Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy

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 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Soldier Sailor — Motherhood Without the Filter (5 Stars)

Author: Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy
Genre: Literary Fiction / Motherhood / Marriage

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⚠️ TRIGGER WARNINGS

• Postpartum depression & maternal mental health

• Sleep deprivation

• Marital conflict

• Emotional neglect

• Brief child endangerment

• Illness in a child

• Death of a pet

• Near-drowning

• Intrusive thoughts

• Misogyny & gendered labor imbalance

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🚨 FULL SPOILER WARNING 🚨

This review contains a complete plot summary, including the ending. If you want to experience this raw, gut-punch of a book unspoiled, stop here and go read it first. I’ll wait. ☕📖

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A Brutally Honest Portrait of Early Motherhood

Let’s just get this out of the way: Soldier Sailor is one of the most honest depictions of early motherhood I’ve ever read. No soft lighting. No Instagram glow. No “cherish every moment” nonsense.

This book says the quiet part out loud: new motherhood can be isolating, terrifying, rage-inducing, and marriage-straining — and you can love your child with your entire soul while still hating what your life has become.

And yes. That hit very close to home for me.

Claire Kilroy writes with a sharp, lyrical intensity that feels almost confessional. This is fiction, but the emotional truth is so precise that you can’t help but wonder how much of it was lived. It’s devastating, validating, and — weirdly — funny at times. (The kind of laughter where you snort and then immediately feel sad.)

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Meet Soldier and Sailor

Our narrator, known only as Soldier, addresses the novel directly to her young son, Sailor. From the opening pages, we are inside her mind — exhausted, ferociously loving, unraveling.

She admits something society doesn’t like mothers to say:

She would kill for her child.
And sometimes, she wants to disappear.

This book exists in that uncomfortable, necessary space.

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🧨 The Breaking Point (Chapter One)

The novel opens with Soldier recounting a psychological “break” during Sailor’s first Easter. She is profoundly sleep-deprived, emotionally isolated, and crushed under the invisible weight of being everything while being valued as nothing.

In a moment that will make your stomach drop, Soldier leaves her sleeping baby alone and drives away, intending not to come back.

She wanders a cliff path, enters a forest, and encounters a dying bird hatchling — triggering a primal rescue instinct. Moments later, she “rescues” a crying baby being watched by a stranger with a dog… only to realize it is her own child, displaced by coincidence and fate.

She returns home.
She tells no one.

Motherhood, Kilroy reminds us, is not always pretty — it is survival.

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Domestic Isolation & Gender Divide (Chapters Two–Five)

These chapters detail the grinding monotony of early motherhood:

• Toddler groups where no one connects

• Supermarket chaos

• Minor injuries that feel catastrophic

• A husband who leaves daily for the office, emotionally untouched

Soldier’s husband — nicknamed “Hugo Boss” — embodies the modern professional man who believes himself progressive but contributes very little at home.

One fight escalates after Soldier cuts herself on a Japanese chef’s knife, a symbol of her husband’s curated, superior lifestyle. When he dismisses her exhaustion as “insane,” she walks into the night in her pajamas — feral, furious, and untethered.

The one bright spot? A male friend at the playground — also a full-time parent — who gets it. With him, Soldier feels like a human again. They talk about the gender apartheid of unpaid labor, the mental load, and the grief of watching children grow too fast.

This friendship doesn’t become romantic. It becomes something rarer: affirmation.

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IKEA, Terror, and The Man (Chapter Four)

A trip to IKEA to buy Sailor a “big boy bed” turns into a nightmare when Sailor goes missing in the store.

Soldier’s mind enters what she calls the “darknet” — imagining abduction, violence, loss.

They find Sailor with a security guard, but the damage is done when her husband frightens him by invoking “The Man” as punishment.

It’s a chilling reminder of how casually fear is handed to children — and how deeply mothers absorb it.

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Marriage at the Breaking Point (Chapters Six–Eight)

The marriage deteriorates rapidly:

• A tense drive to the mother-in-law’s house

• The husband’s road rage

• Soldier’s untreated illness

• Resentment over his promotion, which cost her career

The resentment explodes when Soldier screams,
“I am your wife!”

Later, during a terrifying night when Sailor spikes a 40.2°C fever, Soldier handles the crisis alone while her husband sleeps.

Delirious and desperate, she takes Sailor to the beach to cool him. She wanders onto a sandbar — only to realize the tide has turned. Water rises. Panic sets in.

She carries her son through the water, experiencing a moment of absolute clarity: the death of her former self and the brutal, unbreakable energy of motherhood.

Soon after, she asks her husband to leave. The separation is brief, painful, and unresolved.

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The Ending: Love, Loss, and Vigilance (Chapter Nine)

The novel ends quietly.

The family is together again, holding hands.

Soldier reflects on Sailor growing older — seeing him as a “prize colt,” as “Superman,” as something unbearably temporary. She acknowledges that loss is inevitable, that love guarantees grief.

And yet.

She promises she will always know him — even when her mind is gone — through their shared “ion stream.”

Motherhood, Kilroy suggests, is vigilance.
It is energy.
It cannot be created or destroyed.

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Final Thoughts ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Soldier Sailor is not comforting. It is not gentle. It is necessary.

If you’ve ever:

• Resented a sleeping partner 😴

• Felt erased by motherhood

• Carried the invisible weight of “willingness”

• Loved your child while grieving yourself

…this book will feel like someone cracked your ribcage and nodded knowingly.

For me, this was a five-star, deeply personal read. Hard. Validating. Unforgettable.

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📚 If You Loved Soldier Sailor, Try These Next:

• Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

• Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

• A Life’s Work by Rachel Cusk

• The Push by Ashley Audrain

• Motherhood by Sheila Heti