You Be Mother is a beautiful book filled with memorable, real characters. I loved the different perspectives and the way to the lives of the two women intertwined.

This is a beautiful story about young Abi who moves from her dreary life in the UK to Australia, to start a family, and live the life she always dreamt of. Abi makes unexpected friendships along the way namely with an elderly neighbor Phil, discovers the unconditional love that comes from motherhood and that not all families are quite as perfect as they seem. I really enjoyed the humour in what is quite a sad storyline and could not put this lovely book down.

**4.5 stars**
This book was a delightful surprise. I had seen it around but always passed it up believing it to be too ‘light and fluffy’. Recently I had seen some good reviews about it and upon seeing it still available to request on Netgalley, I thought I’d give it a go. And I’m so glad I did.

The first half was a gentle introduction to the characters. In London, Abi has become pregnant to her Australian boyfriend and he has now returned to home to complete his studies. All Abi has every wanted is a family but due to a tragic accident when she was younger, she and her mother have a very dysfunctional relationship. So when Stu says that he will support her and their child Jude if she comes to Australia, she jumps at the chance.
Befriended by newly widowed next door neighbour Phyllida (or Phil, as she likes to be called), her days have some meaning. Especially when Stu has trouble coming to terms with being a responsible adult and a father. This story line is interspersed with Phil’s own children and their troubles.

It’s interesting, I felt at half way the tone of the book changed and became a lot more serious. Exploring ideas of family, expectations and friendships, I loved how Abi grew in this book but my heart did ache for her at times, as she always tried to do her best for herself and Jude.
And on reading the last pages, I can say I finished to story with a lot of hope and satisfaction.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for a copy to read and review.

You Be Mother is a delightful, bittersweet book that left a certain warm and fuzzy feeling in its wake long after I finished reading it. There are too few of these types of books around, where you get sucked so deeply into the story that you wish it would never end. But to call it just a feel-good book would be doing it an injustice, because it is so much more than that. In Abi and Phil, Mason has created unforgettable characters that I would love to meet down at the local coffee shop for a cuppa and a chat. I was so reluctant to let them go when the book ended, feeling like I was losing lifelong friends! I also admit shedding a few tears, because when I say bitter-sweet, I mean that the book tackles a few of life’s difficult issues, like death, abandonment, loneliness and the different dynamics found in families, including this most precious and fraught relationship of all, the mother-daughter bond.

Abi, a young mother from Croydon, arrives with her small baby in Sydney, to be reunited with Stu, her son’s father, and start a new life. Settling in Cremorne, in a small flat owned by Stu’ parents, Abi soon finds that Stu may not be ready yet to play happy families as he continues to lead his bachelor life, leaving her and baby Jude alone for long periods of time whilst he studies and meets his mates at the pub until the early morning hours. She tries to overcome her loneliness by taking Jude for long walks in the pram. It is during one of those walks that she stumbles across the Cremorne ocean pool, and meets Phyllida Woolnough, who turns out to be her neighbour, living in a stately home next door to the apartment block. Phil is also battling with loneliness after the recent death of her husband, and all her grown- up children having flown the nest to live overseas. Soon Abi and Phil strike up an unusual friendship, each filling a need in the other– Phil serving as a mother substitute for Abi, and Abi and Jude seamlessly slipping into the gap Phil’s children have left behind. But blood is thicker than water – or is it? As Phil’s children get involved, Abi and Phil’s friendship is bound to get a lot more complicated ...

Having emigrated myself at an early age and raising my babies without the help of family, far away from my old life, I really related to Abi. I remember walking for hours with my first-born asleep in the pram, just to get out of the house and talk to other grown-up people. We also created our own extended “family” from older friends who filled the grandparent gap for my children. Lucky for me, I had a partner who was very involved with his kids, and some great friends, who soon quelled the loneliness. But reading about Abi brought back so many memories of that time, and I felt like giving her a huge bear hug of the sort I often craved myself when crying for my mother!

Phyllida Woolnough, Phil for short, was a delightful character and reminded me of someone I know in real life (though I can never reveal who). She is, as she states herself “in the dusty flute stage of life” and was so delightfully eccentric that there were many laugh-out loud moments as she shared her wry observations and ideas with the reader. Phil is a bit of a mercurial character, warm and welcoming one minute and somewhat remote and cold the next. In her postscript, Mason calls Phil “the pleasure of my life to write” and states that she cannot believe Phil doesn’t really exist. Yes, I felt exactly the same. In fact, all characters, the Woolnough children included, seemed so real to me they could have stepped out of the pages of the book, seamlessly inserting themselves into reality. Kudos to the author for creating such a believable “alternative truth” that I am still grieving for the characters now that the last page has been turned.

I loved You Be Mother and found it to be a delightful read that took me off to another world and made me look forward to the hours I could spend reading. Sometime laugh-out-loud funny, other times sad, this was a warm, insightful, bittersweet and very poignant book about families that I cannot recommend highly enough. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it!