Review by Booklist Review
Davies' first book is magnetic attraction in memoir form: it will pull readers in with stories that are funny, insightful, and bordering on farce while also pushing them away with darker pieces about loss, mental illness, and an immense amount of physical pain. Davies uses her oodles of talent to remind readers that human beings are never just one thing, and in her essays, we see a whole life revealed. She is not only a college dropout, a child of divorce, a divorcée herself, a mother of three (one of whom is a son with autism who might also be a sociopath), a postpartum depressive, a sufferer of an autoimmune disease but all those things and more. These snippets do not follow Davies' life chronologically but, rather, give readers an opportunity to see the moments of her life that shaped who she is, and changed her. Her writing jumps from the page as Davies bares her soul, holding nothing back. Readers will laugh and cry, probably at the same time.--Spanner, Alison Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This powerful debut collection of essays follows Davies from an unsettled childhood (her parents relocated often and divorced when she was 13) to a fulfilling life as a writer, wife, and mother. A number of these essays were previously published in literary journals; combined here, they portray a sensitive yet fierce woman who battles anxiety and rises from the despair of a failed marriage to find happiness with a second husband in a blended family (three kids from hers, two from his previous marriage). The opening piece, "Night Swim," sparkles with vivid descriptions of Davies's two young, carefree daughters swimming, even as Davies imagines the complications of life that they will face as they get older. "Keeping the Faith," in which Davies details an accident she once witnessed, is startling, tragic, and ultimately redemptive. The strongest piece is the title essay, "Mothers of Sparta," in which Davies tells of the struggles she encountered raising her son, who is autistic and sociopathic. Not all of the pieces are equally powerful: an essay on men she "would have" slept with seems both quirky and misplaced (Ben Carson makes the cut, as does Hermann Rorschach), but the author's observations on parenting are spot-on (once you have kids you "must tiptoe through the rest of your life"). Whether perceptively exploring joy or anguish, Davis digs deeply. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A collection of quirky, funny, sad, and moving short personal essays that compress the author's life into the snippets and moments that shaped who she is today.Davies, whose work has appeared in various journals and the Best American Essays 2015, doesn't offer a detailed, exhaustive account of raising her children or of her own childhood. Rather, she gracefully distills her formative experiences into a purer form, capturing each time frame with a few apt examples that illustrate the impact they had on her. Readers will sense the author's loneliness and despair at the constant moves she made as a child. "You should have known," she writes. "Your happiness should have told you. As soon as you get used to the things in a place, as soon as you find your footing, as soon as you give yourself permission to like it, it is time to go." This early feeling hovered over Davies as she grew into adulthood, married, had children, and toiled through a divorce. She recounts how she offered solace to a young car accident victim but took years to comprehend the magnitude of that moment; struggled with her pregnancies and postpartum depression; and found humor in the stoicism of a New England Thanksgiving dinner. She also shares her many conflicting emotions regarding the joys and challenges of raising an autistic son. Throughout, Davies balances the positive and negative elements of motherhood, and in one laugh-out-loud section, she offers her picks for "Men I Would Have Slept With" (before her marriage), an intriguing list that includes Frederick Douglass, Jeff Buckley, Jason Bateman, LeBron James, and Ben Carson (!), among others. In the kaleidoscopic array of experiences she has chosen to share, readers will feel the depth and breadth of this woman's life.Forthright, entertaining essays that portray all the love, struggle, and anguish of being a woman and a mother. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
