Don't Forget to Scream: Unspoken Truths About Motherhood

by Marianne Levy

'Every person - parent or not - ought to read this . . . beautifully written and searingly honest'
i

Like grief or falling in love, becoming a mother is an experience both ordinary and transformative - one that not only turns your world upside-down, but your inner self, too.

In this frank, funny and fearless memoir, Marianne Levy writes with heart-wrenching honesty about love and loss, rage and pain, fear and joy. She breaks the silence around the emotional turmoil of raising a child and asks why motherhood is at once so venerated and so undervalued.

Here is the real story of being a mother in the modern world, voicing the unspoken truths that everyone needs to hear.

'I've never read a book about motherhood that captures so perfectly the impossible complexity of it all . . . genius'
Irish Independent
 

240 pages, Paperback

Published October 31, 2023

Reviews

[Derval · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Mothers who had replaced their profile pictures with those of their kids, as though announcing their own obsolescence."

This is a book that all people considering having children should read. Especially men who say they want children, but haven't really considered what that means for their own life, or even more importantly for the life of the woman they will need to bear that child. It's honest and harrowing, but not horrifying enough to traumatise... I think! I thought the earlier sections of the book were much stronger than the last couple of essays, which is why I'm deducting a star. But overall a well-written, at times even entertaining read.

[Jeni Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Levy is quite funny, and quite brutally honest - both aspects I very much appreciated in her memoir. While I did find some essays more meandering, to the point where I'm not sure I fully followed the logic, they were mostly outstanding.