Product Description

For Lucy Sweeney, motherhood isn't all astanga yoga and Cath Kidston prints. It's been years since the dirty laundry pile was less than a metre high, months since Lucy remembered to have sex with her husband, and a week since she last did the school run wearing pyjamas. Motherhood, it seems, has more pitfalls than she might have expected. Caught between perfectionist Yummy Mummy No 1 and hypercompetitive Alpha Mum, Lucy is in danger of losing the parenting plot. And worst of all, she's alarmingly distracted by Sexy Domesticated Dad. It's only a matter of time before the dirty laundry quite literally blows up in her face...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #76952 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Review
"Perfect for failed domestic goddesses everywhere"
--"Heat"
"This will have you laughing out loud"
--"Star Magazine"
"Witty, observant and supremely intelligent"
--"The Times"

Telegraph
`There is something of Bridget Jones's hopeless-but-adorable
quality about Lucy...one wonders at first how someone this disorganised
could ever have produced a flagship news programme, but Neill's hilarious
depiction of the manifold daily perils of stay-at-home motherhood is so
convincing that it soon looks like the most challenging job in the world -
and Lucy is all the more sympathetic simply for staying afloat'

Times
`Several cuts above the rest. The writing is witty, observant and
supremely intelligent'

Customer Reviews

Brief Encounter for the 21st Century?
Having enjoyed Fiona Neill's 'Slummy Mummy' column in The Times I was interested to see how she could sustain a whole novel.

By and large she succeeds, and has given us a delightful piece of 'chick lit' set in the school playgrounds and coffee shops of North London. All the characters from her column are on display here and she has taken time to expand on people and relationships where necessary.

The book centres around Lucy, Tom and their three alarmingly likable boys, and the safe secure middle class existence that must have an Aga at the heart of it! However, throw in Lucy's unmarried girlfriends with their, oh so, exciting single sex lives, Tom's mother's last chance at happiness and Lucy's self doubt and you have a pretty good read. It is basically a series of comic instances held together by one or two ongoing threads that do culminate in a satisfying if predictable ending. It does feels episodic at times but that is only to be expected from a novel that grew from a weekly item in a newspaper.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and there were one or two passages about childhood and relationships that actually made me stop and think and realise that Fiona Neill has the potential to write beyond 'chick lit'.

Hilarious and I hate "chick lit" too!
I also bought this book on the basis of the Times column, despite not being a Mum myself and not liking chick-lit, but the column always makes me laugh and the book didn't disappoint either. It is laugh out loud funny and keeps you giggling thinking about some passages ages after. The characters are great, which is partly why it is so hard to put down. A fantastic beach read for the Summer, there's already a waiting list to borrow my copy!

Some funny moments, but on the whole rather pointless
I picked up 'The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy' after I saw it had been on the Times' bestseller list and also had some glowing reviews from readers on the back. After ploughing through the 400+ pages, I had a distinct feeling of 'so what?'

For starters, Lucy Sweeney is not a completely likeable character. While this may not matter in a brilliantly written book, in 'Slummy Mummy' she grated on me and I found myself feeling exasperated at her stupidity and her bad decisions. Fiona Neill made it seem like once you become a mother, your ability to think sensibly goes out of the window. Added to that, the other characters were so vague that every time one of them appeared I found I had to go back to double check exactly who they were and what their relationship to Lucy was.

In terms of the story itself, it seems to jump from one storyline to another, only for them never to be mentioned again no matter how important they were at the time. It also feels very rushed, as if Neill was told to write this book as quickly as possible, and not worry too much about the quality of the story or the strength of the characters.

All in all, while this book is not horrible (there are some funny moments, hence the 2-stars) it just felt a bit pointless, and there are far superior 'chick-lit' writers out there (such as Sophie Kinsella), so I wouldn't recommend this book above others of the genre. Those with children may get more out of this book than a 26-year old newlywed with no children, such as myself.