This article is a must-read for every new mom.

Lamott's writing style is truly remarkable. She has the ability to make you burst out laughing with her witty humor and at the same time, she makes you empathize deeply with her total honesty.

Her words have a way of touching the hearts of readers, especially those who are new moms and are going through the challenges and joys of motherhood.

The book is filled with relatable stories and experiences that will make you feel less alone and more understood.

It is an excellent read that not only provides entertainment but also offers valuable insights and perspectives on motherhood.

Whether you are a first-time mom or have been through it before, this book is sure to resonate with you and leave you with a smile on your face and a warm heart.

So, don't hesitate to pick up this book and embark on a journey of laughter, empathy, and self-discovery.

I didn't like this as much as I initially thought I would.

I'm certain that all new parents experience difficult and neurotic intrusive thoughts regarding their babies and the world.

However, living with my own such thoughts is truly enough!

It's quite a challenge to constantly have these thoughts swirling around in my mind.

I wonder if others feel the same way or if I'm just being overly sensitive.

Maybe it's a normal part of the parenting process, but it still makes me feel a bit on edge at times.

I hope that as time goes by, these thoughts will become less frequent and less intense.

For now, I'll just have to do my best to manage them and focus on the positive aspects of being a new parent.

Something deep within me tells me that I will reach for this book multiple times in the upcoming weeks as I embark on the journey of parenthood and face all its uncertainties. Lamott reveals the harsh and unfiltered truths about the "fourth trimester," long before we were even aware that it (and postpartum depression) existed. Her courage to openly discuss fear, anxiety, and grief is a rare form of honesty that I haven't come across in other parenting books.

However, it's not without its flaws. Written in 1989 and published in 1993, many of her descriptions of people made me feel uncomfortable. Additionally, her references to God and faith may not resonate with everyone, including myself most of the time. But I do appreciate the lighthearted manner in which she acknowledges her devotion. It's as if she herself can hardly believe that she believes in all of it.

I should have written this review when I finished the book, but I procrastinated for so long that I might have forgotten some of my initial thoughts. However, one thing I do remember clearly is that Lamott borderline disgusts me. If she had bothered me just a little more, I would have been thoroughly disgusted with her as a person.

When you pick up this book, you might assume it's about her son's first year of life, right? Given the title "Journal of My Son's First Year" and all. But no, that's not the case.

It turns out to be a hidden platform for her political rants, and that really annoys me. If that's what she wanted to write about, whether alone or with snippets of her son and/or home life, that would be fine. But she should have given some kind of warning. Her political and other rants are a significant part of the book, no matter how she tries to slip them in without the readers noticing.

Another major issue for me is that she's not funny. It's as simple as that. I can laugh at someone I don't like, so it's not because of that. She just lacks a sense of humor.

I'm still completely clueless as to why she - or anyone else for that matter - thought she was important enough to write this book. Who the hell is she? Granted, this could be said about many books these days, but that doesn't make it any less true in this case.

She's so unfunny that her jokes are the kind that would make the average person roll their eyes. I have no idea where these glowing reviews are coming from. I suspect that the majority of them are from people who agree with her political views and just want to show their support. But I have a problem with that. If I think a book sucks, I'm not going to rate it highly and write a glowing review just because I happen to agree with the author on some point. And the same goes for the opposite situation. After reading some of the reviews and reading between the lines, I'm guessing that not everyone feels the same way. Oh, well.

Oh, by the way, in case you didn't get it after the first 200 times she mentioned it, her son Sam is really, really beautiful. My daughter is also beautiful, but you don't see me publishing a book with over 100 pages of me saying "Julia is so beautiful!" What the hell.

In conclusion, I can't believe I let this piece of junk sit in my house for so long. If no one orders it on PBS in the next few days, I'm seriously going to throw it in the trash. That way, no one else will have to suffer through her stupid rants.

I'm truly glad that I didn't come across this when my precious babies were in their infancy.

Had I done so, I'm certain I would have been reduced to a puddle of tears throughout.

The author has managed to vividly capture in words the intense emotional roller coaster that parents experience during a baby's first year.

It's as if she has taken all those complex and overwhelming emotions - the joy, the excitement, the exhaustion, the worry, and the love - and transformed them into a beautiful and relatable narrative.

Reading this article, one can't help but be transported back to those early days with their own little ones, remembering every precious moment and every heart-wrenching challenge.

It's a powerful reminder of just how special and life-changing the first year of a baby's life can be.

Your enjoyment of this book is likely to hinge upon how tolerant you are of Anne Lamott's neuroses.

I truly adored the sections that detailed her newborn son's growth and behavior. It was fascinating to read about the various stages of his development and the little quirks and actions that made him unique.

However, by the end of the book, "The Anne Show" really started to grate on my nerves. Postpartum can be an extremely challenging time, especially without a supportive partner. But I found it difficult to empathize with her attention-seeking angst.

That being said, I have to admit that she is a talented writer. Her prose is engaging and often quite humorous. She has a way of bringing her experiences to life on the page that makes it easy for the reader to connect with her.

Overall, while I had my issues with some aspects of the book, I still found it to be an interesting read. If you can overlook Lamott's neuroses and focus on the beautiful moments she shares about her son, you may very well enjoy this book.

A few things were laugh-out-loud-funny, which really made me burst into laughter. However, a lot of things were kind of ridiculous and seemed rather absurd. Having a new little dude ourselves, there were indeed moments and events that I could relate to. It was like seeing a reflection of our own experiences in some of those situations. But the self-absorbed self-deprecating thing really got on my nerves and became really tiresome for me. It felt like it was being overdone and was no longer charming or interesting. Also, yes, I understand that you belong to a predominately black church, but it seems like you keep harping on it. It's time to move on and focus on other aspects of your life and the story. There are so many other things that could be explored and shared instead of constantly bringing up this one point.

I truly relished this book.

It is written from the perspective of an individual who discovers themselves astonished and amazed to be fulfilling the role of "mother."

Lammott navigates her son's first year with a combination of humor and unflinching honesty.

Although I hope I never consider leaving my son on the porch overnight just to obtain a few additional hours of sleep, I value the author's candor regarding her desires to do so.

And I am certain that I will empathize even more once the little one finally arrives on this side of the door.

The book offers a unique and refreshing look into the challenges and joys of motherhood, presented in a way that is both engaging and relatable.

It makes me reflect on my own expectations and fears as I anticipate becoming a mother myself.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the complex and wonderful journey of motherhood.

I can clearly understand why some people might regard this as the original mommy blog. She truly embodies the essence of the genre, yet she was penning her thoughts approximately 20 years before it actually gained significant popularity. This implies that her writing is refreshing, sincere, humorous, and at certain moments, perhaps a bit too much information (TMI).

On a personal note, as a mother myself, I could deeply identify with her emotions that ranged from profound adoration to utter exhaustion.

As a Christian, I could really empathize with her reliance on Jesus and her unwavering faith to navigate through almost everything.

However, as a distinct personality, I could hardly connect with her at all. We hail from such disparate backgrounds, inhabit such different environments, and have reached such diverse conclusions regarding certain matters. It was almost as if I was reading about a mother residing in a foreign land, perhaps even speaking a different language.

All of these elements combined to make it an extremely engaging read, especially since I am currently pregnant and have a voracious appetite for reading anything related to babies. I only deducted one star because I cannot wholeheartedly recommend it to all audiences, mainly due to some of the TMI and the values that are expounded upon.

Overall, it was a unique and thought-provoking literary experience that offered both moments of connection and moments of divergence.

This book is truly a gem that should be included in the discharge folder of every mother as she departs the hospital with her precious, unpredictable, and enchanting little one. Lamott's words beautifully capture the contradictions I've encountered while raising an infant. The overwhelming love that clutches at your stomach and fills your chest is intertwined with feelings of helplessness, exhaustion, and even a hint of selfishness, as you find yourself praying for someone to come and take the crying baby away.

Her humor and profound insights have been a great help to me. They enable me to recognize the beautiful moments and remind me that mothering is an active verb. We learn by doing. Her openness in exploring her own anxieties about motherhood, relationships, and the future has given me the courage to face my own fears. The journal format of the book allows me to see how these anxieties gradually transform into wisdom. I believe this evolution is possible at any stage of our lives, but it seems especially significant when we are trying to come to terms with the enormity of motherhood. Now, I feel more inspired to embrace the mysteries of motherhood rather than being drained by its constant unpredictability.

Some of the snippets from the book are truly remarkable. For instance, "No one ever tells you about the tedium. (A friend of mine says it's because of the age difference.) And no one ever tells you how crazy you'll be, how mind-numbingly wasted you'll be all the time. I had no idea. None. But just like when my brothers were trying to take care of our dad, it turns out that you've already gone ahead and done it before you realize you couldn't possibly do it, not it a million years." (Nov 6th) This passage really hits home and makes me realize that the challenges of motherhood are often underestimated.

Another great snippet is, "I wish he could take longer naps in the afternoon. He falls asleep and I feel I could die of love when I watch him, and I think to myself that he is what angels look like. Then I doze off, too, and it's like heaven, but sometimes only twenty minutes later he wakes up and begins to make his gritchy rodent noises, scanning the room wildly. I look blearily over at him in the bassinet and think, with great hostility, Oh, God, he's raising his loathsome reptilian head again." (Nov 22nd) This description is so生动 and relatable, it makes me smile and nod in agreement.

The book is filled with such wonderful and thought-provoking passages that I find myself constantly coming back to it for inspiration and comfort. It's a must-read for any mother or anyone who is interested in the journey of motherhood.

This was an Anne Lamott book that I had skipped for years and years. I thought I wouldn't appreciate it until I was a mom. Well, I'm glad I waited.

Definitely, I wouldn't have had the same level of appreciation if I hadn't been able to connect with the motherhood aspect.

As much as I adored this book, I feel it was crafted for someone like me: a liberal, slightly neurotic, spiritual mom. If you don't fit all four of these descriptors, you might end up disliking this book to some extent, or perhaps even a great deal.

One aspect I truly relished was the peek into Anne Lamott's writing process. Its subtitle, "A Journal of My Son's First Year," makes it seem like a genuine journal that Anne maintains as a writer. She not only reflects on motherhood but also delves quite a bit into her craft. Having her practice presented in this way was almost as valuable as "Bird by Bird."

I discovered that writing about a baby prompts you to contemplate what it means to be human. And if it's your own baby, it makes you think about what you desire for your child and what that implies about you as an individual. Lamott writes, "I guess he'll have to figure out someday that he is supposed to have this dark side, that it is part of what it means to be human, to have the darkness just as much as the light--that in fact the dark parts make the light visible; without them the light would disappear. But I guess he has to figure other stuff out first, like how to keep his neck from flopping all over the place and how to sit up."

The book is replete with moments that the hospital had been cautioning me were indicators of postpartum depression. I myself endured a significant amount of postpartum anxiety, such as bursting into tears at the thought of bringing my five-day-old son to the doctor when it was around 2 degrees outside. However, Anne's daily journal assisted me in envisioning what it must be like to have full-blown depression. It sounds truly dreadful, and I believe this book could be of great help to a mom experiencing it to understand what is happening to her.

As I typically find with Lamott's writing, there were sections that made me laugh out loud (drawing stares from my fellow public transit riders), parts that made me tear up, and numerous parts that made me pause reading just to reflect for a while on what she had said. Her anxieties about her son seemed so familiar, like the way she would start fixating on what she would do if her son grew up to be a Republican, but how she mostly just prays and prays that he outlives her.

This book made me a bit envious of Lamott, as she has a job that enabled her to stay home with her baby. This would sometimes sting me on my way to or from work, because it's极其 difficult to leave my infant for twelve hours at a time, five days a week. Her journal made me long to be an established writer who could stay home with her baby and write continuously.

Oh, how I wish I had read this book when my children were babies!

At that time, I was in the throes of new motherhood, finding it incredibly difficult yet loving my children with an intensity that was almost unbearable. I often felt alone and isolated, thinking that no one else could understand the complex emotions I was experiencing.

But Annie Lamott's words in this book just hit the nail on the head. She describes the joys and challenges of motherhood with such honesty and authenticity that it makes me feel like I'm not the only one going through this. Her writing is both comforting and empowering, giving me the courage to embrace the chaos and beauty of raising children.

If only I had known about this book earlier, perhaps my journey through new motherhood would have been a little easier. But better late than never, and I'm so grateful to have discovered Annie Lamott's wisdom now.