The Fat Ladies Club: The Indispensable 'Real World' Guide to Pregnancy

by Andrea Bettridge, Annette Jones, Hilary Gardener

They met at their pre-natal classes, and their book will give you a taste of all the emotions and changes, humourous and horrendous, which they experienced through their pregnancies and early months of first-time motherhood. Forget the textbook theory now and settle down for what amounts to an eavesdrop into their girlie chats.

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Nickie]

oh man. OH MAN, there's a certain type of female sense of humour that I just hate hate hate. And this book is full of it. It's that chick lit humour, where the 'joke' is usually self-effacing and always ends with an exclamation mark. Because that's the only way that you'd know it was funny! (there see, funny)

Here's an example:

"We had been using the front-carrying sling up until then, but when Jack hit 16 pounds I felt as though I looked just like an orangutan as I strode out. All I needed was for someone to paint my bum red and I would have been in danger of being banged up in Whipsnade Zoo!"

Hilarious. This book is full of crap like this. They've tried to provide a counter to the very biological/emotional books that you end up reading during pregnancy and describe it as just a 'girly chat' with a group of 5 women who met at an antenatal class. Well you can stick yer girly chat if you're going to use terms like 'plastic mac' for condom, if you're a person who while in labour is so horrified by the cleanliness of a hospital toilet that you get down on your hands and knees and scrub the bowl before you'll do your business (yes, I said 'business' for wee. i am turning into them), if you brag about your husband who sounds like a total chauvinist (tales of men joking about them putting an extra stitch in after the birth 'for him' - yeah, lovely) and if you mark stereotypes with stupid names like 'Perfect Paul', 'Super Sue' and a further reference to a 'dirty Duncan placenta' that I ain't going to go into.

Man, I hated this stupid book. But I gave it 2 stars because I need information and in between the crap, there was information. Seriously. Have you got information about this birth lark? Know someone who can give me some? I'll pay anything. Just give it to me. Only information can save me now.

[Sanela K.]

39. knjiga koju sam pročitala 2018. godine je "Klub debelih žena" ("The Fat Ladies Club" by Hilary Gardener, Andrea Bettridge, Sarah Groves, Annete Jones and Lindsey Lawrence). Radi se o ispovijesti pet prijateljica koje se suočavaju sa zastrašujućom avanturom zvanom - prva trudnoća. To je knjiga koju treba čitati kada počnemo razmišljati o tome da je vrijeme za proširenje porodice, prije i u toku trudnoće, a i nakon poroda. Jednostavno napisana, imate osjećaj da razgovarate sa svojim prijateljicama o temi gdje savršeno razumijete jedna drugu jer proživljavate manje-više identične stvari. Sigurna sam da će se vaše misli i iskustva podudarati bar sa jednim od pet glavnih likova u knjizi. Ocjena: vrlo dobar, 4 👍

[Preethika P]

Shout out to the Mothers and Mothers-to-be ♥️🥺♥️

Pregnancy is not a cake walk. How do I know? Read this book 🥲🙄

Having a second baby is a luxury to me then 😅 My mom is a brave woman. She gave birth to 3 babies to the world. Whenever she say the story about her labor dairies, I will always get goosebumps.

But this book didn't had a mercy to cover the facts. So abruptly thrown the facts and truth on me 😶😶

[Ruza Minić]

Првих пет година описују жене које су се породиле у исто време и биле у породилишту у исто време, када су се спријатењиле. Интересантно нарочито за младе маме...

[Sarah Hamilton]

Great read for new mothers/mothers to be.

[Anette]

Både humoristisk, informativ og ærlig bog om graviditet. Humoren er af overdrivelsesslagsen, men bliver ikke drevet for langt ud. Den bruges igennem hele bogen, så man skal kunne lide den skrivestil.
Virkelig dejligt også at høre om de mærkelige, ubehagelige og grænseoverskridende intime sider ved graviditet og fødsel frem for en poleret udgave a la bogen "To streger og tusind tanker", som benytter samme humortype, men reelt ikke kan bruges til noget. Det er også skønt at høre 5 forskellige udgaver og opfattelser i én bog. Bogen er inddelt i kapitler efter emne, så man hører alle 5 kvinders beretninger om samme emne, før man går videre til næste emne.

[Rebecca]

I'm all for a funny book about a life event that is still quite recent to me, but the sheer amount of authors each talking about the same subject just got boring. 5 stories on boobs or bowel leakages, peppered with 'funny' similes to elicit a giggle. Snore. I was sad to read one of the ladies has since passed away, however. I don't think I'll read the sequel.

[Nanna Guðmundsdóttir]

Ég las þessa á íslensku. Konurnar segja skemmtilega frá ýmsu sem þær upplifa á meðgöngu og fæðingu. Þetta er samt 20 ára gömul bók eftir breskar konur svo það er margt sem maður tengir alls ekki við. Viðhorf til brjóstagjafa og hvað þær væru að gera til að megra sig 4 mánuðum eftir fæðingu pirruðu mig hinsvegar mikið. En bókin náði aftur flugi eftir það.

[Rel]

Picked this book up at a charity shop, because it sounded interesting.
No I'm not pregnant nor do I have children and I still found it a good read. I had a giggle now and then; so it was enjoyable.
This has got me thinking maybe I should try other books that have a bit of humour to them.

[Linde]

I would definitely recommend to anyone expecting. Hilarious stories that make you laugh till you pee a little.

[Lorraine]

Read this when I was pregnant with my first daughter. Lovely story, read only if your expecting otherwise you'll find it boring.

[Sam]

I loved this book, I read it when I was expecting with my first child. I could relate to a lot of what the ladies where going through. I laughed and cried throughout the book.

[Mackenzie Glanville]

loved it, so funny

[Elínborg Kristjánsdóttir]

I read it when I had just found out that I was pregnant. It´s not that interesting, not well written and it´s very British.

[Margaret Heller]

Very funny, very British. But don't read the afterword if you're hormonal.