#BookReview: WHY MUMMY’S SLOSHED by Gill Sims @whymummydrinks @HarperNonFic

Publication: 15th October 2020 – HarperCollins

I just wanted them to stop wittering at me, eat vegetables without complaining, let me go to the loo in peace and learn to make a decent gin and tonic.  
It genuinely never occurred to me when they were little that this would ever end – an eternity of Teletubbies and Duplo and In The Night Bastarding Garden and screaming, never an end in sight.  But now there is.  And despite the busybody old women who used to pop up whenever I was having a bad day and tell me I would miss these days when they were over, I don’t miss those days at all.  
I have literally never stood wistfully in the supermarket and thought ‘Oh, how I wish someone was trailing behind me constantly whining ‘Mummy, can I have, Mummy can I have?’ while another precious moppet tries to climb out the trolley so they land on their head and we end up in A&E.  
Again.

Mummy has been a wife and mother for so long that she’s a little bit lost. And despite her best efforts, her precious moppets still don’t know the location of the laundry basket, the difference between being bored and being hungry, or that saying ‘I can’t find it Mummy’ is not the same as actually looking for it.

Amidst the chaos of A-Levels and driving tests, she’s doing her best to keep her family afloat, even if everybody is set on drifting off in different directions, and that one of those directions is to make yet another bloody snack. She’s feeling overwhelmed and under appreciated, and the only thing that Mummy knows for sure is that the bigger the kids, the bigger the drink.

AMAZON

WATERSTONES

**********

To say that I adore this series, it is to say too little. I have been reading it since the first book and, every time, I find myself with tears in my eyes from laughing. The protagonist’s adventures are hilarious and kept me so engrossed that, when I finished reading Why Mummy’s Sloshed, I looked at my phone and I realized that it was 2 in the morning and maybe it was time for me to go to bed.

Ellen has been a mother and wife for twenty years and, for most of the time, she’s never felt appreciated. She spends her days cleaning, cooking, and driving around her children, now teenagers, one of whom spends his time playing video games while the other is busy with her friends and her driving lessons. Ellen has been juggling her family and work for years, but now she feels overwhelmed. With one child hopefully soon on her way to university, she starts to wonder about her identity and a future where her children won’t need her so much.

I love the character of Ellen. She is honest, relatable, smart, funny, and reliable. After four books, I feel like I know her and – having just discovered this is the final installment in this series – I know I am really going to miss reading her adventures. She gets herself in situations that are hilarious and that you can clearly see happening. And the way she recounts them is captivating and makes me laugh page after page (I still laugh every time I think about Ellen babysitting her best friend’s Devil toddler).

Why Mummy’s Sloshed can be easily read as a stand alone, but I highly recommend you also read the previous books, not only because they are entertaining and immersive reads, but because you can see how well the characters develop. Ellen’s children are growing up, her husband seems more involved in the life of their children, so can Ellen focus more on herself and what she wants?

A huge thank you to HarperCollins for providing me with a copy of the book.