Mum on the run

When I first stumbled upon Fiona Gibson's book mum on the run, I felt kind of indignant thinking: 'Why didn't I know about this?! I mean, it's a mommylit book, ánd it's about running!'

Feeling quite impatient to get my eyes on the story, I bought the eBook version and transfered it to my Kobo ereader.
'Mummy's busy children!' I shouted in an effort to get some time to read without interruptions. But it turns out mum on the run isn't all that great.

Standard momlit, with some running thrown in

It really ís momlit, featuring all the wellknown ingredients: big mommy pants, greying bras, a messy house, a mom struggling with her kids and her weight, and a marriage that is suffering from the day to day life of living with kids but in the end is strong enough to survive. Mum on the run is like a Big Mac: it's fast, it's easy and you know exactly what you're gonna get. But that also makes it kind of boring and wanting to get the t-shirt saying: 'Read this, got the t-shirt.'

What kept me reading on was the running part. Slightly overweight Laura takes up running as a means to get thinner and do something for herself. I love reading about people who run, and I doing so about Laura's feelings while she ran.

To illustrate, here's a little quotation from when Laura confronts the other woman.'

'As I leave town, I realise how strong my legs feel now; running seems almost natural, in the way that I'm no longer conscious of my feet hitting the pavement. I've town behind me now, hardly noticing the neat red-brick terraces petering out into rolling hills and the leafy lane which leads to the mill. (…)

'Hi Laura,' she greets me with a small smile at the door to her flat. 'Wow,' she adds, her gaze skimming my tracksuit. 'You haven't run all this way, have you?'
'Yes. It's not that far, is it?'
'It's four miles!' she exclaimes.
'Is it? Well, I enjoyed it, actually.'

To sum up

I felt the Laura character to be extremely stereotypical, and not really all that 'laugh of loud funny', and the story was very superficial too. I loved the running bits, but they were too few and far between for my liking.

What I loved the best about the whole book is Fiona Gibson's list of '15 Brilliant Things About Running'. Fiona is a runner and a mother, and her list makes me want to be her friend. I'll share her best one with you:

'I feel guilty for saying this. But running is alsoan incredibly handy excuse if you need a little break from the children. Somehow, it's more acceptable than saying, 'I'm just going for a little lie down.'

So all in all, it was just about worth my 10 bucks.

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