Book: Babe on Board

Babe on Board
Stephanie Zia
Amazon Product Link

"One word - FANTASTIC. I'd highly recommend this book to mothers and those who think they'll never, ever have kids!" LINDA COMPTON Single motherhood at 40 is a very bumpy ride! Molly longs to settle down but her lover, man of the world Max, is allergic to domesticity. Five years into their relationship Molly becomes pregnant and Max heads for the hills. Devastated, but sure he'll eventually grow up, resourceful Molly determines to go it alone as a single mum. After a baptism of fire at the well-heeled Kew branch of a mum and baby group, Molly finds out the hard way that independence isn't possible when children are involved. When an affair brakes out, Molly finds herself at the centre of suspicion for all the wrong reasons. A heady, perfume-filled romance you won't want to put down till you've smelt the final page. "You'll never wear perfume the same way again!" D T MCDONNELL "Definitely one for independent women." PRIMA BABY "Highly amusing, perceptive tale." FAMILIES MAGAZINE "A fast, funny read. I loved it!" KATE HARRISON "A tender, entertaining read with some lovely set passages and an unexpected, heart-warming conclusion." THE BOOKSELLER

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My second thestoryinside book, wow, it really helps me to read through my to-be-read list haha!

Based on the story premises alone, which was what I enjoyed this book, this was a 3-star (good), but I just had to dock that 1-star to make it a 2-star.

Alright, single mom at almost 40, moving to the (somewhat) suburbs, meeting new friends. That was all very exciting. I might have been a trifle annoyed at Molly’s insistence on Max’s visiting the kid “with no strings”, but maybe that’s a thing (and I wouldn’t know)

I will admit I did not see the ending coming that way. It was a pleasant surprise, of course, but I also doubt the storybook-esque “it will all be fine here onwards!” Reflects the real world.

But anyway, the story was cute while it lasted.

HOWEVER, I just had to dock that one star for the (if I recall correctly) 2 typos, the dialogue flow, and the gazillion other mis-punctuations.

I’m not going back to hunt for the typos, but there were 2.

The dialogue flow? Much of the conversations don’t say who said it. There’s no “ ‘oh it’s great!’ Molly said, and ‘yes it is!’ Replied Izzie.” It was fine when the dialogues were short, but when it was going on, I needed a pencil to mark down who said what.

Now, mis-punctuations, I’m even ignoring my dislike of using single quotation marks for dialogue. I’m more used to double quotation marks for dialogues, but I’ll let that pass. The most annoying part of this book is all the MISPLACED quotation marks. A conversation could have ended but the closing quotation missed. A conversation started without the opening quotation mark. Heck there were parts where there was an opening quotation but it was not speech nor dialogue. This was the most painful part of this book.

Wordless Wednesday 5-May-2021