Spot-on and brutally funny ... As a member of the particularly online elite, Hess herself is also an expert of sorts, one I’ll gladly follow into the dense digital jungle. Yet she also smartly paints herself as just another willing victim of the internet ... Hess does all of this without sharing a drop of advice—hallelujah. Instead, she escorts readers on a wry tour of the buffet of options available to desperate new parents ... For all her button-pushing, Hess is never snarky or sentimental.
With wit, discernment and candor (sometimes too much candor), she captures the anxiety and weirdness of reproduction in our modern screen-based, app-oriented culture ... [Hess is] ...exceptionally skilled at noticing things worth seeing ... Early in the book—specifically the second half of page 32—she takes honesty too far, describing her bodily functions with such granular grubbiness as to leave the reader amazed and appalled. Anyone who skips those passages—and everyone should—will miss nothing important from this otherwise insightful and occasionally very funny look at, as the subtitle has it, 'having a child in the digital age.'
Not mainly a medical odyssey but, rather, a mordant contemplation of the many screens...that reflected and mediated Hess’s experience of pregnancy and early motherhood ... Foremost a mash note to Hess’s firstborn son, who is a complete and ongoing joy, and much of the book’s charisma is rooted in its mood of droll astonishment.
Hess excels at connecting our private online encounters to wider cultural shifts ... She skewers the fluttering trends and quirks of the internet with the gentle ruthlessness of a lepidopterist ... Implicit in her story is the powerful, discomfiting argument that if we want to counter the excesses of this technology, we must first be honest about our dependence on it.
Hess’ experiences would be most useful as a cautionary tale for new parents, especially those with high-risk pregnancies, whose insecurities provide fertile ground for online profiteers seeking to exploit them.
Very much a memoir—not a self-help or parenting book. But Hess’ tale is cautionary: Her warnings about the gamification of parenthood and the tech that’s thrust on parents when they’re at their most vulnerable make this an instructive text that reads as the ruminations and research of your funniest, smartest parent friend.
Fierce and funny ... Hess balances her own story with a broader portrait of the anxious buzz of the modern world. Parents will feel especially seen by this incisive and refreshing account.
