The Bad Mother's Handbook

I must confess that this is usually not the kind of book I would expect to like and that in the beginning I did hesitate a bit about reading it. I bought it on an impulse (somehow the title, The Bad Mother's Handbook, had appealed to that ever present feeling of mine that deep down I'm really a bad mother ...). In the end, it turns out I really liked it and found it to be very heart warming. In a very contemporary style, the book addresses the impact of unplanned pregnancy in a home where a teenage girl, her mother and her grandmother struggle to coexist harmoniously. All three characters have strong personalities and their own past and present personal dramas. The author makes them take turns at being in the first person so the reader gets a grip on everyone's thoughts, feelings and experiences and can appreciate the complexity of their relationship. I would definitely recommend this book to any mother of a teen daughter.

Synopsis

The Bad Mother's Handbook is the story of a year in the lives of Charlotte, Karen, and Nan, none of whom can quite believe how things have turned out. Why is it all so difficult? Why do the most ridiculous mistakes have the most disastrous consequences? When are you too old to throw up in a flowerbed after too much vodka? When are you too young to be a mother? Both hilarious and wise, it is a clear-eyed look at motherhood - and childhood - in its many guises, from the moment the condom breaks to the moment you file for divorce or, more optimistically, from the moment you hear your baby's first cry to the moment you realize that there are as many sorts of mother as there are children, and that love sometimes is the most important thing of all.