The Mum Who’d Had Enough

Fiona Gibson

Jun 2018 · Sold by HarperCollins UK

About this ebook

The voice of modern women is back! Perfect for fans of Milly Johnson and Jill Mansell. ‘More than funny, it’s true!’ Elle

After sixteen years of marriage, Nate and Sinead Turner have a nice life. They like their jobs, they like their house and they love their son Flynn. Yes, it’s a very nice life.

Or, at least Nate thinks so. Until, one morning, he wakes to find Sinead gone and a note lying on the kitchen table listing all the things he does wrong or doesn’t do at all.

Nate needs to show Sinead he can be a better husband – fast. But as he works through Sinead’s list, his life changes in unexpected ways. And he starts to wonder whether he wants them to go back to normal after all. Could there be more to life than nice?

Ratings and reviews

Oh dear, I think I am becoming more staid and judgmental as I get older - this book really annoyed the heck out of me. Let's begin with Sinead's list, what a poxy set of excuses for walking away from your marriage; even worse poor Nate believes that they are all true and that everything is his fault. In fact, we never get to really hear his side of things about the state of their marriage. What we get is Nate trying to fix things by "working through" the list to become Sinead's idea of a perfect husband. Yes, marriage isn't easy and it involves a great deal of compromise - something that Sinead seems to expect Nate to do but is not willing to bend on herself. There is some humour in the book but I found this to be overridden by my active distaste for the basic idea and how unsympathetic a character Sinead is. Every chapter from her perspective had me gritting my teeth as she launched in to another self-absorbed monologue about how hard it all was having left her husband and son. Fortunately, Nate was more upbeat, even in his depression there was a whimsy about him that appealed - however, the selling of his record collection was a foolish move and I could have slapped him. Also his best friend changes name throughout one chapter going from Paolo to Paulo and back to Paolo where he fortunately remained. Not sure how that got missed by the proofreaders but it did and it annoys. Normally Ms Gibson's female characters are flawed but fun. In this case the only one who felt like this was Tanzie and even she was slightly off the mark somehow. I'm not sure why but I found the whole book to be rather misogynistic with the women no more than caricatures rather than characters. Not a great read but it struggled to a second star because of the relationship between Nate and his son and the way in which his disability is treated as just part of him and as something that shouldn't stop him in life. Other than that I found very little to recommend this book.

A good past time read. Didnt find it too gripping or funny.

Really liked reading this book. Wished for a better ending though.

About the author

Fiona Gibson is an author and journalist. Originally from Yorkshire, she started her writing life at the age of seventeen on Jackie magazine. She is a regular contributor to Red, Sainsbury’s Magazine and the Sunday Herald, and lives with her husband and their three children in Lanarkshire, Scotland.