BOOKS: The Yummy Mummy

"Satisfying, deeply-layered..."

The Yummy Mummy
by Polly Williams
(Hyperion, 2007)

Rebel Review based on Advance Readers Edition from Hyperion -- now available at Amazon.com

"Nothing shakes one out of a shoe-centered singleton apolitical existence quite like a baby..."

So laments Amy Crane, our main character and a newly-mummified singleton (living with the father of her 6-month-old baby, Evie, but not yet committed to marriage), formerly a fashion- and career-obsessed girl-about-London. Vaguely Bridget Jones, post-baby? Maybe a little, but The Yummy Mummy is definitely a more satisfying, deeply-layered, grown-up tale, about finding one's place in the universe as a mother; reconciling relationships with self, post-baby body, the father of the baby, and, in Amy's case, her mother and family history of abandonment and divorce.

The writing is clever, with humor and angst to which any mother can relate. Readers will appreciate all the familiar events, phases, situations, innermost thoughts, feelings and insecurities as Amy evolves from New Mummy to Yummy Mummy...

"Do these women not work? Evidently not. There is no sign of any tailored office clothes. No, these women are either full-time yummies or, like me, on maternity leave, having a sabbatical from working life. If the latter is the case, why aren't they frumpy and disoriented and unable to engage in witty adult repartee? Was there some prenatal class in postpartum glamour that I skipped? And how come they all look like they know what they're doing? Perhaps I am the only mother in London who feels like she's muddling through, pretending."

Ultimately, Amy finds, or, rather, is discovered by, a guide and mentor in Alice, a devastatingly gorgeous and with-it Yummy Mummy, who takes Amy under her wing and into the rarified club of Yummy Mummies: A richly-rendered group of women who seem to have the mommy thing down. Amy learns how to get back into shape, how to dress, how to shop, where to go, what to do, how to be a Yummy Mummy: simply fabulous, in all aspects of appearance, anyway. In the process, she learns Yumminess is not really all it appears or all its cracked up to be.

About the Author: Polly Williams is a journalist who writes on style and celebrity for In Style magazine, as well as other publications. She lives in London with her husband and son. More info at www.PollyWilliams.com.