review 1: Kelly Corrigan's memoir explores the premise that we women all channel our mothers to some extent. She escpaes a somewhat fraught relationship with her own non-fun mother by heading off on a post-college exploration ( Mom says she needs to get a job and her own health insurance) - and when she runs out of money in Australia she ends up in a 6-month job as a live-in nanny for a widower and his two young children (and his father-in-law and his step-son). The experience leads her to look at families in a different way , and to see the functional truth truth of ther own mother's statement that in Corrigan's family Dad is the glitter (fun) and Mom is the glue( making things work.) Then she has kids of her own - and becomes her mother. Corrigans mental and emotional transition... mores make for interesting reading, although the last part of the book is not as compelling as the Australia story. The writing is good; reading is easy and provokes thought without being heavy-handed. Just a shade short of a 4 - i'd have scored it up a bit more if the later parts of the book had not felt a bit rushed and underdeveloped. review 2: I think I was looking for something else audio by Kelly Corrigan and this was all the library had. Overall it was good and pretty well written I guess. Another mother/daughter book focused more on motherhood. The bulk of the book focused a period that Kelly traveled the world with a girlfriend where in a long layover she became a nanny. It made her reflect on who she thought her mother was and who she maybe instead was. Then the book jumped forward 15 or so when Kelly was a mom herself. It changed her the same why it seemed to change her mom...which in my view point was a negative change to the point that maybe it's not even worth the journey though it seemed like but Kelly and her mom loved it and wanted to wave the motherhood flag high. Not for me though....these seem like reasons not to become a mom instead of reasons to make the jump. less
