Brett Grayson is an author and successful trial attorney with offices throughout the five boroughs of NYC and New Jersey.  Him and his wife Lauren have been on a long journey since they met in 2001 and have faced adversity related to mental health, pregnancy complications and birth complications.  His debut novel, “What Could Go Wrong?: My Mostly Comedic Journey Through Marriage, Parenting and Depression,” was released in January of this year and it is a memoir about their journey in becoming parents for the first time.  It quickly became an Amazon #1 New Release.

“What Could Go Wrong?” begins with an Introduction where the author relates a Valentine’s Day memory that starts out promising but ends abruptly when Liz, their three-year old daughter, has a bathroom malfunction.  It is best not to go into the gory details.  From there, the story goes back to the beginning to when Lauren first becomes pregnant and the various parenting adventures that follow.  The book is divided into four parts: Part One (the pregnancy) includes chapters such as Urine Catching, Hot Doctor Roulette and It’s an Octopus!; Part Two (parenting hurdles) with chapters like Second Hurdle – The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and Third Hurdle – The Completely Insane Outside World; Part Three (parenting) and the chapters Stop Asking Me Whey Every Freaking Two Minutes and Avoiding Death, Accepting Ebola, and Zika as an Ally; and Last Part has the chapters New Kicks and Elsa and Anna Had Terrible Parents.  This is one family’s journey through pregnancy, the first years of parental cluelessness, the terrible twos, teenagers and the few years that follow when they begin to learn about a world that is crazier than they are.  It is a filled with pre and post-natal complications, battles with his own mental health and his son’s diagnosis of the rare genetic disease CLOVES syndrome.

Parenting is one of those experiences that binds people together; yet the journey is different for everyone. Out of all the parenting books available, most are from the female perspective and this is what makes “What Could Go Wrong?” unique in that it is written from the male first person point of view. The language is down to earth, which makes the story easy to follow and understand.  He does drop the F bomb, including in the opening sentence, and a few other colorful words, but that is what makes it real.  As a whole, it is raw, in your face, sometimes poignant but mostly funny.  The target audience is parents, who will, no doubt, relate to his struggles, including his distaste for all things Frozen, from having seen it thousands of times. This page-turner is recommended for readers who appreciate reading about someone else’s adventures in parenting, marriage and mental health, to remind them that others have had similar struggles and that they are not alone.

*The author received a copy of this book for an honest review. The views and opinions expressed here belong solely to her.