- Book Review -

​The book "Four Mums in a Boat" caught my attention as I was looking for an adventure book, but was a little intimidated by the usual protagonists of young, fit, single minded, no baggage, soul searching, sports fanatics that usually attempt these types of challenges. I was feeling as mum of 3 in my late 30s, that some of these sports buffs are a little like reading about a person from fiction. I love you Anna McNuff et al., but running across Britain barefoot sounds as far removed from me as a character from Game of Thrones.

So when I saw the blurb for this book, 4 middle age mums who had never taken part in multiple marathons or pre-olympic training, I was immediately interested. As soon as I started this tale, every other conversation in my life stopped!

Only about a third of the book is set on the actual ocean. The first part of the book is about how these four amazing ladies found themselves in a situation in their lives where they decided to attempt such a momentous challenge with little prior experience. It follows the team through the internal debates about whether to take part, the relationships and reactions of family, the logistics of training and fitting it into their lives. It is also fascinating to see how they dealt with scepticism of other people and money raising.

Once they get on the boat, it only gets better. We follow the ladies through the inevitable challenges – physical and mental - of rowing such a distance but also fascinating is the no nonsense descriptive of the less elegant aspects of surviving such a trip like sharing cabins, using the toilet over the side of the boat and in front of each other, the lack of privacy, the nudity, the chaffing, the blisters... I loved the realities of the day-to-day of 2 hours on, 2 hours off rowing. It was so down to earth and such a great antidote to the way ‘sports’ are depicted in mainstream media – glistening tanned bodies in improbably bikinis. I very much empathised with Janette’s aim of trying to fit in a pair of turquoise hot pants by the end of the challenge! 

The end of the book was very low key. It briefly covered how the ladies went back to their day to day lives after such a life changing experience. I often wonder about this. How can you possibly go back to day to day life after you have had such easy direction for such a long period. Can you find meaning in day to day things, or do you just need to look for next challenge.

In many ways I enjoyed the fact that so much uncertainty remained, and that they didn’t neatly pack it up as ‘well now I have the answers to everything’. I also enjoyed them highlighting some of the rocky periods they had after their adventure, the falling outs and hilariously exposing themselves to the nation on BBC breakfast.

All in all very inspiring and different read. And a triumph for middle age mums!!

 - Gemma Ware -
Fresh Air Reads Contributor

* An additional note about format: I alternated reading this book between kindle and listening to it on Audible. I was a little disappointed that it was narrated by the authors themselves, but it was still very engaging. ​