I often have the same dream, or rather the same nightmare. My children undergo a transformation: their legs and arms get so big they stretch across our apartment and poke out the windows, taking up more and more space. I have to remove the doors. Powerlessly, I watch them growing, and am afraid they’re going to crush me.

The narrator is forty-something, an age when we ask ourselves difficult questions. She is a divorced mother of three: two teens and a little girl. All three kids are hard on their mom, who they think is out of date.

Les gosses is a funny novel. Valérie Clo describes the daily life of a mom who is in over her head, making fun of how complicated family relations can get. With a light touch, she captures hilarious situations, crises and moments of raucous laughter. A cheerfully chaotic atmosphere that will be familiar to plenty of parents (and teens).

A (divorced) mother and her three kids: the unadulterated portrait of a 21st-century family!