Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives by Mary Laura PhilpottMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the eARC of Mary Laura Philpott’s latest work, Bomb Shelter.
I enjoyed her last book, I Miss You When I Blink, but this one connected with me to perfection. I found a series of stories that told their own individual tales but were also interwoven to create a collection based on themes that we all experience. I completely connected with her stories of anxiety and lessening control in your children’s lives, as well as the medical issues that they have dealt with as a family. An aspect of parenthood that she mentions also struck me on the day of my first child’s birth. I distinctly recall thinking of how beautiful this child was and imagining the next 18 years and instantly coming to the conclusion that someday they will leave me. Intellectually you know as a parent that this is the general idea for shepherding your children into young adulthood, but that doesn’t change the emotional toll attached to these life changes. The other thing that I have been surprised by is that having children leave for university or work is exciting for them but the toll it takes is on the family dynamic as well. It is an odd phenomenon when the makeup of the family changes.
I love how personal these stories were to her family and yet completely relatable to other families. I have so many family things in common with her as a writer, it makes me appreciate the thoughts that she has about the events that she and her family have experienced. She has a strong voice in her work and the stories come across as thoughtful and real as well as humorous at many points. There were times that I genuinely laughed out loud because I have either experienced the same situation or thought the same thing or even simply enjoyed her take on a common situation.
This is a wonderful follow-up collection to her prior book and I can’t recommend it strongly enough! These essays will stick with me and I would say to her, Keep doing you! Highly entertaining and definitely recommend picking this one up!
#BombShelter #NetGalley #AtriaBooks
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