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Reading lists

Books to read if you’re expecting a baby

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Features

Dazzling, raucous, rarely alone: a history of single mums in books

Sophie Heawood

Sharply observed and funny... Indecently entertaining... Beautiful.

Funny, acerbic, sometimes despairing and brutally candid... A must-read for anyone out there, floundering, scared they're doing it wrong. The writing is great in The Hungover Games, but the humour and honesty are even better.

Brilliantly bawdy and movingly tender. A warm, generous and hilarious read, it's also a great listen: 2020 was the year I got into audiobooks and this one, read by the author herself, had me guffawing in public.

Honest, moving and funny... Brilliant... [Heawood] has written a tender book about parental love that she and her daughter should be proud of.

Hilarious... It is a charming, diverting, indie flick of a memoir, a joy to gulp down.

Beautiful, laugh-out-loud, honest and, on occasion, heartbreaking.

As funny as it is moving, The Hungover Games is a gorgeous read.

Good Housekeeping *20 of the Best Nonfiction Books*

It's a deeper, funnier, realer, more poignant Bridget Jones. I have never read a more accurate account of what it feels like to be a parent, especially a single one.

Beautiful, wild, painfully honest, hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking... a soulful, truthful homage to a life lived with appetite, intensity and wonder.

Finally the book that single mothers across the globe have been waiting for... Funny, dark and true.

Reading The Hungover Games is a bit like having a new boyfriend: you think about it every second you're not with it and long for everyone to go away so that you can just lie down with it and savour its gorgeous, funny rudeness.

Gorgeous, unflinching, tender, sad, affirming and cackle-worthy. You don't need to be a mother, have one in your life or hope to become one, for the razor-sharp observations chronicled here to ring true.

I adored this debut memoir... Freewheeling, hugely funny... and genuinely soul-mining.

Ebullient, playful and creative... By turns caustic, astute and very, very funny.

This is the first time I've read anything about motherhood that didn't bore me... It's all really unconventional but laugh-out-loud funny.

Frank and fearless... a glorious validation to all parents doing it solo.

Hits that sweet spot between laugh-out-loud funny, with its accounts of first dates, LA wackiness and personal mishaps, and a lyrical lament for a life of paternity tests, an absent father and the absence of raves.

Joyfully crude and hilarious... Heawood is refreshingly unapologetic.

Achingly tender and snort-inducingly funny.

Unflinchingly honest, emotionally raw, and surprisingly sweet.

Raw and funny, Heawood’s memoir celebrates the messiness of life and motherhood with boldness, panache, and unexpected moments of real poignancy. An uncensored and eccentric delight.

Heawood writes with warmth and wit about life as a single mother.

Observer, *Books to Look Out For in 2020*

Rejoice! One of our favourite journalists Sophie Heawood – known for her hilarity and honesty – publishes her first book this year. It's a memoir about being a single mother when you haven't quite worked out how to look after yourself.

Red *The best books we can't wait to read in 2020*

[Heawood] shares her story with huge wit and sharp observation.

Irish Examiner, *12 of the best new reads for summer*

A tender and hilarious account of her life as a single mother.

This [is an] incredibly candid and often LOLs memoir about how it feels to raise a baby on your own when you're more into negronis than nappies.

Reading Heawood's often outrageous and occasionally undignified anecdotes was the perfect tonic during the second national lockdown. Though hilariously funny, her story of accidental pregnancy is also tender and poignant, with her accounts of motherhood feeling far less common through a single-parent lens.

A tender and funny account of single parenthood

Packed with humour and honesty, it's also tender, moving and relatable, detailing Heawood's own evolution and growth alongside her young daughter's, and the highs and lows of solo parenting.

The gloriously funny Sunday Times bestselling memoir of motherhood

'Deftly explores expectations of modern womanhood . . . Full of adventure and awe' Dolly Alderton 
 
People always said I'd find love where I least expected it. I always said they were idiots. 
 
I had no idea how to commit to another human being. 
 
I could barely commit to reading a magazine, and I wrote for magazines for a living. My specialist subject was celebrities, and my own relationships made their marriages look eternal. 
 
I'd never paid a household bill that didn't mention bailiffs, and my idea of exercise was to go and stand outside a famous person's house and stare until I'd convinced myself that I lived in it. 
 
 But my life in LA was happy; free of care and consequence. That was, until I came down to earth - with a bump. 
 
 So this is the story of how I staggered from partying in Hollywood to bringing up a baby in Piss Alley, Dalston; how I never did find a copy of What To Expect When You Weren't Even Fucking Expecting To Be Expecting, and why paternity testing is not a good topic for a first-date conversation. 
 
**AN EVENING STANDARD AND COSMOPOLITAN BEST BOOK OF 2020** 
**AN OBSERVER NON-FICTION BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2020** 
___________________ 
 
Praise for THE HUNGOVER GAMES: 
'Funny, dark and true' Caitlin Moran 
'A deeper, funnier, realer, more poignant Bridget Jones' Philippa Perry 
'Sharply observed and funny' Guardian 
'Frank and fearless' Red 
'Outrageously entertaining' David Nicholls 
'This is the first time I've read anything about motherhood that didn't bore me' Sara Pascoe

Sophie Heawood

Praise for The Hungover Games

Sharply observed and funny... Indecently entertaining... Beautiful.

Funny, acerbic, sometimes despairing and brutally candid... A must-read for anyone out there, floundering, scared they're doing it wrong. The writing is great in The Hungover Games, but the humour and hone ...

Outrageously entertaining.

Sharply observed and funny... Indecently entertaining... Beautiful.

Funny, acerbic, sometimes despairing and brutally candid... A must-read for anyone out there, floundering, scared they're doing it wrong. The writing is great in The Hungover Games, but the humour and hone ...

Outrageously entertaining.

Sharply observed and funny... Indecently entertaining... Beautiful.

Funny, acerbic, sometimes despairing and brutally candid... A must-read for anyone out there, floundering, scared they're doing it wrong. The writing is great in The Hungover Games, but the humour and hone ...

Outrageously entertaining.

Articles featuring Sophie Heawood

Books to read if you’re expecting a baby

Dazzling, raucous, rarely alone: a history of single mums in books

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