Despite not being a mother myself, Naomi Wood did such a good job on making me feel included. It's a very mother-centric book with mothers in all the short stories, but you're still able to resonate with the characters. But, to some extent the characters felt off? almost very monotoned. Either way, not bad at all!! I’m just not the target audience here.

I am new to Naomi Wood's writing and thoroughly enjoyed this collection of stories about bad mothers and wild women. Men are more or less an afterthought in these stories, and instead, women and all of their questionable choices take center stage. There's a lot to chew on here and even more to laugh (even if uncomfortably) about.

I enjoyed this whole collection while on vacation with both my kids and my mother, which was basically the perfect backdrop for these biting short stories. Highly recommend!

As a newbie to Naomi Wood’s stories, I took a bit of a rollercoaster ride through her short story collection. The writing is definitely polished, and each tale flows into the next seamlessly. Wood’s got a knack for crafting intricate plots and bringing characters to life vividly.

But here’s the thing: as well-crafted as they were, I struggled to really vibe with the stories on a personal level. The characters, while interesting, felt a bit distant, like there was this invisible wall between their world and mine. It made it hard to dive deep into their lives and feel fully immersed.

Each story had its own unique journey, and I appreciated that. But there was this intangible something missing that kept me from really connecting. It left me feeling somewhat disconnected overall, which was a bit of a letdown.

Still, you can’t ignore the good stuff. Wood’s prose is elegant, and the way she strings together the stories kept me turning pages, even if I didn’t feel that emotional tug. If you’re into well-crafted short stories with a twist, this collection might still be up your alley.

Appreciate the opportunity to read this! It was a good book, not great but also not bad. I recommend giving it a chance if the synopsis sounds good to you!

The stories are hilarious, biting, and full of women who are done playing nice. They dig into failed sisterhood, sketchy parenting, and the ugly truths of modern love. It’s all about how society expects women to behave and what happens when they just… don’t.

This is a refreshing anthology that highlight motherhood, womanhood, and the complexities of being pregnant in the workforce and in society. I enjoyed how Wood did not shy away from exploring all aspects of womanhood, and all types of women. My only critique is that the last short story, which features a mother and daughter reality show with dinos, feels just slightly too far out. I can appreciate that this story was an attempt to comment on the performative aspect of motherhood, but the difference of this story compared to the others, I believe makes it a little difficult to grasp.

A short volume of nine short stories. COVID informs most of them, which I could get with, but most were stories of pregnancy and/or involved new mothers so I couldn’t really relate. Not bad at all, I’m just not the target audience here.

My favorite was “Dino Moms” which follows a woman and her daughter who live in a real life “Jurassic Park” reality show. Some nice quotes: “Wasn’t she meant to be our diversity intern.” “She’s South African.” “She’s WHITE.” “Cal was vegan. There was little that could be done about that either.”

A collection of short stories about women existing, flourishing, and barely making it through their lives while managing children, jobs, husbands, lovers, parents, etc.

I enjoyed reading this short story collection! In every story the main character was a mother, or expecting, and they talked about the struggles of parenthood or work/life balance. Some of the stories had some unsettling undertones to them, some talked about COVID, and a lot of them had absent/missing father figures.

My favorite story was the last one, Dino Moms, which takes a Jurassic-esque park where moms and daughters are "doctors" to these dinos, and live in the park as well. There is only one story I kind of glazed over (it was getting way technical), otherwise I was able to read this collection in one sitting.

This book has me thinking, and I like that in books. There are so many struggles with motherhood, the book doesn't really glaze over them. The stories can all be set in the same universe, and some of them ran together, but they all had different messages and a different issue at hand.

Overall, I enjoyed a few of the short stories, but this has also got me thinking about motherhood. It was my first book by this author, and I would be interested in reading more in the future.
Content warnings: sexual content, toxic relationships, loss of a loved one

This was 3 stars for me!

The short stories were well written but I just couldn't connect with them personally. I enjoyed the journey of each character but there was something within the stories and characters that didn't click with me. This made my overall experience with my first Naomi Wood novel a blah moment.

It was still enjoyable in regard to the writing style and the overall flow of each story.