Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir by Drew Magary

Posted January 27, 2016 by shooting in Uncategorized / 13 Comments

Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir of Twenty-First-Century Parenthood by Drew Magary


Review by Lauren


Source: copy from library; all opinions are my own


Official Summary: No one writes about family quite like Drew Magary. In Someone Could Get Hurt,
he reflects on his own parenting experiences to explore the anxiety,
rationalizations, compromises, and overpowering love that come with
raising children.

In brutally honest and funny stories, Magary
reveals how American mothers and fathers cope with being in over their
heads—from getting drunk while trick-or-treating and telling dirty jokes
to make bath time go smoothly to committing petty vandalism to bond
with a five-year-old.

Review: I didn’t set out to read this book, but I saw it come back to my library from a patron and was immediately interested. One, I’ve read the novel The Postmortal by Drew Magary and loved it. Second, I might not be a parent but a lot of my friends do have kids and I love reading parenting books. I also have a niece and nephew, so I can relate to some of the things parents talk about in these books!

I read this book in about a day; none of the short stories are terribly long. It starts and ends with his third child, who had to have surgery as an infant. It was a sad story because if the surgery didn’t work, his son probably would not make it. However, the rest of the book is a lot more funny and enjoyable to read. Even when Drew is talking about the rough side of parenting, it’s still easy to commiserate with his experiences. Throughout the book he’s focusing on his daughter and son who he never names. This was kind of annoying to read after awhile – they are the boy and the girl throughout. It would have been better if Drew gave them fake names. Besides this, the stories about his two children were fun to read.

I liked the short story about going for a power walk with his five year-old and how she basically keeps up. He feels kind of excited about his daughter wanting to spend time with him. It’s a bit hard to explain, but you’ll understand if you read – or if you have a child who happens to find something you do really interesting! He does talk about losing his cool and not always doing what he feels is the right thing, but that’s parenting. Some of what he says is a bit rough to read about, because you might not always agree, but at the same time, if you’ve dealt with kids long enough, you understand how tiring and frustrating they can be. What I like is that Drew is honest about his experiences, but he does let you know what he wishes he could have done differently or what he hopes to change in the future, and that’s the main thing.

Overall, this was an interesting read. It was fairly quick, though some stories are ultimately more interesting than others! 

13 responses to “Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir by Drew Magary

  1. The title and cover are definitely interesting! The Hubs and I don't have children, but I still enjoy reading about the child/parent relationship- because like you I have nieces and nephews (and actually quite a few great nieces and nephews since both my husband and I are the babies of our families, so our siblings were having kids when we were still tweens and teens). Maybe I'll stumble across this book at my library!

  2. This sounds really fun! XD I've never read a parenting-ish book…not being a parent and all, bahah, but I do like memoirs and read a few last year and they WERE SPECTACULAR. I like seeing real-life stories written in grand ways. 😀

    Thanks for stopping by @ Paper Fury!

  3. I'm a massive fan of what are ultimately self help books but written from REAL people, not just someone with a degree to display on their walls. Even not being a parent myself, I still know that parenting is one of the toughest but most rewarding things you'll ever do as an adult. This sounds like a real eye opener too. Thanks so much for sharing Lauren, I know a few family members who would love to give this a read too <3

  4. Oh that is sad about the baby. This sounds like a great read. We all have some pretty good parenting stories and reading stories from other parents always makes me happy. Thanks for sharing this book!

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