Everything You Ever Wanted: A Memoir: Book Review & Giveaway

This post is sponsored by Resourceful Mommy Media. As always, all thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.

**This giveaway has ended. The winner has been notified.

I don’t write book reviews. As a blogger, I get lots of opportunities to review new children’s books, cookbooks, novels, biographies, cookbooks, etc. And I don’t do them. Why? With book reviews, usually the blogger gets the book for free. So that is a nice perk. I like free. But that isn’t the reason I decline book reviews. The reason I don’t do book reviews is because I don’t give myself time to read. Even though I absolutely love reading. (I have a stack of unread books to prove it.) I don’t give myself the luxury to sit down and read very often. But this book review is different. I actually sought it out. For some reason, I knew that I would not only enjoy reading this book but that I would relate to it. And for some reason, I knew that I would take the time to read it. So for the past two days, I’ve spent a couple hours a day by our pool reading the book while my son napped. Usually I spend naptime trying to get caught up on work. But I actually sat down, started reading and then became engrossed in the story of Jillian Lauren. And thus, I’m now here with my Everything You Ever Wanted: A Memoir book review.

If you are new to Jillian’s story, Jillian was a college dropout, a drug addict, and an international concubine in the Prince of Brunei’s harem. And she describes the early years of her life in her book Some Girls: My Life in a Harem. Nope, I haven’t read it. And yes, I have ordered it on Amazon as I plan to read it as soon as it arrives on my doorstep. In her new book Everything You Ever Wanted, Jillian continues her story as she is now sober, falls in love with a guitarist in a rock band, marries said guitarist and they plan on starting a family immediately. While I can’t necessarily relate to all aspects of Jillian’s early years, I can relate to her most recent years. As Jillian and her husband Scott begin trying to start a family, their attempts are in vain. And after trying practically every resource at their fingertips, they decide to stop trying and adopt. And they adopt in Ethiopia. Those are the reasons I felt so compelled to read and review this book. And as I started reading, I realized my story is actually even more comparable to Jillian’s than I initially thought.

Once they adopt, she describes, with brutal honesty, her thoughts and frustrations on attachment, cocooning, parenting, the reaction of the outside world on her parenting, her exhaustion and her doubt on whether or not she is a good mom. I don’t know about you, but I’ve felt all of those feelings. If you haven’t adopted, maybe attachment and cocooning aren’t words in your vocabulary. But I bet you can relate to questioning if you are a good parent. In the book Everything You Ever Wanted, Jillian Lauren shows just how messy parenthood really is. And she shows that it is okay to be honest and vulnerable about your thoughts as you navigate the road of parenthood.

Jillian also explains with specific detail every step they go through to work through their son’s attachment issues and sensory processing disorders. When you adopt children “from hard places”, their brains have not developed the way babies who are born to parents who immediately meet their needs, feed them immediately when they are hungry, play with them when they are awake, etc. Children from hard places often know neglect, malnutrition, abuse (either intentional or unintentional), lack of nurturing, etc. With these forms of neglect, their brains often lack the necessary components to easily attach to their parents and they also struggle with sensory issues. Myself and my husband walk this walk with our son whom we adopted from Ethiopia at the age of 10 months. While our son is thriving, we are always mindful of aiding his attachment to us. So we parent him differently than many families parent. And we are also watching him closely for sensory issues and are trying to parent in a manner that encourages sensory development. It is at times, exhausting. Not that parenthood in general isn’t exhausting. But parenting a child who you need to rehabilitate requires specific actions. And to read about the struggles of  Jillian’s son Tariku, shows me just how familiar their story is to my own with my son.

Through all of the hurdles she faces, she writes with humor, sarcasm and brutal honesty. If you are someone who likes having open and honest conversations with friends, reading this will seem as if you are hearing the good, bad and ugly from a close friend. And you may even be inspired and emboldened to stop hiding behind a facade of perfection and begin telling your story, whether it is good, bad or ugly.

The book Everything You Ever Wanted: A Memoir came out today on paperback. It is available on Amazon right now for $11.91. (The Kindle version is $9.99) Remember – prices on Amazon are subject to change. If you would like to read a memoir of a woman who has the strength to tell her story, without hiding behind fakeness, I highly recommend you read this book.

Have you read Jillian Lauren’s book Some Girls: My Life in a Harem? If so, what were your thoughts?

And now for the giveaway! One lucky reader will win a copy of the book Everything You Ever Wanted: A Memoir ! To enter, leave one comment on this post sharing one of the obstacles you have encountered as a parent. Or, if you are not yet a parent or don’t plan to be a parent, share what parenthood obstacles you have witnessed in the lives of your friends.

This giveaway will end 5/12/15 on or after 8:00 pm EST. The giveaway is sponsored by Resourceful Mommy Media.