Literary Mama writing about the many faces of motherhood
Reviews
2020
March 2020 A Review of The Hard Tomorrow
A Review of Counting by Sevens
January 2020 A Review of Hail and Farewell
A Review of Motherhood So White
2019
November 2019 A Review of You Are No Longer in Trouble
A Review of The Four Ugliest Children in Christendom
September 2019 A Review of The World is Our Classroom
A Review of The Body at a Loss
June 2019 A Review of Motherhood
A Review of Little Million Doors
May 2019 A Review of Hurtling Toward Happiness
April 2019 A Review of Fruit of the Earth
March 2019 A Review of On Immunity: An Inoculation
A Review of The Bird Catcher and Other Stories
February 2019 A Review of The Widows
A Review of Fierce Attachments
January 2019 A Review of Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear
A Review of Hard Child
2018
December 2018 A Review of Every Room in the Body
A Review of Fruit Geode
November 2018 A Review of The Resurrection of Joan Ashby
A Review of Woman, Running Late, in a Dress
October 2018 Review of Motherhood Reimagined: When Becoming a Mother Doesn’t Go as Planned
A Review of What She Was Saying
September 2018 A Review of And Now We Have Everything
A Review of Amateur Hour: Motherhood in Essays and Swear Words
June 2018 A Review of The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mother’s Suicide
A Review of Starting with Goodbye: A Daughter’s Memoir of Love After Loss
A Review of Exploded View: Essays on Fatherhood, with Diagrams
May 2018 Between Fantasy and Truth: A Review of The Hour of Daydreams
April 2018 A Review of Unbound
A Review of Madwoman
March 2018 A Review of the sun and her flowers
A Review of Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History
February 2018 A Review of Homing Instincts
January 2018 A Review of Life as It
A Review of Unpacked: From PEI to Palawan
2017
December 2017 A Review of Pain Woman Takes Your Keys and Other Essays from a Nervous System
Women Bear the Secrets: A Review of ‘Round Midnight
November 2017 Mamas Still Doing It: A Review of If Mom’s Happy: Stories of Erotic Mothers
A Review of Hagar Poems
October 2017 A Review of Lilli de Jong
September 2017 A review of The Wide Circumference of Love
A Review of Not a Self-Help Book: The Misadventures of Marty Wu
June 2017 A review of Figuring in the Figure
A review of Beartown
May 2017 A review of Moments of Seeing
April 2017 Once upon a time: a review of Tasty Other
A review of Spells for Victory and Courage
March 2017 The Crossroads of Impossibility: A Review of Lucky Boy
A review of The Solace of Stones
February 2017 The Spectrum at Home and at Work: A Review of Beyond Rainman
Childhood as Presence: A review of Fuego
January 2017 A review of No More Milk
Nasty Women with Nowhere to Go: A review of Malafemmena
2016
December 2016 A Review of The Body’s Alphabet
A review of The Death of Fred Astaire and other essays from a life outside the lines
November 2016 The Mother-Daughter Narratives of Elizabeth Strout
October 2016 A Review of Louder Than Everything You Love
September 2016 A Review of A Piece of Sky, A Grain of Rice: A Memoir in Four Meditations
A Review of Mother Tongue: My Family’s Globe-Trotting Quest to Dream in Mandarin, Laugh in Arabic, and Sing in Spanish
June 2016 Fragile Expectation: A Review of The Grass Labyrinth
A Review of From Curlers to Chainsaws: Women and Their Machines
May 2016 Beyond the Two: A Review of The Argonauts
A Review of Recipes for a Beautiful Life: A Memoir in Stories
April 2016 A Blue Planet: A Review of Little Spells
Pinch of Sugar: A Review of Know the Mother
Motherhood Denied: A Review of Poor Your Soul
March 2016 A Review of How Winter Began
No Blame, No Rest: A Review of A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy
February 2016 Ingredients of Identity: A Review of Receipt: Poems
January 2016 Honoring Your Core Self: A Review of Wild Mama
Like a Compass into the Far Night: A Review of Broom
2015
December 2015 Mothering and Soldiering through Love and Loss: A Review of Losing Tim
November 2015 Musical Intimacies: A Review of Like a Song
October 2015 Cosmic Longing and Family Secrets: A Review of Harriet Wolf’s Seventh Book of Wonders
Mothering the Unknown: A Poetry Roundup Review
September 2015 Radical Compromise as Redress: A Review of Katherine Bode-Lang’s The Reformation
Mothering in the Face of Adversity: A Review of Silent Running by Robyn K. Schneider with Kate Hopper
June 2015 Papas and Their Literary Daughters: A Review of Every Father’s Daughter: Twenty-four Women Writers Remember Their Fathers
One Father’s Complicated Joy: A Review of Jon Pineda’s Little Anodynes
Madwoman in Love with the Universe: A Review of Phenomenal
May 2015 Strange Landscapes: A Review of Cynthia Marie Hoffman’s Paper Doll Fetus
For Everything There is a Season: A Review of Cassie Premo Steele’s Earth Joy Writing: Creating Harmony Through Journaling and Nature
April 2015 The People We Might Have Been: Mary Anna King’s Bastards
From Text to Table: A Review of Books That Cook: The Making of a Literary Meal
March 2015 Love and Loss Entwined: A Review of Helen on 86th Street and Other Stories by Wendi Kaufman
February 2015 A Review of The M Word: Conversations about Motherhood
Daughter, Interrupted: A Review of If I’d Known You Were Coming
January 2015 Nesting Instincts: A Review of Molly Sutton Kiefer’s Nestuary
2014
December 2014 In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning: A Review of Know the Night and Precipice Fruit
Imprisoned Mothers, Imprisoned Babies: A Review of Deborah Jiang-Stein’s Prison Baby
November 2014 Russian Roulette: A Review of When Rain Hurts: An Adoptive Mother’s Journey with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
October 2014 Rich Interiors: A Review of Ona Gritz’s Geode
Adoption, Attachment Disorder, and Healing: A Review of Tina Traster’s Rescuing Julia Twice
September 2014 Art and Family Intersect: A Review of Family Trouble: Memoirists on the Hazards and Rewards of Revealing Family
August 2014 Pain and Miracles: A Review of Labor Day: Birth Stories for the Twenty-First Century
July 2014 Body of Work: A Review of The Rhetoric of Pregnancy
June 2014 Literary Papas: A Review of When I First Held You
June 2014 Adrift in Fog: A Review of Leaving Tinkertown
June 2014 Demeter Press: Publishing Groundbreaking Motherhood Studies for Eight Years—and Counting
May 2014 The Slow Dance of Medbh McGuckian: A Review of The High Caul Cap
May 2014 Capturing Impermanence: A Review of Wendy Wisner’s Morph and Bloom
April 2014 Great Expectations: A Review of How to Expect What You’re Not Expecting
March 2014 A Review of Ghostbelly: A Memoir
March 2014 Adopting a Son, Becoming a Mother: A Review of Susanne Antonetta’s Make Me a Mother
February 2014 Children, Illness and the Blessing of Language: A Review of House and Fire
February 2014 Language and Life: A Review of The Translator
January 2014 Poetic and Profane: A Review of My Mother Did Not Tell Stories
January 2014 A Review of The Good Mother Myth
2013
December 2013 Memoirs for New Christian Moms: A Review of Random MOMents of Grace and A Good and Perfect Gift
December 2013 Unanswered Questions: A Review of The Unfinished Child
November 2013 Debunking the Motherhood Myth: A Review of Ready for Air
October 2013 A Review of Have Milk, Will Travel: Adventures in Breastfeeding
October 2013 Holding On While Letting Go: A Review of Holding Silvan: A Brief Life
September 2013 Review of Barbara Crooker’s Gold
September 2013 A Review of Wanda Praisner’s Where the Dead Are
August 2013 Review of Yona Harvey’s Hemming the Water
August 2013 Review of What My Mother Gave Me
July 2013 Everyday Redemption: A Review of Ride the Tortoise
The Art of Journaling: Five Favorite Books
June 2013 A Hero’s Journey: A Review of Into the Wilderness
June 2013 Father Nature: Two New Books on Dads, Kids, and the Natural World
June 2013 Superdads: A Review of Glad to Be Dad
June 2013 A Review of The “Backwards” Research Guide for Writers: Part of Our Mini-Series on the Craft of Writing
May 2013 The Motherhood Fantastic: A Review of What You Are Now Enjoying: Stories
April 2013 How to Live: A Review of The Still Point of the Turning World
A Literary Smörgåsbord: Five New Books on Food and Family
March 2013 A Review of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction: Part of Our Mini-Series on the Craft of Writing
Brief Interludes: Three Poetry Chapbooks on Mothers and Motherhood
March 2013 Book Bites: New Books from Seal Press
February 2013 High-Tech Fertility and Tenacious Humor: A Review of Cheryl Dumesnil’s Love Song for Baby X
January 2013 Maternal Belonging as a Means to Freedom: A Review of Three Recent Short Story Collections
2012
December 2012 Literary Creation and Formation: A Review of Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother?
November 2012 A Review of Use Your Words: Part of Our Mini-Series on the Craft of Writing
A Review of What’s Your Book?: Part of Our Mini-Series on the Craft of Writing
October 2012 Reckoning What-If: A Review of Sweet Devilry
September 2012 Crazy Brave: An Interview with Joy Harjo and Review of Her New Memoir
September 2012 What’s Mine Is Yours: A Review of Three Memoirs on Surrogacy
July 2012 Tidy Shows of Denial: A Review of Ericka Lutz’s The Edge of Maybe
June 2012 Do the Right Thing, Baby: A Review of Honeycomb Kids and A Million Tiny Things
June 2012 Down Syndrome, Family, and Belonging: A Review of The Shape of the Eye
June 2012 Domestic Grandeur: A Review of John Estes’ Kingdom Come
May 2012 What Lies Beneath: A Review of Things We Didn’t Say
April 2012 The Syntax of Motherhood: A Review of Bring Down the Little Birds
March 2012 Home Is Where the Revolution Is: Two Fresh Takes on Domesticity
March 2012 A Time to Read: A Review of For Sale By Owner and The Desires of Letters
February 2012 Finding Yourselves: A Review of Black Milk
January 2012 Love and Literature: A Review of Tolstoy and the Purple Chair
January 2012 Tales of Food and Family: A Review of Quarter-Acre Farm, Eating for Beginners, A Tiger in the Kitchen, and Maman’s Homesick Pie
2011
December 2011 Between Wonder and Fear: A Review of Milk Dress
November 2011 Prayers for a Normal Life: A Review of Letters from a Distant Shore
October 2011 Desiring Motherhood : A Review of Good Eggs
October 2011 Mamas Writing Motherhood: A Conversation on New and Best Books on Craft
September 2011 Shake off the Stupor and Get to Work: A Review of Raising Elijah
August 2011 Honest Voices: A Review of Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering
July 2011 The Here and Now: A Review of A Double Life: Discovering Motherhood
June 2011 When Having It All Becomes Too Much: A Review of Papa, Ph.D. and Torn
May 2011 Surviving the “Werewolf” Years: A Review of Three Essential Books on Parenting Teen Girls
April 2011 Mid-Life Rebirth: A Review of Shamrock and Lotus and The Life You’ve Imagined
March 2011 A Mother’s Terror: A Review of 31 Hours
January 2011 On Being Conspicuous: A Review of On the Outskirts of Normal: Forging a Family Against the Grain
2010
December 2010 Through a Storm of Ping-Pong Balls: A Review of Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention
November 2010 Celebrating the Everyday: A Review of The Gift of an Ordinary Day and Hand Wash Cold
October 2010 To Be Of Use: A Review of Necessary Turns
September 2010 Who’s Your Daddy? A Review of Blood Strangers: A Memoir
July 2010 Grounded in Love: A Review of Gravity Pulls You In: Perspectives on Parenting Children on the Autism Spectrum
June 2010 Mother Knows Best but Father Knows a Fair Amount, Too: A Review of Four Books on Fatherhood
May 2010 When Mom Chooses Suicide: A Review of Imperfect Endings: A Daughter’s Tale of Life and Death
May 2010 Between Art and Motherhood: A Review of The Absence of Anyone Else
April 2010 The Art of Avoiding Random Horrors: A Review of Three Works of Poetry
March 2010 Broadening the Motherhood Discussion: A Review of Who’s Your Mama? and Unbuttoned
February 2010 A Writer Finding Her Voice: A Review of This Lovely Life: A Memoir of Premature Motherhood
January 2010 Clean Margins: A Review of Cancer Is a Bitch (Or, I’d Rather Be Having a Midlife Crisis) by Gail Konop Baker
2009
November 2009 Reclaiming Mama Plath: A Review of Ariel: The Restored Edition and The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath
October 2009 Modern Families, Modern Roles: A Review of Eye of My Heart: 27 Writers Reveal the Hidden Pleasures and Perils of Being a Grandmother
August 2009 Motherhood is Nuclear: A Review of The Maternal Is Political
July 2009 Balanced between different worlds: A review of Love in Condition Yellow: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage
June 2009 Gathering Storms: A Review of Real Life and Liars
April 2009 New Beginnings, Complicated Endings: A Review of Mother in the Middle: A Biologist’s Story of Caring for Parent and Child
February 2009 Smart Moms, Tough Choices: A Review of Mama, PhD: Women Write about Motherhood and Academic Life
January 2009 Intimate Connections: Barbara Crooker’s Line Dance
2008
October 2008 In It Together: A Review of A Suburban Mom: Notes from the Asylum
September 2008 Writing the Maternal in The Gathering
May 2008 Mapping Motherhood: A Review of Terrain
April 2008 Traveling to the Interior: A Review of The Book of Sleep
March 2008 A Foreign Love: A Review of Losing Kei
March 2008 Unprepared: A Review of Roadmap to Holland: How I Found My Way Through My Son’s First Two Years With Down Syndrome
Navigating Motherhood: A Review of Jump at the Sun by Kim McLarin
January 2008 Legacy, Identity, and Motherhood: Social or Biological? A Review of Because a Fire Was in My Head
2007
December 2007 Lost and Found: A Review of About What Was Lost: 20 Writers on Miscarriage, Healing, and Hope
November 2007 Ain’t I a Woman? A Review of I’m Every Woman: Remixed Stories of Marriage, Motherhood, and Work
October 2007 Of Choice and Circumstance: A Review of Maybe Baby and Choice
Unflinching Honesty: Beth Ann Fennelly’s Tender Hooks
August 2007 How It Was: A Review of The Mother-to-Mother Postpartum Depression Support Book: Real Stories from Women Who Lived Through It and Recovered
July 2007 The Nanny 411: A Review of Searching for Mary Poppins: Women Write About the Intense Relationship Between Mothers and Nannies
June 2007 Forging Ahead of the Fork in the Road: A Review of Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood after a Lifetime of Ambivalence
May 2007 Not One Mother, But Many: A Review of The Women Who Raised Me
March 2007 Not the Brady Bunch: A Review of My Father Married Your Mother: Writers Talk about Stepparents, Stepchildren and Everyone in Between
February 2007 Single Mom Seeking: A Review of Single Mom Seeking: Play Dates, Blind Dates, and Other Dispatches from the Dating World
January 2007 Uniquely Alike: A Review of Great with Child: On Becoming a Mother
2006
December 2006 If the Buddha Gave Birth: A Review of Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood
December 2006 Not Quite Haiku: A Review of Haiku Mama (because 17 syllables is all you have time to read)
October 2006 Baby Steps: A review of Baby Steps: How Lesbian Alternative Insemination Is Changing the World
October 2006 Midwifery and Magic: A Review of The Birth House
September 2006 Chick Lit Grows Up: A Review of Sweet Ruin
August 2006 Bigger Isn’t Always Better: A Review of Nice Big American Baby
June 2006 Trailblazing the Ordinary: A Review of Confessions of the Other Mother: Nonbiological Lesbian Moms Tell All!
June 2006 Seeking Caitlin Flanagan: A Review of To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife
May 2006 War, What Is It Good For? A Review of Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families
Mother Teresa or Medea: A Review of Unraveled: The True Story of a Woman Who Dared to Become a Different Kind of Mother
April 2006 The Feminine Mistake: A Review of Happy Housewives and the Return of Housewife Chic
March 2006 Trading Sweatpants for Sex: A review of Confessions of a Naughty Mommy: How I Found My Lost Libido
March 2006 Identity, Freedom, Motherhood: A Review of Madras on Rainy Days
January 2006 Inspiration: A Review of From Motherhood to Mothering, The Legacy of Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born
2005
December 2005 Truly, Madly, Gently: A Review of Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family
November 2005 Telling it Like it Is: A Review of I Wanna be Sedated: 30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers
November 2005 Reality Check: A Review of Beyond Good Intentions: A Mother Reflects on Raising Internationally Adopted Children
November 2005 Does Motherhood Make You Crazy? A Review of Inconsolable and Down Came the Rain
October 2005 From War to Revolution: A Review of The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars: Who Decides What Makes a Good Mother and Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety
September 2005 Common Threads: A Review of Weaving a Family: Untangling Race and Adoption
September 2005 A Review of Three-Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work, and Family
August 2005 Mothering in the Shadow of the Two Towers: A Review of Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write about Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race & Themselves
June 2005 Mother-Hunger: A Review of Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart
Setting the Stage: A Review of Mamaphonic: Balancing Motherhood and Other Creative Acts
May 2005 Head Trip: A Review of Elizabeth Graver’s Unravelling, The Honey Thief, and Awake
May 2005 Who Bears The Burden? A Review of The Middle of Everything: Memoirs of Motherhood
May 2005 We Are Not Alone: A Review of The Grand Permission: New Writings on Poetics and Motherhood
Songs of Truth: A Review of Mothersongs: Poems For, By, and About Mothers
February 2005 Mother Luck: A Review of A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother and The Lucky Ones
February 2005 A Review of Beyond One: Growing a Family and Getting a Life
A Review of Rise up Singing: Black Women Writers on Motherhood
A Review of The Real Minerva
Masks, Chains, and Myths: Analyzing Motherhood
Heartbreaker To Root For: A Review of Shout Down the Moon
Unmoored: A Review of Swimming With Maya: A Mother’s Story
Wake Up and Smell the Martinis: A Review of The Three-Martini Playdate: A Practical Guide to Happy Parenting
A Review of Departures
A Whorish Madonna: A Review of Mommy’s Little Girl: On Sex, Motherhood, Porn, and Cherry Pie
Born and Raised in this Dead-End Town: A Review of Growing Up Fast
Starving for Affection: A Review of How I Learned to Cook, and other writings on complex mother-daughter relationships
Learning Curve: A Review of The House on Beartown Road: A Memoir of Learning and Forgetting
Not In Her Footsteps: A Review of Mothering Without A Map: The Search for the Good Mother Within
How She Writes It: A Review of I Don’t Know How She Does It
Fear of Failing: A Review of A Potent Spell: Mother Love and the Power of Fear
The Milky Way: A Review of Fresh Milk: The Secret Life of Breasts
A Gentle Guide: A Review of Buddha Mom: The Path of Mindful Mothering
Toddling Toward Community: A Review of Toddler: Real-life Stories of those Fickle, Irrational, Urgent, Tiny People We Love
Shock Value: A Review of Mother Shock: Loving Every (Other) Minute of It
Too Cool for Preschool: A Review of Breeder: Real Life Stories From the New Generation of Mothers
The Woman in the Moon: A Review of Guarding the Moon
A Look at Life Before Hip Mama-hood: A Review of Atlas of the Human Heart
The Wonder Years: Three writers talk about the time that leaves most of us speechless
© 2020 Literary Mama