I really like Dawn O’Porter so I was expecting great things from her novel The Cows, but oh my goodness what a letdown. The characters were horrible, the scenarios they found themselves in were utterly ridiculous, no research had been done and the sentences all went on and on, forever, like this, with far too many, commas. Urgh.

The Cows is the story of three women: Camilla, a blogger; Tara, a TV producer of investigative documentaries and Stella, a PA. Now, the whole premise of the book is that women shouldn’t be defined by whether they have kids or not. We’re far more complicated and nuanced than that. OK? Because what you also need to know is that:

Camilla is option A: Does not want kids.

Tara is option B: Has kids.

Stella is option C: Doesn’t have kids but wants them.

These choices define absolutely every action that the characters take. The entire book is about the very thing it purports to be against.

AARGH!

The book tries to be funny, irreverent and lighthearted so features all of the usual tropes: death, living with the BRCA gene, the desperation of wanting a baby before it’s too late, mental health issues, abortion, isolation…what? You don’t think these themes are funny? That’s probably because they’re not. At all. You’d need to be a fairly skilled writer to include any of them in a humorous novel without being eye-strainingly jarring. And after reading The Cows – I have eye strain.

There’s a lot that I could rant about but I’ll give you a little example of how farfetched this book is. Camilla the blogger has eleventy billion followers that she found by printing off flyers and posting them to her neighbours. She blogs every day by thinking “hmmmmm” then brain dumps whatever’s on her mind, uploads it to her site then swanks off for some casual sex with her twentysomething hunk boyfriend. Approx. time blogging: half an hour. This makes her a millionaire.

I laughed SO HARD.

The characters are all basically horrible people. Camilla -no-kids writes awful blog posts about not wanting children, shaming those who do because she had to be “controversial” (at one point she sees her sister (three kids) naked and describes in detail how the little darlings have ravaged her body, leaving her sounding like an incontinent old crone). Tara-one-kid gets caught masturbating on the tube (don’t ask – also an empty tube in central London on a Friday night – as if) and goes into woe-is-me meltdown, losing her job and being publicly shamed because she’s a woman (which, while I understand the double standard around sex for men and women, I actually think worked in her favour since she wasn’t arrested for public indecency). And Stella-wants-kids is a woman losing her grip on reality, facing her own terrifying demons, dealing with the death of both her Mum and twin sister plus the knowledge that she carries the BRCA gene. So she tries to seduce her boss purely so she can get pregnant by telling him she has cancer and hoping for a calculated sympathy shag. I don’t even know what to say about that if I’m honest.

It was this sheer lack of subtlety in the writing which astounded me. When one of the characters makes a dubious moral choice (has a baby without telling the father), Dawn O’Porter clearly thought “I’d better clear this mess up!” so *spoiler alert* has her find him (takes five minutes of tracking down, how fortuitous), tells him but then “from the look in his eyes she could tell he wasn’t interested and she’d made the right choice in not saying anything”. Erm sorry but that’s bullshit. He might need, oooh I don’t know…ten minutes to absorb the information that he has an eight year old with a woman he can’t remember?

In the end, I was thoroughly bored of this book. I give it plus points for showing a bit of female solidarity and a couple of chapters of female friendship but overall I found it jarring, clumsy and horribly stereotypical. Lots of people seem to think it’s hilarious but it really wasn’t for me.

I was interested to read this book because it was so topical. Social media, blogging, trolls and viral videos all sounded intriguing to me as a blogger myself although I didn't relate to Cam, the blogger at all. The other characters were Tara a single, working mother and Stella who is grieving for her twin sister who sadly died.

Many issues were covered in The Cows, some which I haven't seen discussed openly anywhere before. I wasn't offended by some of the subject matter but I have to say that I found parts distasteful.

I was both amused and saddened at different points in the book and many feminist subjects are highlighted. 'Don't follow the Herd' is a commendable motto for all women and the theme of daring to be different and the comradeship of women is strong and thought-provoking.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of the book, which I have reviewed honestly.

Cam is a well-known blogger who is raking in the cash and the followers, doesn't want kids and isn't sure she even wants a boyfriend. Stella is still grieving the death of her twin sister from ovarian cancer and facing the possibility of losing everything she feels makes her a woman to avoid a similar fate. Tara is a single mum who works for a hectic but misogynistic tv production company and wonders if she'll ever find a man she can really connect with. When a moment of indiscretion rockets one of these women into online infamy, their lives cross in such a way that will change them all forever.

This was another book I gave up on early on and then thankfully gave it another shot later. The way the story is established with these women and their very relatable issues and stresses made me quite anxious and a little depressed, so I had to put it down. I did pick it up again after a few weeks and found the story picked up in quite a lovely way. Funnily enough, the incident that launches the story was totally something I could imagine happening to me, so I read this book both in amusement and through fingers over my eyes while I cringed for the character. In fact, this book reminded me a little of Caitlin Moran's recent How To Be Famous in that it looked at the very public sex shaming of women. I feel like this is something that's resonating with a lot of women right now, especially in our digital age, and both authors really captured how we need to rethink how we deal with such situations when they are forced upon us. A great read.

Hearty and humorous, this book has it all. A witty story about connections and friendship, that will make you laugh, ugly cry and high five your bestie. Worryingly relatable, a bit more plot twisty than expected and simply a mighty fine piece of modern literature.

⭐️⭐️ 2 stars

I have enjoyed the author’s previous books but this book was not for me.

The writing seemed disjointed, the characters annoying and there was an underlying smugness that I couldn’t get past.

Really sorry but not for me.

Strange in places but compelling. I loved Cam, liked Tara and hated Stella. I thought her obsession with having kids was weird, especially the way it started to consume her entire being, it freaked me out a little but her overall story arc was interesting in it's progression.

I was impressed with Tara for doing things her way with her job and raising her kid but I did find the tube thing a bit much but thinking about it that's probably because we hear so little about female sexuality. Also Cam is right when she says that watching these non-consensual videos is contributing to the continued abuse of the victim. I thought that the way she turned things around was brilliant although I did want to know if her boss did ever come out..?

Cam was fab! As a childfree woman myself I completely empathised with her and I'd do the same thing in her situation - one that is thankfully unlikely personally thanks to gayness - I'm just sad that her storyline had to end the way it did but I understand it had to happen for the others to be able to move on.

I had no idea what The Cows was about but it made me cringe, laugh and cry!! It's about three women who are all trying to find their way, all with different issues. But it is about judgement, friendships, fertility, motherhood, social media, viral videos, bullying and so much more

Unfortunately, this book wasn't for me at all. I tried several times but I couldn't get more than 10% in.
As a mother, and as a woman, I like a whinge. I like messaging my best friend and having a good old moan! This book however just seems to be one large mass of women complaining.

I found myself astounded by this book, the characters weren't immediately unlikable and so it took a while for them to grow on me. I found the plot line where a character was caught on camera masturbating to be a difficult premise to believe and then found it hard to feel sorry for her when her life fell apart. Cam was an interesting character but it seemed that Dawn O'Porter used her blog entries to publish her feminist views. They made the book a little boring as she seemed to be 'banging on again' during a lot of the book.
It did get better as it went along and had some very funny moments and quite an emotional ending. I wouldn't recommend this to everyone but I am sure it will be very popular to younger women in particular.
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Please don’t be fooled by the title!

At the start of the book, Dawn O’Porter gives us the dictionary description of a cow. Part of the herd. Used for milk and beef. They produce milk, calves and then get slaughtered for their meat, which will most probably end up in dog food. Why therefore has she chosen these beautiful creatures with long eyelashes as the title for this book? Are women part of a herd? Is that what we’ve become as women?

The story revolves around three women. Tara, Cam and Stella.

Tara, a single mother is an investigative reporter who can crack some pretty tough stories only to find that her sexist bosses remove her name before the story is viewed by the public and instead insert their names. She meets Jason on a blind date and they connect. Unfortunately, he loses her number. While on the train going home, she thinks she’s alone in the train carriage, so decides to pleasure herself and this act is filmed by a teenager who quickly uploads it to the web, causing unwelcome notoriety.

Cam is a blogger. She’s made lots of money out of this career. Writing about feminist issues. She very seldom leaves her beautiful comfortable home and has a lover who is much younger than herself. Her blogs are mainly her own views on what the word feminism means to her. She cannot understand the desire of women to have children.

Stella is still trying to get over the deaths of her mother and her twin-sister who both died of breast cancer and she too must make the decision to have a hysterectomy and mastectomy to avoid a similar death. However, she is determined to have a child before this takes place. As her boyfriend has walked out, she doesn’t really care now who is going to father the child.

I know I’m grey and maybe I’ll be criticised for being “out of touch” with the “real world” but this book offended me on so many levels.

Why would a woman, however drunk, think it’s okay to pleasure herself on a train and when caught beg for understanding? We live in the age of “Me Too” something that women, feminists, call them what you will, have fought so hard for. It’s taken courage, lots and lots of courage for these women to stand up and say, “I’m not going to let a man take advantage of me.” But if we as women then perform something that is illegal, then surely we’ve got to give the same respect to men? How can this woman be portrayed as just pleasuring herself when a man caught doing a similar thing, would be branded as a pervert?

Feminism? What it means to me is years of being part of an organisation called Business and Professional Women. It was founded years ago and the main aim was to ensure that women coming into the workplace were given equal rights, equal pay and respect and dignity. Unfortunately, it seems that the modern feminist thinks differently. This book using Cam’s voice through her blogs just actually made me want to weep because it makes women just look nasty.

Stella is the most dysfunctional, obsessed and awful human being possible. Her behaviour would be enough to send any man running for the hills.

I always try to give authors the benefit of the doubt, unfortunately, in this case, I can’t. This book is supposed to be THE BOOK to read this year. It’s not! It will never fail to amaze me why publishers grab hold of a book and make it sound like we’ll miss our chance of a lifetime if we don’t read books they’ve marketed to the hilt. I know of so many really gifted authors who are overlooked by publishers, yet, they go ahead and publish books like this, telling us females, what an outstanding read we’re going to have. Rubbish!

Bluebell

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

The Cows is a story like no other I have read. Not many books I know of tackle head-on problems of the modern world that so freely incorporates modern technology in it. It brings out all the heavy guns, we have a viral video, and the not so innocent victim of this video, famous blogger and trolls and haters.

Three different women, one is a single mom working in a male-dominated world of entertainment, directing videos for company's online page. Second is an assistant to a successful photographer, she is mourning the death of her twin sister, struggles with her health and longs to have a child of her own. The third woman is a famous blogger, feminist with strong opinions that often stir public opinion and start serious debates, she's single but not afraid to find a lover if she feels like it, and she openly admits that she doesn't want to have kids. Could they be any different? What starts a spiral of events that eventually bring stories of all the woman together is a viral video of one of them.

I found this book truly fascinating and thought-provoking. We have a chance to see how some silly video that we would disregard after watching it or just pass on to another person laughing at the stupidity of the action, can ruin someone's life. We have a chance to see what's behind the words of famous bloggers, how they may feel about running their own online empire balancing on edge of being ostracised and losing their relevance and source of income. We have a chance to see behind a wall of carefully omitted stories from a shy and seemingly happy person, who is constantly struggling with death in her family and possibility of her own declining health, see behind the hateful words of online haters.

The Cows is not a book that I can recommend to everyone, there will be many that will find the story may be too impossible, cruel, who will feel such a strong disagreement with the woman in the story they won't be able to enjoy the slightest bit of the story. But if you read my description of those three women, and you thought that this could be a fascinating mix, go ahead a read it, you will be shocked and you will enjoy it.

Funny and frank account of three women negotiating relationships in a world dominated by social media. The Cows is the messed-up younger sister of Bridget Jones or Carrie Bradshaw. Less shine, more shame.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the book in exchange for an honest review.
The Cows by Dawn O’Porter I the story of three women and wasn’t really the type of book I would normally read. It is more suited to the 20/40 age group.. For those who like this type of humour they will probably enjoy the book. It sadly wasn’t for me.

I was quite excited to read this book because I have always liked Dawn O’Porter’s work in magazines and television, because of this I had pretty high hopes for The Cows. Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed. It wasn’t what I expected to be honest and ultimately I felt confused about what it was trying to say.
Lets start with some of the things I did like about it before delving into what I didn’t. I thought it had some really interesting themes and ideas. It brought up some insightful points about social media and the ways in which people can be both vilified or idealised by society, sometimes both at once. I also liked that the book is all about women and how they feel and think. I don’t think the book is badly written at all, nor do I think it’s amazingly well written. The characters are certainly intriguing, they are all in very different situations and have interesting pasts. Of the three main characters the book focusses on I felt the most invested in Tara. I found her intelligent and I empathised with her a lot at certain points throughout the story. I enjoyed reading about her journey.
Unfortunately, despite liking some parts of the book, overall I did really struggle with it. I think my main issue with it is that what I wanted and expected it to be was a positive exploration of feminism and female friendship and that is not what I felt it was. I found most of the characters unlikeable which, for me, is not usually a problem if the story is still good in other areas. Here, I didn’t feel that was the case. I had a real issue with Cam especially, I felt she came across as judgemental and condescending despite constantly blogging about how women shouldn’t judge each other’s life choices. This was confusing as, for me, feminism means women being free to be whatever they want in life, not about preaching to each other about the decisions they make. I just felt the tone was really off, in my personal opinion. On another note, I also felt that this book seemed to have a real problem with overweight people. Often characters who were essentially unpleasant were consistently described as fat or chubby. I couldn’t understand why a novel supposedly about how wrong it is to publicly shame anyone appeared to be totally fine with fat-shaming. It just felt like such a disconnect to me.
I hate writing negative reviews and I really wanted to like The Cows. I went into it perhaps expecting too much or it just didn’t resonate with me for a few reasons. I’m absolutely not saying it’s terrible or that you shouldn’t read it as everyone will have different reactions to it and I’ve seen plenty of glowing reviews. Sadly I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I was hoping I would.

I requested a copy of The Cows as I thought it would be a great poolside read for my holiday. I liked the premise of the book but I ended up being disappointed with the execution. I couldn't find many things that were likable in the characters and the portrayal of Stella left a seriously bad taste in my mouth. It tackled some deep subjects which I may have been unprepared for but there were some good shocks in there for sure. I would still recommend it to people but I just don't think it was for me.

There is so much to love about this book - it's addictive, bold, funny and moving. It makes you think long and hard about why we feel glee or intrigue when someone else is publicly humiliated and why we judge people so harshly. It makes you realise how tearing each other down does nothing and serves no one and that by banding together and supporting each other, women (well, human beings full stop!) are far more powerful. Dawn O'Porter shines a bright torch on the modern world, following the stories of three different women and what happens when this bright shiny world of social media, instagram flatlays, likes and follows suddenly turns against you. And it can. I know that as a blogger myself. I related to a lot of this story. Refreshing and honest, it's a must read for anyone who has resisted following the herd.

(2.5 stars) This was complete farce, but it was an easy enough read. The extra .5 because it did make me laugh at times. I was genuinely surprised with the content of the video that went viral! I did immediately have a reaction and opinion about what Tara had done, which I guess was what the author was after.

Possible spoilers from this point on.

The book was massively let down by the quality of Cam's blogs. If were expected to believe that she was a genuine social commentator followed by thousands, these blogs should have been so much more thought provoking. I just didn't believe the supposed backlash to the pretty tame stuff that she was writing about. 'Successful, content London based woman doesn't want kids'. That's not groundbreaking stuff. She wasn't even a Kate Hopkins-style click bait writer. What she was saying was completely balanced.
Tara's story was funny at times and I did like her mum! Although Stella... I just didn't believe. And killing off Cam?! That was just a complete get out! As others have commented... How on earth did it get out that she was pregnant?! The author writes it like she was Princess Diana and the autopsy report was made public!

Really enjoyed this novel - although I think the title is quite misleading! I liked all the separate POVs we got to experienced and felt it addressed many relevant issues in an accessible way (didn't come across as preachy etc).

I had been looking forward to reading this book as I had read several positive reviews. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy the plot and felt that it was unrealistic. The author tackled some difficult subjects including cancer, childlessness and abortion, but at times I felt that some subjects were covered insensitively. There are many positive reviews for this novel but I did not enjoy it in the same way others have.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this book in return for my honest opinion.

Cows by Dawn O'Porter is a wonderful, though provoking read about women and the life choices we make.

This book could not have been released at a better time, due with the current feminist resurgence, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to the women, and men, in my life.