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 – Jude Rogers * Observer *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 – Joanna Pocock * Spectator *Reading this, I felt a jolt of recognition … I wish someone could have handed me Matrescence – Sophie McBain * New Statesman *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 – Rachel Sylvester * The Times *She is a gifted writer … A vital, hopeful book … to read Matrescence is to emerge chastened and ready for change – Marianne Levy * i News *Beautiful… boundary-pushing … Jones is a pioneer … she skilfully elucidates the monumental shifts motherhood brings … I found myself inwardly cheering – Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett * Guardian *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 – Daisy JohnsonMatrescence 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 – Clare ChambersA 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 – Gaia VinceHypnotic, fascinating and long overdue. I am so glad it exists. A gift of a book and told beautifully. – Laura Dockrill

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.