Death by Teenager

Death by Teenager

One Mum's Hilarious Account of Raising Adolescents

Sonia Neale is an average Australian mother with a husband, two cats, one dog and three teenage children. She also has a rare ability to bring a hilarious and santiy-saving perspective to her life as a mother-on-the-edge.

She loves her children most of the time. There's Christopher, the SmartRider who can work out Fibonacci sequences and make his own Mobius strip but gets flummoxed figuring out how many cylinders in a V8 Commodore, while her eldest son Matthew, the Dreamer, not only knows how many cylinders a V8 engine has, he can build a Fraken-scooter out of a pair of old bike tyres, some corrugated iron and a lawn-mover engine, but thinks a Mobius strips is a form of pornographic dancing. And her daughter, Melissa, the Wild Child, who plays complicated guitar riffs, reads heavy psychological books and works as a gourmet chef but thinks paying board is an unforgivable parental rip-off.

Sex, food, money, messy bedrooms, therapy, literature and love, Sonia ranges over all the big subjects with a light touch and her own unmistakable slightly twisted outlook.

'There are no thick, glossy magazines called My Beautiful Teenager, showing a proud glowing mother cradling a couch-bound, well-fed, raggedy-jean-clad adolescent sleeping like a baby surrounded by pizza crusts with a teat covered coke bottle firmly wedged between their lips. No-one says "Congratulations! It's a teenager when they turn 13.'

There are many informative parenting books out there that offer support on how to raise a well-balanced teenager... This isn't one of them!

Review: My favourite book about parenting teenagers. Seriously guys remember what you used to do to your parents and let teens be teens, they eventually grow out of it.

Death by Teenager
ABC Books
Author: Sonia Neale
ISBN: 9780733324185
Price: $24.95