If you love drinking wine and listening to your best friend talk about their crazy life events, then The Hungover Games by Sophie Heawood is for you! It’s a true story based on Sophie’s life as a single mom, navigating through still partying and dating, and what she learned along the way.

This book was not what I expected when I first saw the cover, but I surprisingly enjoyed it! At the beginning, I was hanging on to every word the author wrote, and I wanted to hear more about her story and bad life choices. My interest trailed off as the story went on, but I loved the sarcasm, wit, and humor!

After several intense books in a row, all I wanted to read was something light and funny and true. And this, my friends, was perfect! Sophie Heawood is/was a British entertainment journalist living in LA who accidentally gets pregnant after being told she would never conceive naturally. She warmly and hilariously tells the story of adjusting to her new life as a mum, moving back to London, trying to find love, etc. She writes about parenting in a very relatable way and I had moments where I felt wonderfully seen in her words and moments where I laughed really hard at her stories.
Great for fans of writers like Caitlyn Flanagan and shows like “Catastophe.”

3.5 stars, rounded down.

The Hungover Games chronicles a woman's journey from being a single woman to unexpectedly expecting a child. This is a journey of single motherhood, of parenting, of missteps, and of finding and forming families we don't always expect.

The writing was excellent and I often laughed out loud. While I'm not a mother, I still found aspects of Heawood's story relatable and raw. The memoir is self-aware, honest, and doesn't shy away from uncomfortable truths and struggles of being a single parent.

I sometimes hoped for more analysis of events and their impacts rather than their results, but I still enjoyed this read.

I recommend!

The author shares her real life story her life in Hollywood her getting pregnant. This book is hilarious and at the same tines gravs your heart.I really enjoyed getting to know the author,#netgalley#littlebrown

The "hero" comes off as very self absorbed, and it's really nothing new. Reminds me of being held hostage by a tipsy housewife monologuing her laundry list of domestic complaints, leaving no room for a polite exit strategy.

"The Hungover Games" by Sophie Heawood is hilarious. It feels like "Modern Family" meets "Bridget Jones" meets "One Day at a Time." (Yes, I'm showing my age).

I can totally relate to meeting a dude on the internet and having a "whoopsie" pregnancy. Thankfully everything worked out for the both of us. But, damn, it's hard to grow up AND raise a tiny person especially way before you're ready! I mean, how perfect is the chapter "What to Expect When You Weren't Expecting to be Expecting?" lol

This book is so funny, so raw and so relatable. And I love every single run-on sentence because Sophie can write anyway she wants.

Special thanks to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my review.

This is a laugh out loud funny memoir. Sophie does an amazing job of telling her story in a hilarious and raw manner with no judgment for herself or others in the choices we make. While trying to get her life together she suddenly finds herself responsible for another. I loved her writing and her story. I felt as though we were having a glass of wine and she was telling me about her life - a sign of a fun memoir.

This books jumps you right into the life of a celebrity journalist. You catch a behind the scenes glimpse of life in LA, the good, the bad, the rich and the real life. Detailed and comical it’s a must read

First I would like to thank Netgalley and Little, Brown and Company for the ARC of The Hungover Games by Sophie Heawood. I actually did not end up finishing this book because I felt it was relatively uninteresting and I felt like I had read this same story before.

I loved The Hungover Games! I requested it because it was billed as funny, which it is--to the point where I laughed out loud multiple times (and I rarely find books tagged humorous to be funny)-- but it's also a deeply heartfelt and honest book about being a parent.

The author, Sophie Heawood, became pregnant after being told she was infertile while working as a freelance journalist for British publications in L.A. She paints a very accurate (and very funny) portrait of what L.A. was like in the early aughts, and then another accurate and honest, but deeply fond, portrait of London.

Heawood's insights into parenting are savagely honest, deeply true, and written with a mix of love and snark. I came away from The Hungover Games very impressed with her writing, her love for her daughter, and her ability to make even the grimmest of moments gleam with humor and hope.

Absolutely recommended, especially for those who remember the first (and frankly, best) book to feature Bridget Jones.

The premise of THE HUNGOVER GAMES caught my eye immediately. This book was referred to as FLEABAG meets BRIDGET JONES DIARY, so naturally I envisioned Phoebe Waller-Bridge in each and every scenario (not complaining!)

Sophie, a Hollywood journalist finds herself unexpectedly pregnant after a one night stand. What follows are reflections about pregnancy and motherhood with some definite laugh out loud moments. Ultimately, while I wanted to really like it, I found it a little boring.

Each chapter is its own short vignette and as it often goes, some were more entertaining than others. And despite the title being fun, it doesn't match the story. It's far more about parenthood than it is about the hangover/partying aspects of one's life.

Overall a sweet story that I think mothers may appreciate more than I did. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3.

Thanks Little Brown and Netgalley for the chance to read/review in exchange for an honest review.

Sophie Heawood is honest and raw and just the girl we need in our lives to tell us exactly how it is!! This is her true life story and while some of it left me laugh it my butt off, others had me crying and clapping for her. What a life to live, and most of us can and will relate.

The Hungover Games is an amusing and poignant glimpse into the world of a woman who didn't mean to become a mother, but who found her life's path when she got there.

"It had all happened by accident. I hadn't meant to have a baby at all. I hadn't meant not to have a baby either, by which I mean I always thought I'd have children one day."

Sophie Heawood was barely scraping by, living from paycheck to paycheck as a journalist in Hollywood. After a misadventure in Mexico, which had nothing to do with her reproductive health, she discovers in a round-about way that if she ever does decide to have children, it may be impossible without fertility treatments.

"In my life, it was as if I was the captain of a magnificent ship but was somehow, always, at this moment, just this one perpetual moment, in a dinghy buffeted about in the ship's wake, always about to catch up with myself. Up ahead on the magnificent ship, I was organised and sober and slim and shiny-haired, all of which was always coming soon, like a trailer in the multiplex that ran in my head twenty-four hours a day."

But she never seemed to get there.

And then, after a one-night stand with the man she had been one-night-standing with for years, Heawood becomes pregnant. What happens next, her journey into parenthood but also the adjustment of dreams she held her entire life, is a fantastic story.

I think part of what I enjoyed so much about this book is the nature of Heawood's job. In the short time I spent as a reporter, I loved talking to people, learning what they had to teach me about life, and seeing who they really were behind whatever public persona they were projecting.

Heawood had the opportunity to interview Hollywood A-listers and she gives you an inside view of what that was like. Goldie Hawn, Jodie Foster, and Amy Adams are a few of the names who pop up in the memoir.

In addition to the peek behind the curtain into the mystical world of Hollywood fame, Heawood doesn't shy away from faithfully recording the sometimes harsh reality of becoming a parent.

"My introduction to being a mother involves being told off by other women, again and again. Told that I am not doing it right, that there are rules. ... When I do get home, it only takes me a couple of weeks to recover from the surgery, but it takes me about a year to recover from the few days in the hospital when I was supposed to be recovering, and to regain the caring instincts to protect this tiny creature, the ones that were crushed before they had even dared to begin."

She faces difficulties not just with the newness of being a parent, but from her path as a single mother. Heawood has trouble finding housing as a single mother and going to prenatal classes alone. In this life transition that can be difficult at the best of times, she faces it on her own.

But her attitude is not woe-is-me. Heawood keeps the positive and empowered spin up throughout most of her challenges and, when she can't manage it, she still appreciates the gift she has been given through her relationship with her daughter.

I enjoyed this memoir very much and read it in about two sittings. Recommended for readers who enjoy humorous memoirs about parenthood, Hollywood, dating, night-clubbing and the inevitable spiritual evolution that comes from finding the place in life that you were always meant to be.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free advance reader copy of this book. The brief quotations cited in this review may change or be omitted in the final print version.

This is a true story. A story of a woman getting knocked up by a musician and floundering around not knowing what to do. She is more the party type than a mommy. 

It came off for me as uninteresting and overly self-involved.

This book lived up to its description fully. It is filled to the brim with the self-deprecating, goofy but lovable leading lady that only a British woman such as those featured in Bridget Jones or Fleabag can deliver. There were some major laugh out loud moments - the fart chapter was probably my favorite, followed by her brush with a famous terrorist's niece. It's a very fun read. Perfect for the beach, or a night in with a glass of wine.

Written by a cheeky British journalist, The Hungover Games is a memoir of what happened when she found herself pregnant. The author chronicles major life adjustments, becoming a single parent, loving back to England, and carving a new life herself. It's an interesting read with some cringe worthy moments.

This was a hard book to get through.. it was wordy and depressing at times. The theme of the book seems to be a consistent trend lately in our literature world. I was happy that she finally found love and got her life together.

I thought this was going to be a fun British chic-lit esque semi-autobiography. Rather it was a whole lot of rambling that I couldn’t relate to. I kept finding myself annoyed at the author and how she was handling her life.

The Hungover Games about a single pregnant woman had an easy style of writing but it just couldn't keep my interest. I just needed a faster paced story.

This was a been there, read that kind of a story for me just the names have changed and this nonfiction. There have been an enormous amount of fiction books with stories like this. I can sympathize with the hardships and having to grow up even though I haven't experienced it firsthand. This book just was not for me even though the writing was good. Maybe someone else will like this more than me, it has the potential; I have read better memoirs and biographies recently and this was far from my favorite.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publisher for an ARC in exchange in for an honest review.

Available: 7/7/20