Grace Under Pressure

🌼 Book Review 🌼

Grace Under Pressure by Tori Haschka
.
⚘ A deliciously hilarious, honest and heartfelt portrayal of modern-day motherhood and the saving grace of female friendship. Grace Harkness looks like she has it all - two beautiful children, four cookbooks under her belt and an idyllic beachside home #blessed. But add another baby on the way (oops), a spouse that is nowhere to be seen and a relentless list of things she ‘should’ be doing, and Grace is starting to unravel.
.
⚘ This book accurately describes motherhood!! It captures every aspect a mother feels, the fears, the loneliness, the stress to hold it all together, the struggles she goes through every day but also captures the love she has for her children, the friendships made and the strength and vital importance of female friendship.
.
⚘ As a mum that admins a mother's group I loved the segments from Grace's best friend, Petra who admins her local mums group! It is scarily accurate!!
.
⚘ Grace Under Pressure is a hilarious book and you won't be sorry you picked it up!!

SYNOPSIS
Grace Harkness seems to have it all; two children, a beachside home, 4 published cook books and an enviable social media presence. An accidental pregnancy and her husband’s repeated absences from the home cause cracks to appear in the veneer of her perfect existence. Frustrated at the men in their life, Grace and her friends decide to discard them and move into the same home (a “Mummune”) and share the burden of domestic obligations. This arrangement initially seems idyllic, but how long will this seemingly utopian existence last?

MY REVIEW
I utterly adored this hilarious, insightful and relatable book which adroitly depicts the realities of motherhood in contemporary times. This book spoke to me on such a profound level and left me feeling validated and more valued for the work I carry out everyday raising 5 children.

Haschka’s beautifully written prose is peppered with so many witty and hilarious moments relating the everyday life of Mums such as kids’ birthday parties and pelvic floor weakness to name a few. Yet, it is Haschka’s insights relating to the more serious nuances of modern motherhood that are the linchpin of this novel.

Mothers represent a large sector of Australia’s unpaid labour force and do so much “behind the scenes” work for their children (such as making costumes, homework, picking up children etc) that is not adequately recognised or remunerated. Through Grace, Haschka astutely observed that mothers “Need to connect, to someone, to anyone. To be heard. To be seen”.

Haschka deftly portrayed the toll motherhood can have on mental health. Grace suffered anxiety and post-natal depression which was exacerbated with the birth of her third child and it was touching how she eventually sought help and allowed her community to take care of her.

The digital age now places much censure on Mums. The sanctimonious nature of the “Beaches Mums” Facebook group, was at times negative and acted as a “gateway for judgment and endorsement”.

I enjoyed reading every page of this superbly written and witty novel. Highly recommend!

Thank you to @torihaschka , @netgalley and @simonschusterau for the opportunity to review this advanced reader copy of “Grace Under Pressure”. Publication date: 3 March 2021.

Grace is a mum of two with an Insta perfect life full of organic foods she creates herself and a husband who doesn't at all seem to mind having to travel internationally for work, leaving Grace alone with the kids for long stretches. But all is not perfect behind the scenes, and things become even more tense when Grace falls pregnant again. With her husband away and their marriage in tatters, Grace welcomes two other women (her friend Petra who is leaving her abusive and gambling addicted husband and Shelley who has no idea where the father of her child disappeared to) into her home and they work together in what they initially think is an idyllic "mummune".With the support of her neighbor Christine, Grace's perfect life is shattered in a series of chaotic events. What happens to Grace when she is under pressure? I really enjoyed this novel and felt a lot of empathy for each of the female characters in the text. A great read and a great reminder that not everything we see on social media is as picture perfect as it looks.

I first requested this book as my daughters name is Grace. You would be amazed how many books i have read in 5 years with Gracd in the title. I found this one to be first very relatable. How many Mums/Dads/carers dont find themselves under pressure daily? School lunches makes me sweat thinking about them.
Then there is the funny parts of this which were alot!!
It may be fiction but thank you for giving me the feeling of not being alone in this pressure cooker world!