My Wild and Sleepless Nights: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

Product Information

The fact that the mother in the book and I have had a shared experience of raising children (in a way that I have rarely seen depicted in other books) was the main thing that kept me reading until the end.

With raw honesty and very very very very good writing (as her eldest son Jimmy acknowledges) Stroud describes the extremes of motherhood in visceral detail.The title to be read and discussed is sign-posted and on sale for the whole of the previous month (with a discount for those who make it known they intend to come) and everybody is welcome, whether first-timer, part-timer or regular-timer. She has an amazing way with words, and she is right that many parenting books deal with pregnancy and the early years and don’t look at what happens after that, what you might honestly feel as a mum, and how extreme the highs and lows of parenting can be. Just as being fucked so hard it hurts can feel good, this pain becomes something I recognise as clearly as I know myself.

Clover Stroud brought back so many memories, the good ones, and the bad ones, the happiness and joy as well as the fear and guilt you feel as a mother. By the end of the book I would happily have left home, and moved in with Clover, Pete and the 5 glorious children that they bring up together! This is not a quick, tear-through-it book, but it is remarkable at answering what being a mother feels like. This is the conversation we should all have about motherhood, it is wild and sleepless but I wouldn't have it any other way.As Stroud battles through pregnancy, labour, breastfeeding, and meetings with the school about Jimmy’s weed habit, her third and fourth children, Dash and Evangeline, wheel about in a world of spilled cornflakes and imaginary cats.