Riot Recommendation

30 of Your Favorite Books About What Parenting is REALLY Like

S. Zainab Williams

Executive Director, Content

S. Zainab would like to think she bleeds ink but the very idea makes her feel faint. She writes fantasy and horror, and is currently clutching a manuscript while groping in the dark. Find her on Twitter: @szainabwilliams.

This giveaway is sponsored by Confessions Of A Domestic Failure by Bunmi Laditan.

From the creator of The Honest Toddler comes a fiction debut sure to be a must-read for moms everywhere.

There are good moms and bad moms—and then there are hot-mess moms. Introducing Ashley Keller, career girl turned stay-at-home mom who’s trying to navigate the world of Pinterest-perfect, Facebook-fantastic and Instagram-impressive mommies but failing miserably.With her razor-sharp wit and knack for finding the funny in everything, Bunmi Laditan creates a character as flawed and lovable as Bridget Jones or Becky Bloomwood while hilariously lambasting the societal pressures placed upon every new mother.


Some parents seem to have it all together with their spotless white shirts and their tidy bundles of joy, but are they for real? I want the BTS–the tantrums, the irrational paranoia, the dishes that have been sitting in the sink for a month.

We asked you to tell us your favorite books about what parenting is really like and you responded. Here are 30 of your favorites!

Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner

Babies and other Hazards of Sex by Dave Barry

Sh*tty Mom: The Parenting Guide for the Rest of Us by Mary Ann Zoellner, Laurie Kilmartin, Karen Moline, Alicia Ybarbo

Baby Laughs by Jenny McCarthy

Please Don’t Eat the Daisies by Jean Kerr

How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult

Sisterhood by Curtis Sittenfeld

How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids by Jancee Dunn

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay: And Other Things I Had to Learn as a New Mom by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor

Go the Fuck to Sleep by Adam Mansbach and Ricardo Cortés

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

I Don’t Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother by Allison Pearson

Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott

Toddlers Are A**holes: It’s Not Your Fault by Bunmi Laditan

Like a Queen by Constance Hall

Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern

Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession by Erma Bombeck

8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter: And other tips from a beleaguered father [not that any of them work] by W. Bruce Cameron

All I Can Handle: I’m No Mother Teresa: A Life Raising Three Daughters with Autism by Kim Stagliano

Melanie Travis series by Laurien Berenson

You’re Doing a Great Job: 100 Ways You’re Winning at Parenting by Biz Ellis and Theresa Thorne

Babyhood by Paul Reiser

Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures by Amber Dusick

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace by Ayelet Waldman

Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan

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