



The Hungover Games
A True Story
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
This "funny, dark, and true" (Caitlin Moran) memoir is Bridget Jones's Diary for the Fleabag generation: What happens when you have an unplanned baby on your own in your mid-thirties before you've worked out how to look after yourself, let alone a child?
This is the story of one woman's adventures in single motherhood. It's about what happens when Mr. Right isn't around so you have a baby with Mr. Wrong, a touring musician who tells you halfway through your pregnancy that he's met someone else, just after you've given up your LA life and moved back to England to attempt some kind of modern family life with him.
So now you're six months along, sleeping on a friend's sofa in London, and waking up in the morning to a room full of taxidermied animals who seem to be staring at you. The Hungover Games about what it's like raising a baby on your own when you're more at home on the dance floor than in the kitchen. It's about how to invent the concept of the two-person family when you grew up in a traditional nuclear unit of four, and your kid's friends all have happily married parents too, and you are definitely not, in any way, ticking off the days until all those lovely couples get divorced.
Unflinchingly honest, emotionally raw, and surprisingly sweet, The Hungover Games is the true story of what happens if you've been looking for love your whole life and finally find it where you least expect it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British journalist Heawood debuts with a hilarious recounting of her rocky experiences of an unplanned pregnancy and single motherhood. Heawood, at the age of 34, was told by doctors that she would not be able to conceive. However, after a one-night stand with a musician "in a dressing room somewhere in Europe" she became pregnant. After she broke the news to him (he is only referrred to through as "the musician"), he expressed his concern that "they could not create the stability a whole new person deserved." However, she was determined to make her new reality a part of her vibrant single life, which was filled with late nights, parties, and sleeping on the couches of quirky friends. A scene where she interviewed celebrity Jodie Foster while fighting morning sickness, meanwhile, is particularly humorous. The narrative is strongest when Heawood muses on her role as a parent who must, among other things, provide "structure and a playground with soft landings" and reinvent the concept of the nuclear family to suit her two-person household. There's a lot to love in this delightful look into the world of unexpected motherhood.