Natural Disaster

A witty look at the early days of motherhood

Good Housekeeping, '50 must-read books for the summer

Funny, sad, tender and perfectly observed ... I suspect a lot of readers will come away from this novel feeling understood in a way that's genuinely rare

Irish Times

Funny, moving ... Both sobering and celebratory, this novel is a powerful addition to the literature of surviving procreation

Guardian Book of the Day

A cathartic comedy

Grazia

Told with comic precision ... razor sharp ... Owens captures the shifting sands that women are required to navigate ... It's a relief and a joy to see the contradictions of modern life so fully articulated

Stylist, Book of the Month

The devastatingly relatable novel every new mum needs to read . . . her book feels like a comrade on a journey packed with events, exhaustion and ecstasies

Independent

Hilarious, but also a brilliantly sharp commentary on the many demands of modern life

Red Magazine

Beautifully observed, deliciously funny

Mail on Sunday

Funny and relatable, it captures the overwhelming, absurd and quietly extraordinary reality of motherhood

Woman & Home

Plenty of female novelists have written about the nightmarish disorientations of early parenthood. Few have done so with the comic finesse Owens applies here ... Owens ploughs well-trodden territory with spiky wit and unsentimental pathos .... I laughed out loud

Daily Mail

Fabulously told

Sainsbury's Magazine

Owens captures the absurdity, tenderness and frazzle of modern motherhood with acute, painfully recognisable humour

iPaper, Best Books for June

Very funny

Observer

Owens perfectly captures the banalities of solo parenting and the internalised sense of judgement that mums often feel

Independent, The books everyone will be reading this summer

Lisa Owens captures the chaos and tenderness of modern motherhood with painful honesty . . . Owens balances absurd comedy with quiet heartbeak, finding meaning in exhaustion, frustration and fleeting moments of joy. Anyone who has raised children will feel deeply seen by this fully realised portrait of family life, identity and survival

Women's Weekly

I absolutely loved it . . . A forensic, agonisingly relatable account of the highs and lows and in-betweens of one whole ordinary day in a life with two small children. Funny, dark, absurd, pin-sharp, insightful, propulsive, unputdownable

Nina Stibbe

Lisa Owens lays bare the pains, perils and joys of motherhood, all captured over the course of a single day. Hilarious, brilliant, utterly exhilarating

Monica Ali

An extremely funny book that's both perceptive and propulsive. Triggering, in all the best ways, for anyone who's ever had small children in their lives

Adam Kay

I absolutely loved it. The joy, the madness, the pettiness, love and ingenuity of a day with two small children is brilliantly observed. Lisa Owens asks what it is to be a mother - and this is the answer. Perceptively, tenderly told, every page provokes humour, recognition, great empathy and often all three at once. The ordinary becomes the extraordinary in Lisa Owens' writing

Lucy Diamond

Eminently readable, recognisable and reassuring. I read this in a day. One Dalloway-esque day, a million catastrophes, the intense highs and lows of being a mother, a partner, a woman in this world. It's fantastic

Jessie Burton

Deeply relatable and unbearably tense, Lisa Owen's brilliant Natural Disaster explores all the complexity and tenderness of parenthood in Lisa's singular voice - crisp, witty and full of heart. The high priestess of minute observation!

Tuppence Middleton

Gorgeously captures what it's like to be a mother. Very funny and very, very relatable

Stylist, 2026 Books to Look Out For

With Natural Disaster Lisa Owens pioneers a new genre: the white-knuckle domestic. A compulsive, agonising, and hilarious anatomy of modern motherhood

Chris Power

Utterly exhilarating - every page blazes with truth, hilarity, perception and love. Natural Disaster is destined to become a classic

Jessica Stanley, author of CONSIDER YOURSELF KISSED

Heartbreakingly astute and wincingly relatable, Natural Disaster is also the funniest novel I've read in years

Claire Powell, author of AT THE TABLE

Lisa Owens mines gold from the smallest details of life. Natural Disaster is a thunderously good novel - the kind that makes you rock with laughter, shed a genuine tear, and immediately think of which friends you're going to lend it to first

Nathan Filer

Generous, funny, heartbreaking and clever - a parenting caper with profound emotional clarity. I loved it

Lizzy Stewart, author of ALISON

Read this book. I can't stop talking about it. I laughed out loud on almost every page (it's the funniest book I've read in years), and I was in tears as I finished it. It's so beautifully (and wittily) observed, the most accurate representation of the wonder and horror of contemporary motherhood and marriage. What a writer

Kate Davies, author of Nuclear Family

Brilliant and funny and all so searingly, hilariously true. A genuinely dazzling novel. And there is so much love in it too

David Whitehouse, author of Saltwater Mansions

I did not give Lisa Owens permission to look inside my very soul but she seems to have done it anyway. Smart, wise and real

Claire Lynch, author of A FAMILY MATTER

This is the book I've been waiting for ever since I had children; a hilariously unvarnished portrait of all that motherhood entails; the good, the bad and the completely revolting. Powered by rage and love and a plot so propulsive I read it in a single sitting, I'll be buying it for everyone I know

Marianne Levy, author of Don't Forget to Scream

A triumph. Warm, witty, astute and utterly compelling, Natural Disaster is a feverish exploration of one day in the trenches with small children. I read each page as if it were a thriller, desperate to find out what obstacle our hero would have to overcome next. Lisa's writing is so precise that this novel never strays into sentimentality and yet, it made my heart ache and has stayed with me. I will be recommending it to everyone

Laura Kay, author of Making It

Vividly, hilariously captures the epic but invisible labour of parenting. The full colour wheel of motherhood is here: the pain, the terror, the joy, the bone-grinding exhaustion. I have never felt so seen and, my god, we need to be seen

Becky Barnicoat, author of Cry When the Baby Cries

I loved NATURAL DISASTER - It was a painful, funny, harried, loving, laugh-out-loud pleasure to read. It was hilarious, infuriating and the tears were angry and tickled at the same time. I don't think any relationship other than mother-and-child combines rage and tenderness, comedy and farce like that - and it brings all other relationships into focus: a woman and her male partner, a woman and this thing we call 'society', a woman and her own mother and foremothers

Bidisha, presenter, broadcaster and author of The Future of Serious Art

Lisa Owens has done something I almost never see: given the granular, particular, often relentless experience of caring for young children the close attention of a poet. But funny

Elizabeth Oldfield, author of Fully Alive

If you have ever spent a difficult hour - let alone a difficult day - with young children, I promise you that you will LOVE Natural Disaster. It's hilarious and honest and so astute about the quotidian frustrations of motherhood and marriage. There were times I wondered if Lisa had somehow managed to get inside my head and read my thoughts. It's a blisteringly good read

Hannah Beckerman

I loved it. What a perfect depiction of early motherhood, womanhood, and love

Olivia Potts, author of A Half Baked Idea

A brilliantly comic, wonderfully warm novel about a journey more epic than the Odyssey - a day in the life of a mother with two children. The must read book of the summer and a classic for any anxious millennial

Julianne Pachico

Brilliant, hilarious, gut-punchingly truth-telling

Emily Itami, author of Fault Lines

I read this funny, poignant, pacy novel through my fingers. Parents should read Natural Disaster for the comfort, perspective, and solidarity on offer. Non-parents should read it for its contraceptive qualities! And everyone should read it for its heart

Hanna Thomas Uose, author of Who Wants to Live Forever

An utterly relatable, funny, and at times excruciating reflection of the rollercoaster that is motherhood, and the very many emotions (anxiety! exhaustion! adoration!) that can run riot within the space of a single day spent with small people. I loved it

Chloe Ashby, author of Second Self

I absolutely adored it. A masterfully drawn portrait of modern motherhood, hilarious and harrowing by turns

Emma Hughes, author of It's Complicated

I was swept away by this deceptively quiet look at the great adventure of parenthood, which somehow contains all of one woman's messy, beautiful life. Felix - with his devastating one-liners - is surely one of the best characters I've read in some time

Silva Saunders, author of Homesick

I raced through Natural Disaster in a day. A funny and, at times, tense exploration of the chaos and isolation that comes with modern parenthood. Sharp, brave and honest

Justin Myers, author of The Glorious Dead

I absolutely loved this book. It's so hilariously specific while remaining utterly relatable. I raced through it in a couple of days - but it's stayed with me in the weeks since, observations and jokes continuing to resonate as I go about my day. I'll be recommending it to every mum I know!

Lynn Enright

Amazing. A unique combo of "stressful classic movie where guy has the worst day ever" and "hilarious and moving depiction of early motherhood". A brilliant and essential novel

Ana Kinsella, author of Frida Slattery As Herself

At once laugh out loud funny and moving ... for every mother who feels she's climbing an impossible mountain alone ... This novel makes you feel so very seen. A beautiful elegy to the bittersweetness of being a woman, losing your identity in that motherhood you longed for, family and just every inexplicable hurdle little people unknowingly throw at you

Emma Nanami Strenner, author of My Other Heart

A profoundly relatable novel, Natural Disaster captures the joy amid the tedium of caretaking. Interrogating her heroine's fears and neuroses, Owens offers refreshing insights into motherhood, marriage, and what it means to be a family

Emily Adrian, author of Seduction Theory

Absolutely nails the tiny victories and calamities of child-rearing and does it with so much humour and heart. Beautifully written and highly relatable, even 10 years after my last maternity leave. I loved it

Kate Maxwell, author of Hush

I loved it. A work of quiet genius. Utterly fantastic

Emily Bell