Overview: No one said motherhood would be easy. For Adiba Nelson, the journey to parenthood started with a big bang and continues with a breakdown (or two) and several Why? questions for God.

Verdict: From the off, not only does author Adiba Nelson thank the reader for picking up, nay purchasing, her little ditty about some woman you may, or may not know, she fully admits that even if you do not know her, you are her, and therein she is you.

For she has also had the thoughts that women and moms and daughters should never contemplate having, she had done things she wasn’t Church-raised to do, especially as a Black woman, but she has most definitely lived.

Indeed, the only difference Adiba can see between her and you, is that she just woke up one day and decided to tell the whole freakin’ world about it!

For as she herself freely admits, they didn’t call her motormouth when she was a kid for nothing!

Witty and bold, Afro-Latina Adiba grew up in survival mode. Her sometimes complicated relationship with her strong-willed, vibrant, religious mother marked her views of mothering and love. When a chance encounter with a tall-ish, brown-skinned brotha at Ruby Tuesday’s right before closing time collided with a Jill Scott song and the right time of the month, Adiba found herself unexpectedly pregnant.

She also found herself unexpectedly falling into the same relationship patterns of the matriarchs before her - the ones she swore she’d never end up in.

Mom to a new baby with high medical needs and with a slew of hardships that just won’t quit, she set out on a reckoning that was just as generational as it was personal. Along the way, Adiba never loses her heart or her humor.

Veined throughout with some very real shit experiences, even as a white man, a foreigner here in a foreign land, I found myself feeling deeply for this woman I had never heard of, never met, save for her words on paper, in a book, whose pages I just kept turning and turning; captivated by the inner core, the indelible spirit that kept my new found friend head above water - and some.

This is a true love story, sure, but the kind about a woman loving herself enough to change the course of her life for herself, her child, and the women after her as well as before.

Inclusive of deeply worrying moments of grief, laced with pee-your-pants humor (some which comes from so far left of center, that there is just no way to be ready for it), the book is a journal that encompasses real life experiences, such as: Postpartum Depression, Miscarriage / Grief, Emotional Abuse, Self-Worth / Self-Love Issues, Poverty, Attempted Suicide, Infidelity, Abuse, and Divorce, Sexual Assault and, finally, Special Needs Parenting (and all that comes with it).

Indeed, it’s some of those in-between moments and the self-revelations, where Adiba’s bold and brilliant story of love, family secrets, and lots of What the ...? moments really shine. Just like parenting, the story is messy, but the reward is incredibly satisfying.

From pasties to postpartum depression, this magnificent book is not your average motherhood memoir - and Adiba is not your average mother, of which I’m sure you can now tell - but her struggles and triumphs, her intimate account of raising a child with special needs, her authentically-sculpted grace at being handle all that came at her, shines like a most righteous beacon of hope here throughout the highly impassioned Ain’t That A Mother.

About The Author - Adiba Nelson writes about inclusion and her life as a Black mother, woman, and daughter. She wrote her 2013 children’s book, Meet ClaraBelle Blue, after searching fruitlessly for a children’s book that adequately and appropriately represented her Afro-Latinx daughter with special needs.

The subject of the Emmy Award-winning documentary The Full Nelson, Adiba is a highly acclaimed speaker and in 2017 delivered a TEDx talk to a sold-out house on what to do when life throws you a curveball. As the curveball’s keep coming, Nelson continues to write.

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