Monday, May 25, 2015

Book Review: Women Are Scary

Women Are Scary: The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends

By Melanie Dale
Zondervan, 2015
English, 240 pgs

Description:
A popular blogger offers solid advice to forming mom relationships, leading readers from acquaintances to lifelong friends.

Too many women are frazzled and lonely, isolated in their minivans while schlepping bags, strollers, and munchkins to and fro across town. It doesn’t have to be this way.

In this hilarious yet thought-provoking guide to “momlationships,” blogger Melanie Dale uses a dating analogy to help women get more intentional about bonding with each other.

“We are better together,” she writes. “We make each other better moms, better humans. We need each other, because mothering is just too darn hard.”

Using humor and stories from the trenches of motherhood, Women are Scary leads readers from acquaintances to lifelong friends.

“This is our journey to each other,” Melanie continues, “to finding our people and being other people’s people, learning how to bless each other and not destroy each other.”


Review:
I cannot tell you how much I have needed this book! I'm a pastor's wife and sometimes it's really hard to make good friends. There are women who want to get close to the pastor's family just to get "dirt" on them. There are women who only want to tell me how to run my family and raise my kids. It's really hard to find women who just want to be my friend. Who just want to get to know me and go clothes shopping. Who want to laugh with me instead of at me.

I love this book. I love the humor in it. I think the author and I could be wonderful friends! One quote from Doctor Who and I knew she was "my kind of person". 

This book has been particularly useful to me as we've just moved to a new church and a new city. I'm meeting new people. I get to decide who I am and present myself, with no apologies, and they can either accept me or not. I'm learning not to get myself too tied up in others opinions and expectations.

But more than that, I'm learning how to enjoy being around other women. No kid stories necessary.  There are some awkward moments, but I'm learning how to minimize that and how to move into meaningful relationships.

I received a copy of the book in exchange for a review on this blog and a commercial bookselling site. No additional compensation has been received and I was not required to write a positive review.