Slummy Mummy

Funny! Hilarious! Like reading a sober/married/mother version on Absolutely Fabulous... (is how I describe it to people!) There are so many funny parts to this book that I strongly warn all readers not to drink hot coffee or tea while reading this book...you might be spill it all over yourself when laughing out loud! I have been trying to find an author blog site..or fan site..nothing yet... Fiona Neill...if you are reading this...Thanks for a great time! You and Jane Green (Beach House) made my summer!!

You would never expect a piece of mom-lit to turn out as a sophisticated essay about marriage and motherhood. Slummy Mummy comes quite as a surprise, being not only smart, witty and extremely funny, but the most important of all, giving astonishingly precise account of a woman in her midlife crisis. As the heroine's pedantic husband put it, the midlife crisis is "discontent with the status quo, restlessness, questioning decisions that you made years ago, thinking you've grown apart from your husband, wondering whether happiness lies with another man". And Lucy Sweeney makes a long way from fantasizing about another man to making a decision about the future of her marriage. The book is not dedicated exclusively to adultery. Ms.Neill provides amazing observations about the nature of being a mother, about the responsibilities, difficulties and rewards of motherhood. Lucy's life is a nightmare of sleepless nights, chronic fatigue and endless flow of domestic routine, and yet there's a rare sparkle of such overwhelming feeling that may only be felt towards a child. ..."I feel time passing like sand slipping through my fingers. Perhaps it is good that we remember only fragments of their childhood as we grow older. Otherwise, the loss would be too great to bear."... Lucy's fears, worries, anxiety, loneliness and exhaustion are not her own. It all sounds so utterly familiar, as if someone overheard your own thoughts and shared your own experience. And yet, the Slummy Mummy does not hold a tiny bit of depression. As if Lucy Sweeney pondered on one of the big-sized dilemmas of her life "To laugh or to cry" and finally voted for the former.

This is a wonderful book -- outstanding, heart-felt observations of motherhood and domestic life, combined with wonderfully wry humor and a good plot. Her lines are pitch perfect and spot on -- Neill writes "a silent toddler is akin to an unexploded bomb" and anyone who has ever had small children can sympathize with the state of Lucy Sweeney's car. But Neill also has much that is thoughtful to say about friendship/marrieds and singles/and marriage and children themselves. It is wiser and truer and more artful than Bridget Jones -- such as her few descriptions of the passage of time in children's lives. When I finished the book, I tried another and then decided to return and re-read this again. It's that good -- and the second time it more than held its own. This belongs on any mother's bookshelf. It's something you'll want to share with your friends. Bravo!

Finally, a book for all of us "real moms" out there. You know, we're the ones who bring store-bought cookies to the class party instead of making something from scratch (HORRORS), the ones who hastily cut a hole in a sheet and call it a costume, the ones who regularly feed our kids meat (GASP). This is the story of Lucy Sweeney, a stay-at-home mom who leads a perpetually chaotic existence. She loses credit cards, passports, keys to the house - you name it - this woman has fumbled it. Of course, she is married to a super-organized architect whose drawers of underwear are sorted by color. Readers follow Lucy throughout one wild and crazy school year, where many of her antics resemble that of Bridget Jones (another hilarious Brit). There are plenty of flirtations with disaster, including one involving a fellow class parent (whom all the mothers call "Sexy Domesticated Dad"). I love British humor, and Neill certainly showcases plenty of it in this, her debut novel. What makes her writing stand out is that it is extremely intelligent and insightful as she wonderfully describes Lucy, her best friends, as well as some of the uber-moms who are quite puzzled by her - ones I'm sure every reader will recognize in their own school communities. Okay, so some of our heroine's antics are a bit over-the-top, but it's still wicked fun to read!

I am a stay at home mom of 3 and I loved this book. So funny and honest. Slummy Mummy is light enough that you can read it while sitting with your 4 year old while he watches the newest Power Rangers episode for the 7th time, but the plot is interesting and not totally predictable as so many 'chick lit' books are. A truely fun read.