Why Mummy Swears
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By Gill Sims
avg rating
4 reviews
The hilarious second novel, and Sunday Times No 1 Bestseller, from author of the smash hit Why Mummy Drinks.
Monday, 25 JulyThe first day of the holidays. I suppose it could’ve been worse. I brightly announced that perhaps it might be a lovely idea to go to a stately home and learn about some history. As soon as we got there I remembered why I don’t use the flipping National Trust membership – because National Trust properties are full of very precious and breakable items, and very precious and breakable items don’t really mix with children, especially not small boys.
Where I had envisaged childish faces glowing with wonder as they took in the treasures of our nation’s illustrious past, we instead had me shouting ‘Don’t touch, DON’T TOUCH, FFS DON’T TOUCH!” while stoutly shod pensioners tutted disapprovingly and drafted angry letters to the Daily Mail in their heads.
How many more days of the holiday are there?
The Boy Child Peter is connected to his iPad by an umbilical cord, The Girl Child Jane is desperate to make her fortune as an Instagram lifestyle influencer, while Daddy is constantly off on exotic business trips…
Mummy’s marriage is feeling the strain, her kids are running wild and the house is steadily developing a forest of mould. Only Judgy, the Proud and Noble Terrier, remains loyal as always.
Mummy has also found herself a new challenge, working for a hot new tech start-up. But not only is she worrying if, at forty-two, she could actually get up off a bean bag with dignity, she’s also somehow (accidentally) rebranded herself as a single party girl who works hard, plays hard and doesn’t have to run out when the nanny calls in sick.
Can Mummy keep up the facade while keeping her family afloat? Can she really get away with wearing ‘comfy trousers’ to work? And, more importantly, can she find the time to pour herself a large G+T?
Probably effing not.
Reviews
Funny but not ss good as the others
I had already read this book before It was chosen for our reading group, and I enjoyed it even more the second time round.
the book is well written and the characters and situations are believable.
definitely a good read
Unfortunately I just couldn’t get along with this book. I did appreciate the author’s observations of the humour in everyday situations, and the honesty in the mother’s responses and thoughts. However, the style of writing really irritated me, and became a distraction. To be fair, I am probably not in the book’s target readership, with my baby and young children days long behind me!
The eponymous “Mummy” (aka Ellen) has two fairly typical children, a husband who is constantly off travelling the world on business trips and a loyal dog who remains fairly sane whatever the world throws at him. With a house that needs constant upkeep and children who are making constant demands, Ellen decides she needs to go back to work to earn some much needed cash. She surprises herself by getting a very good job indeed, but somehow fails to mention the family and kids to her work colleagues. Trying to live up to her single party-girl image at work as well as running a household single-handedly proves to be something of a challenge. As she lurches from one crisis to another with the kids running wild, Daddy totally oblivious and the pressure mounting at work, Ellen somehow manages to find the time to keep a diary which she shares with us in this book.
There is an awful lot to like about this book. It is fast-paced, jaunty, witty and very clever. There are a couple of laugh-out-loud moments (always embarrassing when they happen on the bus), but on the whole it is just very amusing. The observations are extremely perceptive and there are numerous situations which I could relate to, despite neither being married or a Mum. It is an easy read, full of situations that we have all encountered, struggled with and probably messed up. The characters are well developed and are plausible, believable and likeable. It reminded me very much of Allison Pearson’s “How hard can it be”, in terms of both content and style.
One minor quibble was that I did find the length of the sentences a bit of a problem at times. The style of writing is almost “stream of consciousness” which does lead to some very long-winded sentences and I got a bit lost sometimes. This was a particular issue when a very long essay on a subsidiary, but related, topic appeared mid-sentence in parentheses – by the time I got to the end of the essay I had trouble picking up the continuation of the original sentence as I was off in a different place, different time-zone, different planet! Having said that, the logic and syntax of these “stream of consciousness” ramblings is actually impeccable – it just takes a bit of following!
I also expected the manic and frenetic writing style to irritate me after a while, but, somewhat surprisingly this didn’t actually happen. Once I got into the swing of it I enjoyed every minute.
I loved this book and would thoroughly recommend it. I haven’t read Gill’s first book but will definitely be keeping an eye out for it.
