The book resonated with me – a 30-year-old woman who is sometimes deafened by the sound of her own biological clock – profoundly. There is simply nothing else quite like it, no other conversation so candid on the topic of motherhood, no other woman so bold as to suggest rejecting it. There is an anecdote about the preparation of roast chicken over four generations of women that stuck with me for days, that I will potentially think about for the next decade of my life, as I work out whether I, too, want to be a mother. This is the secret to this book’s poignancy: the thoughts belong squarely to Sheila, but she has given us permission to claim them as our own. She has articulated fears, hopes and confusions that every woman of a certain age feels taunting her. It is both a comfort and a fright to read them on paper.