Why Mummy Doesn’t Give a ****!

· HarperCollins
4.5
31 reviews
Ebook
352
Pages
Eligible
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About this ebook

Family begins with a capital eff.

I’m wondering how many more f*cking ‘phases’ I have to endure before my children become civilised and functioning members of society? It seems like people have been telling me ‘it’s just a phase!’ for the last fifteen bloody years. Not sleeping through the night is ‘just a phase.’ Potty training and the associated accidents ‘is just a phase’. The tantrums of the terrible twos are ‘just a phase’. The picky eating, the back chat, the obsessions. The toddler refusals to nap, the teenage inability to leave their beds before 1pm without a rocket being put up their arse. The endless singing of Frozen songs, the dabbing, the weeks where apparently making them wear pants was akin to child torture. All ‘just phases!’ When do the ‘phases’ end though? WHEN?

Mummy dreams of a quirky rural cottage with roses around the door and chatty chickens in the garden. Life, as ever, is not going quite as she planned. Paxo, Oxo and Bisto turn out to be highly rambunctious, rather than merely chatty, and the roses have jaggy thorns. Her precious moppets are now giant teenagers, and instead of wittering at her about who would win in a fight – a dragon badger or a ninja horse – they are Snapchatting the night away, stropping around the tiny cottage and communicating mainly in grunts – except when they are demanding Ellen provides taxi services in the small hours. And there is never, but never, any milk in the house. At least the one thing they can all agree on is that rescued Barry the Wolfdog may indeed be The Ugliest Dog in the World, but he is also the loveliest.

Ratings and reviews

4.5
31 reviews
Midge Odonnell
May 27, 2020
I wasn't really sure what to expect from this book as I have not read either of the previous 2 books in the trilogy. to be honest, you definitely don't need to as this is truly a stand alone story that is really, a bit of a gem. Of course you are thrown straight in to Ellen's world and just expected to know the major players in the tale. However, the writing is such and the voice of the narrator so charming that you immediately "get it" and the tone genuinely feels like a good old chinwag with that friend you have known your whole life and you have a plethora of in jokes and key phrases that only mean something to the two of you. I loved the whole moving in to her dream cottage and then finding out that the dream was damp and gloomy and not what it had looked like on the beautiful day she first saw it. How relatable for anyone that has ever moved in to a new house; no matter how perfect it really is somehow your imagination makes it better whilst you wait for moving in day so it always feels a let down when you finally get there. It seemed like the perfect metaphor for her separation and divorce and I am sure this was deliberate but it didn't mar my enjoyment. The only glitch for me in the book was Ellen's seeming eagerness to get back out there and find someone. Maybe if I'd read the first two books I would know what the gap is between the marriage breakdown and this move but it just seemed awfully fast and like she hadn't given herself time to fully lick her wounds. Although, dating just to get away from two teenagers does seem like a plan. Talking of which I really enjoyed the portrayal of her children in this book; they were living breathing anachronisms as all teenagers are and whilst you could feel the strong love between each family member you could also see all the tensions as they try and figure out who they are and what they want from their own lives. To be honest a masterfully handled book that genuinely made me laugh.
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Sarah Jones
August 26, 2019
So many grammatical errors that it isn't even funny anymore! I gave this author a second chance after reading the drivel that is "Why Mummy Drinks" and truthfully, I want my 5er back! Load of moaning that they are hard up for money when they call themselves middle class
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Bridie Newton
September 17, 2019
Funny, emotional, thought provoking. A cliche perhaps, but then this is full of them - in a good way! Thoroughly enjoyed it, as I enjoyed the previous two. Hoping for another one at some point....
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About the author

Gill Sims is the author of the hugely successful parenting blog and Facebook site ‘Peter and Jane’. Her first book Why Mummy Drinks was the bestselling hardback fiction debut of 2017, spending over six months in the top ten of the Sunday Times Bestseller Charts, and was shortlisted for Debut Novel of the Year in the British Book Awards. Her globally bestselling Why Mummy series has now sold over a quarter of a million copies.
She lives in Scotland with her husband, two children and two Border terriers, because apparently one terrier didn’t cause her enough trouble.
Gill’s interests include drinking wine, wasting time on social media, trying and failing to capture her lost youth, and looking for one of the dogs when he decides to go on one of his regular jaunts, while trying to stop the other one eating unspeakable things.

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