52 books in 52 weeks: Book 4: Rockabye: From Wild to Child

Where to start. I have put off actually writing this because, um, a) I am lazy and busy all at the same time these days and b)I am a silly geek who makes mountains out of molehills and creates stress where there was none. Awesome.

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Can I just leave it at at that?

No? Blogging is about sharing some of the stuff of life?

FINE.

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So, Book 4. I somehow found the personal blog of the amazing wonderwoman of a blogger Rebecca Woolf over a year ago. I fell in love with her blog, From Wild to Child, right away. I think it was her writing style, her stories of life back in the day that really got my attention; I found I could really relate to her, in general. So, as it turns out she is also on Twitter, so I followed her. Damn I love twitter.

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I soon realized she has also written a memoire style book sharing the details of her own adventures in life, through dating, an unexpected pregnancy/turned marriage/family, sharing her reactions as a woman, mother, and daughter throughout. I decided to add it to my wish list for the holidays, and sure enough, it arrived under the tree. Perfection! What does a rational person do? Read the book, thinking 'cool, i understand it so much more since i read the author's blog' and move on to Book 5. What do I do? I tweet her and tell her I am going to read it and am really excited. She replies! Yay! How cool is that, I think. I do love me some technology! So, I send her a favourite line or two, to solidify my geek status, and now she follows ME on the twitter. I know. Weird! SO now, like, um, I feel like I really need to do a fantastico-best-ever-review-of-all-reviews-ever-written-by-anyone-EVER to do justice to this AWESOME book, and all I feel qualified to really do is a fancy cut-and-paste style grade 7 book report. Zoiks! (run on sentences ftw!)

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So there. That's what's up with the delay in the 52-Books-in-52-Weeks Book Challenge. (Intimidation, you can just stand up and take a nice curtsy and then move to the side.) I will try not to let the Intimidation factor stall this process any longer. Let's just hammer this out the way I have for the other 3. k? k.

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So, The Book. Like I said above, I loved it. To let you in on the details, I will blatantly steal the text from the Amazon site, because I assume they got it from the publisher, and they seem to say it best. And I am pressed for time. So, onward: a description of Rockabye: From Wild to Child by Rebecca Woolf.

Rockabye is the lively memoir of a spontaneous young city-girl who becomes unexpectedly pregnant. That city-girl is Rebecca Woolf, who at 23, after the "holy shit, I'm pregnant" realization, decides to keep the baby, marry the boyfriend (in Vegas no less), and figure out how to wed her rock n' roll lifestyle and impending motherhood.

With humor, honesty, and renegade insight, Rebecca makes the transition from life as an odd-job doing commitment-phobic, chain-smoking, irresponsible party-girl to life as a work-at-home mother with a different kind of social life. Throughout, Rebecca doesn't relinquish the token qualities of her free-spirited, pre-baby self; rebelling against both the "soccer mom," and "young mother" stereotypes, challenging herself to grow up without outgrowing her dreams, and most importantly embracing motherhood without a map.

Rockabye explores the coming together of mother and son and their mutual coming of age. How does Rebecca adapt to motherhood? By acting on instinct and maintaining a strong sense of self, breaking rules (sometimes her own) in the process and building her own adventures out of legos and alphabet blocks.

I read Rebecca's tell-all account of girl-growth in 2 (yes two) sittings. I loved it. Easily. I found that once I picked it up I couldn't put it down. That good. I remembered the feeling, a familiar old friend of a feeling like I once had when I was 12 and reading Are You There God, It's Me Margaret for the first time. That good. It's a great account of growth and motherhood and moving from girlchild to girlmother. I loved that - that she remains true to her core, showing how one can still be her true self and a mother. It inspired me.

Her writing style flows and surprises, the tone feels authentic, like you are getting a peek in through the back screen door and witnessing it all yourself. I was grateful for the insight, and can't wait to see what she publishes next. I loved it. Have I said that enough? I feel like I should write and write and put in all my favorite quotes but GD, I need to press publish - I'm like 10 books behind on the book reports! So that's that. I really loved this book. Period.

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I'm sorry Rebecca, a professional book reviewer I am not.

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♥ leel