Frustrated by their everyday suburban existence as wives and mothers, three women decide to shake things up a little with a three month game of Truth or Dare. Anonymums (HarperCollins, 2011) maintains the anonymity of the three women, but shares their truths, dares and thoughts on how playing this game changed the way they viewed their lives.
Anonymums – Three Women, the Truth and a Whole Lot of Dares
Frustrated with the routine of everyday life as the mother of two young children, Mum A wanted to do something to shake up her predictable life. She was looking for something that would connect her once again with the person she was before children, someone who took risks and viewed life with more enthusiasm.
To help her in her quest, she approached two acquaintances, Mum B and Mum C, and asked them to join her in a three month game of Truth or Dare. For two months, each woman would be given a Dare that they had to complete, reporting back to the remaining two women with both the results and their thoughts on how the challenge had impacted them. They were also given a Truth, challenged to share their innermost thoughts on a topic with the other two women. In the third month, each woman needed to set herself an ultimate dare, once again reporting back to the other two.
With laugh out loud anecdotes and thought-provoking insight into the inner life of suburban mothers, Anonymums shares the experiences of Mum A, Mum B and Mum C as they support and challenge each other to shake off the numbing effects of routine and the pressures of raising young children. With a self-deprecating humour and heart-breaking honesty, Anonymums is a book to encourage, challenge and entertain any woman who has ever felt that she lost herself when she took on the demands of motherhood.
Truths, Dares and Friendship
The appeal of Anonymums comes from both the honesty and humour of the women in their individual writing and the interaction of the three authors as they encourage and prompt each other with their dares and truths. There are light-hearted moments that balance the more raw emotional confessions, resulting in a book that is very easy to read but with a lingering impact.
The anonymity of the authors allows them to be honest in their responses to their dares and truth challenges they face. There is an underlying humour in much of what they share, although at times the women strike a nerve and discover surprising depths to their own thoughts and emotions.
Together, Mum A, Mum B and Mum C show how easy it is to become contained by the everyday routine and how liberating it can be to make simple changes that place value on a woman’s sense of herself as an individual. With the encouragement, both gentle and not so gentle, of the other two women, each author is challenged to rethink the way she views herself.
Anonymums Authors
Given the personal nature of some of the thoughts and experiences revealed in Anonymums, it is not surprising that the authors have chosen to remain anonymous. The three women are Australian suburban mothers of young children. Before writing the book they had only a casual friendship with each other and met in person for the first time at the end of the first month of their Truth and Dare challenge.
Information about Anonymums can be found at the Anonymums website and Anonymums Facebook fan page. All three authors can also be found on Twitter as @AnonymumsMumA, @AnonymumsMumB and @AnonymumsMumC.
Encouraging Mothers to Step out of their Comfort Zone
Through their humour and honesty, the Anonymums encourage other women to place a value on their identity as individuals and challenge themselves to continue to experience life rather than simply exist from day to day. Their story is quick to read and entertaining, but the truths revealed share a deeper message that encourages women to step outside of their comfort zone and be active in their approach to life.
Anonymums is a book which reminds women that the greatest barriers to happiness can occur in their own minds. By sharing their own struggles, triumphs and thoughts on life, Mum A, Mum B and Mum C encourage readers to do the same – to dare to be different and to place a value on themselves as individuals as well as wives and mothers.
Review copy details
Anonymums (ISBN: 978-0-7322-9169-3, 218 pages)
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