
Blood Sisters: The Next Addictive Thriller from the Bestselling Author of My Husband's Wife
Book
THREE LITTLE GIRLS SET OFF TO SCHOOL ONE SUNNY MORNING. WITHIN AN HOUR, ONE OF THEM IS DEAD. 'So...
contemporary mystery psychological thriller

Out of the Desert: My Journey from Nomadic Bedouin to the Heart of Global Oil
Book
The extraordinary memoir of global oil's former central banker Ali Al-Naimi is the former Saudi oil...

Over the Top and Back: The Autobiography
Book
'For a lot of years, I've answered a lot of questions, but have never told my story before.' Across...

Charlie Cobra Reviews (1840 KP) rated I Am Mother (2019) in Movies
Jul 7, 2020
A robot named "Mother" grows a human embryo and cares for her over several years when after an extinction event, an automated bunker activates to repopulate humanity. Mother teaches a teenage girl named "Daughter" complex moral and ethical lessons advising her that she needs practice being a good parent. Daughter captures a mouse but Mother disposes of it and explains that surface contamination with the outside world makes contact potentially lethal. Their bond is tested when Daughter becomes increasingly curious about the outside world and opens the bunker's airlock to let in a wounded woman begging for help and claims all is not as Mother claims.
This movie was awesome, classic sci-fi but with great acting and special effects. I like how suspenseful it was and how it told such a compelling story. It had me paying attention to every detail and trying to predict how it was going to unravel plot wise and though some parts I could see coming, it threw a couple of curve balls here and there. There wasn't a lot to complain about other than some people saying it revealed too much a little too soon and that it was a slow paced film. I just really like the way it played out, with one of those classic, sci-fi, artificial intelligence concepts. I give this movie a 8/10. And I also give it my "Must See Seal of Approval".

Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life
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Ken Robinson, author of the international bestseller The Element and the most viewed talk on...

In Defence of Food: The Myth of Nutrition and the Pleasures of Eating
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Michael Pollan's In Defence of Food is a simple invitation to junk the science, ditch the diet and...

Age of Anger: A History of the Present
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'The kind of vision the world needs right now...Pankaj Mishra shouldn't stop thinking' Christopher...

Germany: Memories of a Nation
Book
From Neil MacGregor, the author of A History of the World in 100 Objects, this is a view of Germany...

Great Railway Maps of the World
Book
From Mark Ovenden, the author of London Underground by Design and Metro Maps of the World, comes...
Blythe wants to be everything her own mother was not when she was a child, and we do see some of the ways her mother treated her in flashbacks. This is three generations of women (grandmother, mother and daughter)who have clearly not been ideal mothers or treated well as daughters. Blythe desperately wants to break the cycle, and goes in to motherhood with the best of intentions. Except her newborn is not an easy baby for her. She cries continuously, and Blythe really struggles. I did wonder throughout the book if a lot of Blythe’s problems derived from postnatal depression. Except when she goes to see a male doctor about it, he thinks she’s fine (insert the eye roll here! I really didn’t agree with him!). The same could possibly be said of Blythe’s mother and grandmother: if not PND, then some other mental health issue was surely at play here?
This is a brutal look at motherhood. It shows it for what it is for many women: a hard slog. I couldn’t help but empathise with Blythe. I felt that her needs and feelings were pushed aside by her husband and the doctor. In a time where motherhood is all about creating a perfect family, with perfect babies, children and husbands, Blythe doesn’t seem to stand a chance. It made for an intensely uncomfortable reading experience in places.
This is a book that’s going to stay with me for a long while - especially after THAT ending (see, you’ll have to read it now!). I’d highly recommend this - it’s already in my books of the year.
Many thanks to Penguin Michael Joseph for an e-copy of this book to read through NetGalley.