Rating: 
Summary: Oh Please...
Review: This book is so unabashedly poor-me drivel that I can't believe it was published. I loaned it to a writer friend of mine, and she is of the same sentiment. Motherhood does not need to be this melodramatic, this difficult. Oh please.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful
Review: This book was given to me at my baby shower and now that my son is just over a year old, I have finally had the time to read it. I could KICK myself for not picking it up sooner. It was fun, warm, loving and very, very HONEST. While I didn't document what life was like during my first pregancy, because of this book, I now intend to record everything about my son and mothering my son, so I can look back on it in the future and share it with him.
I am not a single parent, but my husband does go away for long periods of time and I therefore know what it's like to be on my own as a mother. The author, however, faces everything alone and shows tremendous strength and courage with the undertaking. She's a little out there (not the type who fades into the woodwork), but she proves that pregnancy and motherhood has many universal features.
I highly recommend reading this book--or giving it as a gift during your next baby shower.
Rating:
Summary: Brutally honest...
Review: You'll need to keep a box of Kleenex handy for this book because you'll either be laughing so hard tears stream down your face or you'll be sobbing over the tragically sad and tenderly touching passages. Anne Lamott writes about her first year of single motherhood and her magnificent yet extremely trying baby boy, Sam. She's brutally honest about the good and the bad. If you have fluffy powder blue and pastel pink images of parenthood, brace yourself for some shattered illusions. Her nutty family, endearingly loyal friends, eccentric church congregation, and Marin County community of slightly off center characters create a real pageturner. Anne Lamott takes us on a privileged journey into her very peculiar mind. Despite what she claims in one paragraph, it really is a fun place to visit. Also woven through the story is the sorrowful tale of the failing health of her best friend. Be prepared to gobble this book up in one sitting. _Operating Instructions_ is an uncompromising story from the true trenches of parenthood. There's no idealized "What to Expect..." nonsense here. Also, Anne is a Christian but is a radical, liberal, defiant one. For those of you who have somewhat narrow ideas about what it means to be a Christian, take a look at Annie...she'll twist your mind around like a pretzel. Some people may find Lamott's leftwing politics and theology offensive. Also, parents should be warned that this book contains very coarse language. I first read this book when I was still single and had no children. I was hooked! Years later when I was pregnant with my son, I pulled it back off the shelf and used it almost like a reference book...a glimpse of things to come! During my son's first year, my husband and I often referred to passages from this book in our struggling efforts to maintain a sense of humor in the midst of newborn madness. I have reread _Operating Instructions_ many times over the years and have also recommended it to others and given it as a gift. I now recommend it to you...
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