up in “upstate New York,” changes Fremont says she made for “consistency” in the new book but that muddy its narrative waters. The discrepancies may not bother readers seeking psychological insights rather than factual accuracy, but others will wonder if this book should have been labeled a fictionalized autobiography rather than a memoir.
A vivid sequel that strains credulity.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982113-60-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
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by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011
A straightforward tale of kindness and paying it forward in 1980s New York.
When advertising executive Schroff answered a child’s request for spare change by inviting him for lunch, she did not expect the encounter to grow into a friendship that would endure into his adulthood. The author recounts how she and Maurice, a promising boy from a drug-addicted family, learned to trust each other. Schroff acknowledges risks—including the possibility of her actions being misconstrued and the tension of crossing socio-economic divides—but does not dwell on the complexities of homelessness or the philosophical problems of altruism. She does not question whether public recognition is beneficial, or whether it is sufficient for the recipient to realize the extent of what has been done. With the assistance of People human-interest writer Tresniowski (Tiger Virtues, 2005, etc.), Schroff adheres to a personal narrative that traces her troubled relationship with her father, her meetings with Maurice and his background, all while avoiding direct parallels, noting that their childhoods differed in severity even if they shared similar emotional voids. With feel-good dramatizations, the story seldom transcends the message that reaching out makes a difference. It is framed in simple terms, from attributing the first meeting to “two people with complicated pasts and fragile dreams” that were “somehow meant to be friends” to the conclusion that love is a driving force. Admirably, Schroff notes that she did not seek a role as a “substitute parent,” and she does not judge Maurice’s mother for her lifestyle. That both main figures experience a few setbacks yet eventually survive is never in question; the story fittingly concludes with an epilogue by Maurice. For readers seeking an uplifting reminder that small gestures matter.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-4251-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Howard Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
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by Laura Schroff & Alex Tresniowski ; illustrated by Barry Root
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