Matrescence

A thrilling examination of what it means to be a mother … Myths are smashed from page one … essential reading, roaring and ready to change conversations

A thrilling examination of what it means to be a mother … Myths are smashed from page one … essential reading, roaring and ready to change conversations

I kept scribbling in the margins: 'We need to know this stuff!' ... wide-ranging in its scope, packed with statistics … comes as close as it’s possible to describing this indescribable moment in a woman’s life

Reading this, I felt a jolt of recognition ... I wish someone could have handed me Matrescence

This deeply personal book takes on “fairytale” ideas about being a mother … An exploration of motherhood – the contrast between myth and reality and between individual and social expectations ... Jones writes beautifully and with searing honesty about the life-changing physical and emotional impact of having a child

She is a gifted writer … A vital, hopeful book ... to read Matrescence is to emerge chastened and ready for change

Beautiful... boundary-pushing … Jones is a pioneer ... she skilfully elucidates the monumental shifts motherhood brings ... I found myself inwardly cheering

It is difficult to put into words the importance of this book. I felt it in my heart. I carried it with me, I think I always will. Jones has written the book we desperately needed

Matrescence took me on a journey of reminescence through my own pregnancies and early years of motherhood, eliciting wry recognition, surprise at new evidence and insight, and gratitude for a work that really sees what it is to mother

A beautiful contemplation of the extraordinary yet ordinary metamorphosis that adult humans undergo as they become mothers ... I was entranced ... Matrescence is a passionate and powerful maternal roar for change

Hypnotic, fascinating and long overdue. I am so glad it exists. A gift of a book and told beautifully.

Lucy Jones is a writer and journalist based in Hampshire, England. She previously worked at NME and the Daily Telegraph, and her writing on culture, science and nature has been published in GQ , BBC Wildlife , The Sunday Times , the Guardian and the New Statesman . She is the author of Foxes Unearthed , which won the Society of Authors' Roger Deakin Award 2015; Losing Eden , which was long-listed for the Wainwright Prize and named a Times and Telegraph book of the year; and Matrescence , ‘a thrilling examination of what it means to be a mother’ ( Observer ), which has been longlisted for the inaugural Women’s Prize for Nonfiction.