Welcome to Litsy!

Rachel Cusk wrote this memoir (almost a series of essays) about becoming a mother in 2001. Cusk talks about motherhood in both an intellectual way & a personal way - theres a little humor but theres a lot of distress in here. For me it is the first book ive read that captured some of the trauma & undoing of self that i personally felt going full speed from a difficult birth into a severe lack of sleep & feelings ⬇️

While pregnant with her second child, Cusk decides to write how it was to be pregnant and become a mother. Cusk gives the unfiltered truth according to her, and not everyone took lightly to that.

What I took away from is was that it doesn‘t matter how many books you read about this, your pregnancy and child will not the fit what‘s written. And how hard that can be to figure things out and how lonely it can being alone with a child.

I suppose it would be good for her to meet other babies. As far as I knew, my daughter believed that she was the only one of her kind. I worried that the truth might come as something of a shock.

(Writing about attending toddler group)

Reviewers who are mothers called this 'laugh out loud' funny. As someone peering around the corner at motherhood myself, I am leaning more towards it being slightly horrifying and at times as riveting as a thriller. Cusk is a fantastic writer and her speaking to the issue of children and who looks after them as being profoundly political, captured a lot of my thoughts in a way I couldn't put together before. ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

A gorgeously written memoir about the bewildering transition from person to parent.

A memoir of Cusk's pregnancy and the early years of her life as a mother, her writing is riveting, raw, and unforgettable. Her way of putting her thoughts and experiences into the words she chooses is so unexpected, and delightful. Recommended for Ferrante fans, different topics but a similar sense of voice and style.

I picked this up to see if I'd like her style before committing to her new trilogy, and let me say I'll read anything she writes.