She is who she is and she never apologises for that, yet she remains such a lovely person. Cam is a fiercely independent woman and I admired her attitude to life, she’s the kind of woman I would love to be friends with.

Perhaps she would have behaved differently if she’d had a supportive friend who she could talk to and confide in. Ultimately though, she deserved understanding and care because she was driven to the point of madness by her need for a child, and also by her loneliness. I can understand Stella’s hopes and fears but I found it very hard to sympathise with the desperate lengths she went to. I never felt a huge longing for a baby but now life has made sure that I will never have children and that’s a strange thing to contemplate sometimes. I’m very happily married but don’t have children. The contrast between the women, but also the small similarities, really gave this novel depth and warmth. I felt such a mix of emotions whilst reading this book – I was giggling at one point and tearful at another. She feels such anger at the cards life has dealt her and yet is powerless to change what has happened. Then there’s Stella who is alone in the world – her twin sister, and her mum are both dead her relationship is on the rocks and she desperately wants a baby. Cam is a very successful blogger who doesn’t want children but this ends up becoming the very thing that she is judged on and defined by even though it’s only one small part of who she is. Each of the three characters is so well-written that they feel like real people, and each voice is so distinct that you never lose track of who it is that you’re reading about.Tara is a single mother, who never told the father of her child that she was pregnant, and she feels she has to be a success at work and at home, to be everything to everybody. The Cows is told through three narratives. This is a novel that really shows what it is to be a woman – the way we’re judged, the way we judge each other, the way we’re all trying to live up to an ideal that none of us can attain.

I have to start this review by saying that I completely and utterly adored The Cows! It’s a brilliant novel and it was exactly what I needed to be reading at the moment I read it. In all the noise of modern life, each needs to find their own voice.Īnd everyone is going to be talking about it. THE COWS is a powerful novel about three women.

Women don’t have to fall into a stereotype. A piece of meat born to breed past its sell-by-date one of the herd.

The Cows by Dawn O'Porter