Jacqueline Rose always gives me a lot to think about. This book of essays about motherhood was no exception. The shifting reflections Rose makes here about motherhood in literature and philosophy and in culture fascinated me. I especially loved the way, late in this essay collection, Rose weaves in her personal experience. My only disappointment was that this book could have been so much longer...it covers a lot of ground and in some cases I felt the themes were lightly touched upon rather than explored at the depth they deserved.

So the book felt more like a springing-off-from place, to explore thoughts of my own about motherhood, rather than a finished thesis.

This approach to writing is very Jacqueline Rose-y, in a way, though. I always feel with Rose that I’m being invited to have a conversation with her, rather than being told what to think. This impression lines up nicely with her style of literary criticism which tends to invite dialogue rather than to insist on there being one definitive way to interpret a given literary work. ( )