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Book Review
You Make Me Feel Like an Unnatural Woman: Diary of a New (Older) Mother
By Judith Newman
Publisher: Miramax
Published: April 2004
| About the Book | About the Author | The Review | Where to Order |
About the Book
Veteran journalist Judith Newman wanted to write the book jacket description for You Make Me Feel Like an Unnatural Woman. She really did. But every time she sat down to describe her unflinching, ruefully funny look at later-life pregnancy and motherhood, something came up. One day, one of her sons, Gus, coughed up a hairball, the result of enjoying a pacifier that had been stuck for several days to the fur of their golden retriever. The next day she had to calm down her other son, Henry, who was convinced his head would be sucked down the bathtub drain. Spending the day shouting your head is bigger than the drain is not what she envisioned several years ago, when after seven years and $70,000 worth of infertility treatments, she was told, at forty, she was expecting twins. For this she spent eight months throwing up?
Today the number of women having their first child over thirty-five has increased by a bazillion fold, or some equally large scary number, and Newman is the first to write a book that tells what it's really like when a trip to the drugstore entails the purchase of both diaper cream and wrinkle cream; when "getting your shots" means both immunizations and Botox. You Make Me Feel Like an Unnatural Woman is not only about having children later in life: it's about what happens to a marriage -- and to the spirit, when even the most sought-after baby comes. Wry, warm, and brutally honest, this is the book for any woman -- whatever her age -- who has awakened at 3 AM to the insistent shrieks of her darling and thought: Oh man, I'm too old for this.
This book is available from Amazon.com
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About the Author
Judith Newman writes a monthly column for Ladies Home Journal and is a contributing editor for Allure and Self. She also writes for Vanity Fair, Harper's, Discover, and the New York Times. She lives in New York City with her sons and her golden retriever.
The Review
Warning: This book is pee-your-pants funny. Especially sitting here in my last month of pregnancy. When I was first asked to review this book, I really wasn't looking forward to it. I assumed (so wrongly!) that it was another attempt at humor that would fall short. I began reading anyway, and was finished before I knew it. As an older (37), soon-to-be-first-mom I couldn't have asked for a better book!
My husband is now reading it, and is enjoying it as much as I. I can't think of a better way for him to experience life from my point of view!
~Judy, May 2004
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