Book Review: Dirty Little Secrets

I know, I know.  Probably too many book reviews and not enough about me.  Wait.  That didn't sound right.  Well, you know what I mean.  This'll be the last for a while.  I'll resume our regularly scheduled bitching blogging tomorrow.

When the compact Dirty Little Secrets from Otherwise Perfect Moms by Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile was offered up for a review, the good folks at Mother Talk warned that reviewers should be able to handle sometimes disturbing confessions from well-meaning moms.  "Sure.  No problem," I thought, "I'd love to stumble across some gems that will perhaps make me feel better about my own occasionally shameful moments."

They also promised it would be a quick read - which the slim 112-pager (one quote per page, roughly) certainly is.  But instead of digging into some juicy tidbits, my initial thought was simply: "Eh."

Frankly, some of these so-called confessions are so bland I have no idea how they qualify.  Perhaps I'm too laid back myself?  Take this one:

"I locked my two-year-old daughter in my car and stood helplessly as I watched her take her hair clip out of her hair and put it in her mouth." [emphasis theirs]

Okay, now I get that locking your kid in the car is scary - especially since in my part of the country kids can easily die from heat exhaustion as a result.  So, yes, absolutely a "holy crap, that was scary!" story - but a confession?  And what, in God's name, does it matter that she put a hair clip in her mouth?  I doubt that part would have even registered with me during the ensuing freak-out.

Other confessions were so bland and cliche that I was almost angry at wasting the nanosecond it took to read it:

"My biggest fear as a mother is being judged by other moms."

Um, join the club.

And yet others were less shocking than simply sad:

"My husband would be really surprised if he knew that I thought about divorce more times than I can count."

The last person I heard say something similar actually did divorce a few months later.  Which is fine, if that's what has to happen.  But reading about it in what is supposed to be a light-hearted romp through the less-than-perfect world of mothering, well it's just disheartening.

But it wasn't all blah.  There are a few great, laughable quotes, and a handful more that had my moms' night out group scribbling notes, like the following gem:

"When I'm at Safeway I buy a Nordstrom gift card and charge it as groceries, I can justify it that way."

Or my personal favorite:

"My rule is beer at lunch, wine at 5. Wine at lunch feels like I have a 'problem' but beer just seems OK."

Unfortunately, this book's so-so factor outweighs the laughable moments.  I appreciate where they were trying to go, but the authors just didn't get me there.  You'd probably get just as lucky if you bring a few bottles of wine to the next mommy get-together.

Comments

[Heather]

The first "confession" actually makes me think of my best friend. When her daughter was about 16 months old and had hair that needed either a trim or reinforcements, I casually suggested hair clips. You would have thought I suggested setting her on fire. She was so appalled because her daughter might put them in her mouth!

[the aitch]

Yeah My first thought was the choking factor with the hair clip. Her kids locked in the car and now going to choke on something.

[Abacaxi Mamao]

I thought the hair clips thing was about choking, too.