Brutally Honest Memoir: Drunk Mom by Jowita Bydlowska

A bestseller in its native Canada, Drunk Mom is a gripping, brutally honest memoir of motherhood in the shadow of alcoholism. (Publisher's Summary)

Jowita Bydlowska thought she had her drinking under control, but one drink after three years of sobriety sent her spiraling downward into full blown alcoholism. Drunk Mom is Jowita's personal account of how her addiction to alcohol took control of her life, from drinking binges and their subsequent blackouts to the extreme measures she took to hide her drinking to her ultimate fight towards recovery, which included a stint in rehab that did not work because as Bydlowska's writes, "she was not desperate enough to want sobriety." With the help of Alcoholics Anonymous she was able to stop drinking, but fully admits, that addiction is forever.

  

A Mother's Love

Looking for books featuring mothers? Stop by our book display on the Lower Level of the library for a few novels including:

The Chocolate Money 

by Ashley Prentice Norton:

The story of the daughter of a glamorous chocolate heiress who must navigate a complex landscape of wealth, sex, and decadence through a privileged childhood in Chicago and an East Coast prep school, with only her narcissistic mother to guide her. As funny as it is scandalous, The Chocolate Money is Mommie Dearest, Prep, and 50 Shades of Gray all rolled into one compulsively readable book. 

Secret Daughter 

by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Interweaving the stories of a Kavita, an orphan; Somer, the American doctor who adopted her; and Asha, the Indian mother who gave her up in favor of a son, a debut novel moves between two families--one struggling to survive in the slums of Mumbai, the other grappling to forge a cohesive family despite their diverging cultural identities.

Confession of Super Mom 

by Melanie Lynne Hauser

Endowed with extraordinary powers in a bizarre cleaning accident, middle-aged single mother Birdie Lee becomes her town's unwitting champion against a sinister force, an adventure that is challenged by Birdie's smug ex-husband, her teenagers, and a string of PTA meetings. "Like its title character, this debut novel has a secret identity: while it appears too adorable at first, and too typical, it's unexpectedly poignant and packs an emotional punch despite the cheery veneer." (Publishers Weekly Reviews)

Beautiful Day 

by Elin Hilderbrand

The Carmichaels and the Grahams have gathered on Nantucket for a wedding. Plans are being made according to the wishes of the bride's late mother, who left behind The Notebook: specific instructions for every detail of her youngest daughter's future nuptials. Everything should be falling into place for the beautiful event--but in reality, things are far from perfect. While the couple-to-be are quite happy, their loved ones find their own lives crumbling. In the days leading up to the wedding, love will be questioned, scandals will arise, and hearts will be broken and healed.

The Hand that First Held Mine 

by Maggie O'Farrel

Fifty years after an unconventional reporter of genteel origins becomes a single mother, present-day London painter Elina navigates the first weeks of motherhood upon surviving a dangerous labor and learns that her life is disconcertingly linked to the woman from the past.

Fiction featuring moms

Mothers' Day is fast approaching (Sunday, May 13, 2012).  If you're looking for some great new books that feature moms, try:

• Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman by Friedrich Christian Delius - A Nazi-era German woman, on her way to a Bach concert in Rome, tries to remain aloof and emotionally distant from the war but comes to the gradual realization that her husband might never return from the front.
• Four of a Kind by Valerie Frankel - When they are thrown together on the Diversity Committee for their children's Brooklyn Heights private school, four mothers impulsively turn their awkward first meeting into a poker game betting with intimate secrets of their lives.
• Come Home by Lisa Scottoline - Rebalancing her life and career after a painful divorce, pediatrician Jill learns that her ex has died from an alleged overdose that her former stepdaughter believes was actually murder.
• Stay Close by Harlan Coben - A bored suburban wife, a documentary photographer-turned-paparazzo and a detective who cannot let go of a cold case hide secrets from their loved ones only to have the past return in dangerous ways.
• The Possibility of You by Pamela Redmond Satran - Three women confront challenges in motherhood, including an Irish nanny who suffers a loss during the 1916 polio epidemic, a San Francisco hippie who meets a grandparent for the first time, and an adopted journalist who searches for her birth family.

All of these great new titles are available at Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library - reserve one now by following the link, clicking "request," and entering your library barcode information.

New Release: America Pacifica by Anna North

For fans of doomsday novels like Cormac McCarthy's The Road, this debut novel about one of the last habitable places on Earth may be a good next read. After an Ice Age descends upon the planet, the fictional island America Pacifica is one of the last places that supports human life. It doesn't take long for a strict heirarchy to establish itself, with ordinary people like Sarah and her 18-year-old daughter Darcy at the bottom eating jellyfish and seaweed while a privileged few at the top dine on steak and potatoes. When Sarah mysteriously goes missing, Darcy discovers that her mother is involved in a clandestine resistance movement, and that nothing will ever be the same for either mother or daughter on this postapocalyptic island nation of American Pacifica.