Book Review: Look How Happy I’m Making You by Polly Rosenwaike

The Blurb:

A candid, ultimately buoyant debut story collection about the realities of the “baby years,” whether you’re having one or not.

The women in Polly Rosenwaike’s Look How Happy I’m Making You want to be mothers, or aren’t sure they want to be mothers, or–having recently given birth–are overwhelmed by what they’ve wrought. Sharp and unsettling, wry and moving in its portrayal of love, friendship, and family, this collection expands the conversation about some of women’s most intimate experiences.

One woman struggling with infertility deals with the news that her sister is pregnant. Another woman nervous about her biological clock “forgets” to take her birth control and confronts the reality of becoming a single parent. A new mother with postpartum depression finds comfort with a much younger man. A psychologist who studies infant laughter faces her best friend’s tragedy.

Together, these twelve empathetic stories reveal pregnancy and new motherhood in all its anxiety and absurdity, darkness and wonder.

My Rating: ★★★★

My Review:

I’ve struggled with miscarriage and infertility, with the monthly thrill of anticipation that this might be the cycle and the crushing despair when hopes are dashed. I’ve struggled with the rollercoaster of emotions, of hormones and fear, the uncertainty that what I’m fighting so hard for might not be what I truly want.

I’ve been through childbirth twice. I’ve been an anxious new mum of a tiny and very colicky baby. I’ve experienced crazy joy looking into the eyes of my little ones as I fed them myself. I’ve cherished the special moments and fought hard when times were tough to protect my most precious loves. I’ve watched them grow into the most amazing human beings I’ve ever known (mother’s bias).

And now I’m headed out the other side toward menopause, toward the end of my childbearing (I hate that word) years, making me nostalgic for those ‘baby years’.

Look How Happy I’m Making You is beautifully written collection of short stories that encompasses those most hard fought and wondrous times. Told with such compassion and honesty, these 12 stories detail the complex emotions behind some of the most intimate times in a woman’s life.

Each of these stories has something valuable to offer….an insight, a deeply emotional truth, a rawness that delivers the realities of motherhood.

Look How Happy I’m Making You is a must read for all women approaching, entrenched in or nostalgic for the ‘baby years’…now if only I could get a book like this for menopause please and thank you….that would really help a lot. 🙂