Display Search Bar

5 Minutes for Mom

Main navigation

5 Minutes for Books — Slummy Mummy

by

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.


Slummy Mummy by Fiona Nell was pitched to my review consideration as “Full of humor and feeling, SLUMMY MUMMY arrives on U.S. shores to delight everyone who took Bridget Jones to heart a decade ago and now has kids. Your readership will love it!”

Somehow I missed the “full of feeling” part, and as I read it, I thought that they had severely undersold this truthfully touching account of a mom who doesn’t have it all together. She’s the kind of mom who drops her kids off for school while she’s still in her pajamas, whose children sleep in their clothes so that they aren’t late for school as they rush through the morning, and who is always losing her credit card and her car keys. It is full of feeling. Some of the descriptions as she looked at her life made me stop and read them a second time.

Yes, it’s funny. Yes, she gets into scrapes that you wonder how she’s going to escape with her dignity, but Lucy Sweeney is so much more than a lovable buffoon. Keeping the Bridget Jones comparison in mind, I was glad that it was missing the excessive profanity (although there is some) that was found in that movie and novel.

“Really she’s nothing like Bridget Jones,” I thought. “She’s a real person. Yes, a bit comical, but she gets what it’s really like to be a wife and a mom. To try your best, and yet still feel as if you are failing. . . to be tempted by the differently exciting lives of others.”

Once I had finished the book, laughing, crying a bit, and thinking a lot, it hit me — hard. When I read or watched Bridget Jones it was as a married woman. I did see her as a bit of a comical buffoon, but I was not single. I think that a single woman struggling to find love probably viewed Jones in the same way that many moms today will view Sweeney — an over-the-top version of yourself or someone you know, who in spite of being a bit of a comical figure has the same deep thoughts and feelings that you do.

There is plenty of real life in this novel — real gritty life that some people might not want to read about — marital infidelity, some talk of drugs, drinking, etc — but it’s also real in that she completely “gets” what it’s like to be a full-time mom, competing with other moms, looking for friendship, hoping not to lose yourself.

It’s probably not for everyone, but if you like a little humor mixed in with some hard choices and a glimpse into a life like your own, yet not, you might enjoy Slummy Mummy.

If you’d like to win a copy, leave a comment here. We’ll announce the winner in next week’s column.

The winner of last week’s book The Motherhood Manual and gift package including a tiara is #71 Rebecca Doherty.

Reader Interactions


Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

191 Comments

  3. I want to LAUGH! I want to CRY! I want to EMPATHIZE! And then I want to do it all over again. I could do all of that if I won this book. Thanks for such a great giveaway!

    Reply

  12. This sounds like a really funny book. I would like to have a copy. I need a laugh right now.
    Thanks for the contest.

    Reply

  23. slummy mummy wow what an interesting title and now i need to read it so i can satiate my interest in the book

    Reply

  52. I really want to read this. I even checked it out from the library but had to return it without reading it because I ran out of time!!!

    Reply

  61. My book group read this – and I missed this month – they all loved it! I never got to read it though and would love a chance at a copy! 🙂

    Reply

  66. i feel like i need to read slummy mummy cuz it looks great and i need to come over my mistakes if you see what i mean… so thank you!

    Reply

  71. I really enjoyed reading your review of Slummy Mummy. I also really liked Bridget Jones so I appreciate your comparison to that book. I’d love to be entered into your giveaway!

    Thanks so much!!
    Michele R.(CA)
    [email protected]

    Reply

  72. The cover alone of this book makes me smile! I always enjoy reading a book with some humor about being a mom. Please enter me in your drawing. Many thanks, Cindi

    Reply

  109. I’m a dummy for a contest–count me in. I am anxious to find out if I fit in the slummy mummy category.

    Thanks for all of the fun contests.

    Reply

  110. I’m really glad I read through your review because I’ve got to say, the title and the comparison to Bridgit Jones turned me off pretty quickly. I think this would be a fun book to read.

    It doesn’t count as dropping your kids off in your jammies if you sleep in sweatpants, right?

    Reply

  114. Seems like a perfect book for me. I haven’t made my son sleep in his clothes yet, but it sounds like a good idea.

    Reply

  150. Thanks for that – I’m an avid reader but I don’t this one. Looks fun though – I must try it.

    Reply

  157. I saw this at the library the other day and did not get a chance to pick it up. I think it sounds very interesting and would love a chance to read it. Thanks for the opportunity.

    Reply

  159. Wow You have me soooooooo interested in this book. We as Mom’s sometimes think that we are the only ones that feel the way we do sometimes. Would love it.

    Reply

  168. Hmm I could do with some ‘light’ entertainment myself , even though my nightstand is already groaning with protest at the stack of only just started books.

    Great review – I also read and later saw the movie after I was married with a similar perspective, and you know those Brits and their profanity.
    Cheers

    Reply

  169. OMG! I put my kids to bed in the clothes they are wearing the next day to save time, and I do go to the store in the same sweatpants I’ve slept in (no point even having pajamas). This book would be great therapy for me, and help me get over my guilt for being such a slummy mummy myself.

    Reply

  174. Good review! This sounds like a book I’d enjoy reading. It’s something a little different than I’d normally read.

    Reply

  183. This sounds like a fun book. I could use something right now to make me feel like I’m doing an alright job at this mom thing.

    Reply

  184. i think I need a book like this, to make me feel “not so bad about my own mistakes” if you catch my not so subtle drift.

    Reply

  185. We all have our Slummy Mummy Momments or Hours or Days or Weeks – Thank God we can laugh about it later and usually our kids don’t see how goofy we were at the time! Although during the tween years they tune in and really enjoy Mom’s mistakes. My son loves to tell the whole family about any driving mistakes I”ve ever made and he is of course exaggerating!

    Reply

  187. Sounds like a great read. I love those kind of books – have you read “Confessions of a Shopaholic”? There’s a whole series with Shopaholic, and even though many of her antics make me cringe, I especially liked the one where she was pregnant because I could identify more with her =)

    Reply