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Don't Forget to Scream

Unspoken Truths About Motherhood

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Don't Forget to Scream

By: Marianne Levy
Narrated by: Marianne Levy
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£5.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends on 5 July 2026 at 11:59 BST. Cancel monthly.

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'Every person - parent or not - ought to read this . . . beautifully written and searingly honest'
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Like grief or falling in love, becoming a mother is an experience both ordinary and transformative - one that not only turns your world upside-down, but your inner self, too.

In this frank, funny and fearless memoir, Marianne Levy writes with heart-wrenching honesty about love and loss, rage and pain, fear and joy. She breaks the silence around the emotional turmoil of raising a child and asks why motherhood is at once so venerated and so undervalued.

Here is the real story of being a mother in the modern world, voicing the unspoken truths that everyone needs to hear.

'I've never read a book about motherhood that captures so perfectly the impossible complexity of it all . . . genius'
Irish Independent Infants & Toddlers Motherhood Parenting & Families Relationships Funny Heartfelt
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Critic reviews

I loved these sharp, unusual essays about motherhood and cried my way through much of the book. Childbirth, desire, consumerism and marketing of baby stuff, deciding to have a second child, goldfish. Recommended
Don't Forget To Scream is funny and heartbreaking - a powerful portrayal of all that makes up motherhood. It feels both intimate and profoundly universal
Marianne Levy's Don't Forget to Scream tells the truth of modern motherhood like nothing else I've read. Bold, brave and brilliant, it is also full of humour, joy and warmth. I loved it
How I wish this book existed when I was a mother of young children. Each essay executes a brilliant swallow-dive from the enervating everyday of parenting into deep waters of profound and unorthodox thought. This is exciting, emboldening writing
I read Marianne's book with a constricted throat and welling eyes. Her writing cuts to the quick - so deep, direct, and moving but also wry and funny, often provoking a choked laugh. These essays tug and prod at what it means to be a mother - the 'messy cat's cradle of womanhood' - in the most intimate, powerful and painfully honest way, leaving me ravaged, occasionally enraged, but also feeling profoundly seen
Phenomenal. Words like 'searing' and 'extraordinary' and 'blistering' will be used about this book, and they will not convey one tenth of the strength of it, nor the honesty nor the bravery in writing it
Honest, witty, powerful and moving . . . an important book brimming with hard-won wisdom
A brave, unflinching, utterly necessary book. I'm in awe of what it must have taken to write these searing and all too recognisable essays
I laughed, I cried and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. A brave, moving, brilliantly-written and often funny exploration of what it means to be a mother. I want everyone to read it
A remarkable book, cutting to the quick of what motherhood really feels like - the terror and the rage and the joy of it. The mundane rubs shoulders with the life-changing, the damply humdrum is shot through with calamitous love. I've read so much about motherhood, but I've never read anything as sharply honest as this; mothers will find themselves here
Brilliant, funny, heartbreaking, and true, Marianne Levy's Don't Forget to Scream had me exploring my own experience of motherhood in an entirely new way. I simply can't stop thinking about it.
An excellent book . . . elegant, funny, raw and beautiful. It made me angry with myself and the world but it also made laugh. Compulsive reading
A gut-punch of recollections about early motherhood . . . Incredible, honest writing that gets to the heart of the experience. It's wonderful
A remarkable memoir, threaded with humour and tenderness, and yet exposing the often crushing loneliness and unfairness of motherhood. A must-read for fathers and prospective fathers, this book made me wish I could go back in time and do parenting differently
All stars
Most relevant
I loved this book because the author related her personal experience, accompanied by real data and what other people thought or told her. It chimed with my own experience. Brilliant and hard-hitting.

Honest and raw

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In one interview with the Guardian, the author hopes her book will be read not just by mothers but men and single people. This is my hope now too. We need to talk more about motherhood - but not the glossy bits only but also the pain, the fear, the discomfort, the mourning.

Speechless - must read for everyone

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What a beautiful, tender, funny, and well written book. I loved it. So many moments had me nodding emphatically in agreement. Several moments - particularly in chapters about the pain we endure as women - had me raging. Every chapter is a brilliant vignette on motherhood and I will be recommending this book to every parent I know.

I adored this

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This should have been exactly my kind of book. Mummy aged 35 with two children under 3, obsessed with all things birth and maternity and womanhood. There were some good bits and some very moving bits in here. The author exposed herself which was brave. And there might have been a good couple of essays or op eds in here, but sadly there isn’t enough content for a book. It left me feeling disappointed. The narration was eloquent but a little too slow, a little too soppy. I listened to the end because I don’t like to leave things unfinished but I can’t say that I found the book enjoyable overall or that I would recommend it.

Just about OK

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