Butterviews

The publishers of The Ultimate Mom by Maria Bailey sent me a copy of the book for review.

EQUATION: The Ultimate Mom; uplifting stories, endearing photos, and the best experts’ tips on the toughest job you’ll ever love is just that. They’re rather specific on the cover!  Personal essays interspersed with photographs, and an appendix of tips.  From the publisher:

Whether you become a mom through adoption, by giving birth, or through marriage, your heart is never completely your own again . . . and that is one of the miracles of being a mom.

Just as no two women are the same, the experience of being a mom is different for each of us. In The Ultimate Mom, you’ll follow the journeys of mothers through a diverse collection of stories about this rewarding and challenging job. While some stories are humorous, some are inspirational, and others are poignant, all are filled with the passion, devotion, and dedication every mother feels toward her child.

Words may paint a picture, but photos tell their own story, too. The Ultimate Mom is filled with eye-catching photo of moms and their children celebrating life’s events, both big and small. You’ll also find expert advice from moms in the trenches about finding ‘me’ time, dealing with sibling rivalry, parenting a spirited child, achieving a healthy life balance, and many more timely and provocative subjects.

Join in the celebration of mothers with The Ultimate Mom.

PLUS: I’ll be honest with you.  I wasn’t looking forward to this one.  Books about motherhood – especially essays – have a tendency towards being mushy and sentimental.  I’m not exactly mushy.  I love my kids.  I’m a good mother.  I’m loving and affectionate with them.  But when people wax poetic about motherhood, it makes me cringe.  I was extremely pleasantly surprised.  The essays are simply wonderful.  They capture the good and bad, the wonderful and the grievous.  I really enjoyed reading them.  I was glad to be exposed to these particular writers as well; most of them were new to me.

MINUS: The photographs are all well done.  But I would have loved the photographs to be of the individuals in the essays.  They definitely are not.  The other minus is the appendix of experts.  While it says they are there right in the title, they are more clinical in nature, and a bit jarring when you jump into them after the essays.

EQUALS: A positive review.  The essays are so well done, and – especially if you’re a mother- relatable.  I would definitely recommend this book to other moms.

The opinions of this review are all mine.  The book was given to me gratis.

I was asked by the One2One Network to review Once in a Blue Moonby Eileen Goudge.  And HA!  I got to see it before y’all.  The book officially releases October 6th.

However – I have to disclose something.  I love Eileen Goudge.  So.  I have to admit that this review will be biased.  Unless she totally tanks the book – the review is bound to be positive from me.

Here’s the synopsis:

Sisters Lindsay and Kerrie Ann have known hardship from an early age. Without guidance from their neglectful mother, their only aid came from an unlikely source, a retired exotic dancer by the name of Miss Honi Love. When the girls’ mother was sent to prison, Miss Honi tried unsuccessfully to save them from being separated and sent into foster care.

Thirty years later, Lindsay is still trying to reconnect with her sister. The owner of a bookstore in the sleepy California seaside town of Blue Moon Bay, she was lucky enough to have been adopted by a loving couple. Unbeknownst to her, Kerrie Ann has suffered a very different life. Bounced from one foster home to the next, she ran away as a teenager before becoming a drug-addicted single mother. Now, newly sober, Kerrie Ann is fighting to regain custody of the little girl who was taken from her.

Neither sister’s expectations are met when they’re finally reunited. But as the two sisters engage in the fiercest battles of their lives, they are at last drawn together despite their differences, restoring belief in the unshakable bond of family.

So – what did I think?

Without giving away the plot, I loved it.  It really resonated with me.  Granted some of the plot resonated a little TOO well with me given my family history and brought up some old stuff for me, but I think that’s a gift of the author’s.  In addition, I think a strong theme of the book as a whole is “family is what you create it to be,” which is something I believe and live every day.

The characters are well rounded and you really get to know them, warts and all.  What’s more – you grow attached to them, you start rooting for them.  A definite sign of a good book.

An aside: I want Miss Honi Love to come and live with me, please.

For the record, had I not been in on this, I would have bought the book when it’s released.  Translated – I loved the book and you should buy it.  If you’re already an Eileen Goudge fan?  You’ll love this one.  If you’ve never read her?  It’s a great example (although you’re then going to have to read the rest of her stuff.)

Did you know that Eileen Goudge has a FaceBook page?  And Twitter?  Check her out and then check out the new book.

This review is my personal opinion. I received the book gratis.

The Equation:
When I came home from working full time outside the home, I had several interests I wanted to explore with my new-found time (ha.) One of those things was seriously preparing for emergencies. I have a family of four, plus my parents next door make six. The two kids both have special needs, and my parents are elderly and my mom is in very frail health. Between us, we have two homes and their properties to maintain, and 5 running vehicles. In this time of economic crises, both personally (my parents are on a fixed income, and my husband is laid off) and nationally, proven terrorist activity, not to mention natural disasters (we live in wildfire and earthquake country) – I wanted to put together a plan that is more concrete than “3 days of water per person on hand.” That is truly the extent of my emergency preparedness. But if you’ve ever researched preparedness and survival in any depth – you know how daunting and overwhelming it truly is. I’m still stuck, kind of not knowing where to turn first.

When the publishers of Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life
by Neil Strauss contacted me (about several books actually) I jumped at the chance to read this one, and told them to go ahead and send it. When I read up a little bit on the author – I was a little leery. Author of The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, I wasn’t looking forward to a serious take.

PLUS:
This book is chock full of information from a first person account. It makes you think. It really takes you on the author’s journey to KNOW what to do in emergency – to have the supplies, life skills, and experience to survive when it comes right down to it. It was absolutely fascinating to experience it vicariously.

MINUS:
I was looking forward to more “this is what you do” information. This isn’t exactly what I was looking for in terms of resources.

EQUALS:
A neutral/positive review. One the one hand – it’s a GREAT book. I really enjoyed it, and I couldn’t put it down. Mr. Strauss is a gifted writer who really pulls you into the journey. But it’s touted a bit as a resource guide, and this isn’t it. So really, it drops down to neutral from positive – probably because of marketing reasons. It’s marketed wrong. I highly recommend the book, especially if you have any interest in the survival community. And while it’s NOT a resource book, it certainly got me to thinking and doing a lot of research on my own, which I think is an incredibly positive effect.

Ok. I just can’t do it anymore. I’ve tried and tried and tried, but I just cannot get into this book. This is why my entry is so late in coming. I kept trying and re-trying to sit down and read the book but I couldn’t get through it.

I think the reason is it just doesn’t relate to us. Our marriage has been fraught with trials and tribulations throughout our almost 9 years – not our relationship. Our marriage has remained stable, but outside influences have shaped our lives together. Deaths, miscarriages, illness, surgeries, special needs kids, NICU, IEPs, abject poverty, living with the in-laws… In the almost nine years we’ve been married, we’ve just in the last two years are finally barely getting on our feet. We’re still paycheck to paycheck – but that’s the far cry from me calling in sick ’cause I couldn’t find $2 in the couch cushions for bus fare. Add to that the fact that I worked days and he worked nights for almost 5 years and we barely saw each other? For us… The first part of our marriage and parenthood was about survival. So I just really couldn’t relate to the problems I was seeing illustrated in the book.

That said – there is some good advice in there. Page 40 – Get Some Help – I can’t stress it enough. I suffered through and fought through a bout of PPD. I didn’t get any help with the baby stuff. I wasn’t in a position to, but that’s neither here nor there. The fact is, had I had some, it would have done a world of good. I might remember more of Joseph’s babyhood.

One thing that seemed to rub me the wrong way is some stereotypical things that just didn’t set right. The Training Weekend on Page 45 for example made me offended on both sides of the fence – the men’s for the assumption that they’re insensitive lackabouts that NEED it, and the assumption that women think they can’t take care of the children. That definitely made me feel, I don’t know, wrong somehow. But again – When we had babies (our kids are almost 7 and almost 5) I had nights and he had days. So I don’t know anything about the being home with the baby all day and then not having help when the partner comes home. In our case we were pretty much on our own on our shifts. Period. When the other got home, the other one left. So my perception may be colored.

All in all the book was not for me. But I think it might be a good book for new parents or semi-new. I didn’t fit most of the moldings or mindsets since we had to adapt to extreme circumstances. But – if you take a look at some excerpts online and think it’s your thing? I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. It’s obvious to me that a lot of thought and work went into the writing of this one.

Overall Review: Negative – I must. Even though there’s some decent information, I must automatically give a negative to a book I couldn’t get through.

This book is basically about a woman coming to terms with her past, her family, her boyfriend, and other secrets along the way. It’s a great read. It wasn’t formulaic at all – and caught me by surprise. In fact I stayed up until almost 2am last night – when I had to work today. I hardly ever do that, I need my rest too much for getting through work and the kids. I couldn’t put it down.

I’m looking forward to reading her second novel.

Overall Review: Positive