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Summary: To "Prewombpsi" comment, earlier
Review: Your one-star review seems awfully lonely. Clearly, a lot of people (myself included) found a lot to relate to in this book, and were able to appreciate that the author was going through a rough emotional time while it was being written. Lighten up. Hating George Bush isn't really like hating. It's just common sense.
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Summary: A "must read" for new or expectant parents
Review: I read this a few years ago when my daughter was 3. ( I heard the review on NPR and when I pulled into the nearest B&N, another woman who had heard the review was also asking for it).It brought me to tears w/ laughter.I still buy it for new or soon to be parents. It's hilarious. Byron
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Summary: The best birth to one-year book around!
Review: My mother gave me this book when my daughter was a few months old. I was so happy to see that the things I felt were normal - it is such an emotional time. She had me laughing so hard I cried! It's a perfect gift I think every new mom should have.
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Summary: I laughed and sobbed more than ever before with this book...
Review: As the mother of a two year old girl, a coworker lent me her copy of "operating instructions" to read. I was unable to put it down, except for when my eyes were filled with tears -- from laughing and from crying. Anne Lamott's humor is exceptional, and her fears are real. When she prays that her son "makes it to the water" in reference to the perilous lives of baby sea-turtles, my heart skipped a beat for my own precious child. I can't imagine not loving this book and the honesty that is shared with all mothers: single and married; young and old; great and not-so-great;confident and scared. I now use it as a standard gift for my "mother friends". Enjoy and keep your fingers crossed that she writes again soon!
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Summary: Very eye-opening to women!!!
Review: I have to say that this is an author that I never give up on reading. I will find myself reading Lamont's works time and time again. Anne Lamont was introduced to me for the first time during a Writing Fiction class by Carol Frome at Plattsburgh State University in NY state. I have recently become an english major(consentrating in writing) and purchased this book along with Rosie. The first book I was ever drawn into was Bird by Bird which we all were asked to read in this english class. My first reaction was that "I haven't laughed that hard in a long time". The second was that this was a phenominal writer with great abilities and a gift to tell the world life's ups and downs. This book led me to have the same reaction. Lamont deals with serious and complex issues, things I have yet to learn about at 22 years old. The thought of children scared me until I read this book. The joys of childhood and infants is overwhelming to me but at the same time a bit easier to digest with the help of Lamonts insights to the tricks of the trade. I really am intrested in reading other books by this author so if anyone has any encouraging words about her works, please feel free to email me!!! :) And to Anne, please keep writing because through all my tough writing blocks as a senior writer, I look to your words to get me through!!
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Summary: A must read!
Review: Reading this book gave me the peace of mind to know that I was not the only inmate in the motherhood sanitarium! I will make this honest and wonderful book a gift to all my friends who have children in the future.
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Summary: The most beautiful description of a life given purpose
Review: I read this book at the end of my son's first year. He was the third child and I thought we had this "kid thing" down pat. Anne LaMott gently showed me that each little boy or girl is not just a little bundle of fun to add to life's blessings, but the foundation of a life rededicated to accepting sorrow, looking for hope and bringing joy. She drags herself forward, out of a less than perfect past, with a soft, radiant humor that almost belies the pain and regret she has struggled to overcome. I was completely charmed...enchanted by the wonder she felt and so richly, beautifully shares....and laughing my self silly at trials and tribulations offered up with her trademark sweet sensitivity and self-deprecation. Hey! she told me, there's nothing routine about your baby! Not this little life...nor mine, I learned. Thanks, Anne...
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Summary: the best book on motherhood I have ever read
Review: I was given this book for the birth of my now 5-year-old and have given it as a gift at least 25 times since. As I await the birth of my second child, I reread it often. It's not for every mother -- I can see from the reviews posted here that a sense of humor is necessary -- but it continues to make me laugh, cry and read passages aloud. Her latest novel, Crooked Little Heart, proves she also understands what it is like to be the mother of a teenage girl.
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Summary: a raw, honest and joyful look at motherhood alone
Review: This is a beautiful book in which the author honestly captures her joys, frustrations, anxieties about both motherhood and life. It's beauty is in it's raw honesty.
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Summary: An antidote to post-partum depression, not a manual.
Review: I wish I had read this book in my post-partum depression year -- it might not have cheered me up permanently (actually I would probably have laughed hysterically while dissolving in tears), but I would at least not have been worried that I was the only mother ever to have such horrible thoughts while still loving her baby so desperately. Society tends to portray the new mother in soft-focus as always happy and serene (in a Stepford Wife sort of way). I really admire Anne Lamott for capturing the wild mood swings and sleep deprivation so accurately. I don't think I have ever before encountered such a three-dimensional character in non-fiction, especially autobiography. Part of her secret is to tell us EVERYTHING (or at least, appear to), and that includes her rants about George Bush, Republicans, circumcision, penises, religion, you name it. I can understand that if you feel strongly about any of these, you would have a hard time seeing through her opinions to the rest of the book, but it's because she conveys her strong feelings that her book is so alive. This would make a great gift for new mothers who have a sense of humor, and aren't expecting it to be a how-to manual, unless you're counting "how to survive".
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