Press Reviews

• Jessica Stanley, author of CONSIDER YOURSELF KISSED

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

• Nina Stibbe

  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

• Lizzy Stewart, author of ALISON

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

• Nathan Filer

  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

• Olivia Potts, author of A Half Baked Idea

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

• Claire Powell, author of At the Table

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

• Emma Hughes, author of It's Complicated

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

• David Whitehouse, author of Saltwater Mansions

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

• Silva Saunders, author of Homesick

  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

• Lucy Diamond

  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

• Justin Myers, author of The Glorious Dead

  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

• Julianne Pachico

  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

• Monica Ali

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

• Hannah Beckerman

  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

• Laura Kay, author of Making It

  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

• Emily Itami, author of Fault Lines

  Brilliant, hilarious, gut-punchingly truth-telling

• Jessie Burton

  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

• Hanna Thomas Uose, author of Who Wants to Live Forever

  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

• Claire Lynch, author of A FAMILY MATTER

  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

• Becky Barnicoat, author of Cry When the Baby Cries

  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

• Lynn Enright

  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!

• Stylist, 2026 Books to Look Out For

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