“In And Now We Have Everything, the candor of Meaghan O’Connell’s voice—at once tender and brutal—offers the glorious surge of recognition that comes from hearing stories told without varnish or apology. I read her birth story when I was five months pregnant, and re-read her essays on early motherhood during graveyard shifts with my two-week-old daughter, and every time I returned to her words I felt simultaneously terrified and consoled—that sure signal that I was in the presence of the truth.”

“This is not a book about the wonders of motherhood but about the tension between culturally inherited ideals and the realities of lived, bodily experience. “What if we treated pregnant women like thinking adults? What if we worried less about making a bad impression?” O’Connell asks. Describing motherhood with brutal honesty and a sharp wit, And Now We Have Everything does just this. The result is a delight.”

“Meaghan O’Connell writes with bracing clarity about the milk-soaked days of pregnancy and early parenthood, and I (truly) laughed and cried reading her account of crossing the great human divide. The biggest compliment of all: I used several hours of daylight childcare hours reading this book, just because I didn’t want to put it down.”

“Meaghan O’Connell’s writing has meant everything to me as I’ve navigated the identity-warping maze of early motherhood. She is the most honest, funny, gifted, natural storyteller, and she shares her experiences generously and unsparingly, in a way that I hope will give her readers permission to feel all kinds of different ways about their own experiences, without shame, without self-hate, without regret, and without fear.”

“A stunningly insightful book.”