About the author
Lucia Walinchus is an award-winning journalist, author and ice hockey addict. She has written more than 500 articles for various publications throughout her career and was recently named to the 2016 Fulbright Berlin Capital Program. She has been featured as a guest speaker on CNN and is a contracted freelancer for the New York Times. Walinchus currently lives in Oklahoma because she enjoys wide, flat golf courses that make her think she isn’t actually that bad. More information about the author can be found on her website; readers can also connect with her through Twitter.
About the book
How to Raise a Smart Ass is a funny, witty, rollicking ride through the joys of early parenthood. The so-titled “Best Butt Wiper in the World” delights audiences by recounting tales of ninja nurses, naughty knights, and super-duper poopers. Whether you’re a proud parent or you aspire to populate the world with tiny terrors of your own someday, this book will have you laughing out loud, or at a minimum buying lots of sanitizer. Kids are messy.
Review
Don’t let the title fool you; this book is not a parenting guide. This might be the only recommendation I wold have to give the author, actually: to reconsider the title.
Other than that, this auto-biography of sorts, was a quick, easy, and hilarious read. Between the stories my friends have shared with me over the years and my own experience, I could relate to most if not all of Lucia Walinchus’ stories, be they about pregnancy, labour and delivery, breastfeeding and other early month concerns and issues. They were told in such a helpless, tongue-in-cheek, and resigned voice that I couldn’t help but burst out laughing quite often. Because of that, I had to stop reading How to Raise a Smart Ass while the baby was feeding or sleeping or suffer the consequences of startling her out of her peaceful food coma or nap.
While the book is recommended for audiences with children or looking to have children, it comes in most handy to parents who have recently had children. It was a form of therapy for me; I felt less alone in some of the most tiring moments of my day and felt encouraged in my laugh-it-off attitude. At times I felt like I had met up with the author and, over a cup of coffee, exchange anecdotes and leave the date feeling reinvigorated. Because parenting is hard and it’s refreshing to just unapologetically share anecdotes rather than be bombarded with advice left, right, and centre.
A must-read for all new parents struggling through the first months, if not years of the lives of their little bundles of joy.
Thank you to iReads Book Tours for providing
a copy of this book for me to review!