Despatches from a mother who started late (and is running to catch up)

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'My Bump and Me', Myleene Klass

I was looking forwards to reading Myleene Klass's autobiographical account of her pregnancy, My Bump and Me. After all, the front cover bills the paperback as "The Sunday Times Bestseller", so I thought it must have a lot going for it.

The first fly in the ointment was uncertainty over the author's identity. "Is she an actress?" asked my husband. "Errr, don't know," I had to confess. "Who is she, then?" Now, admittedly, neither husband nor I are in the same age group as Klass. We both listen to Radio Four more than the music stations. We only watch reality television when seriously wrecked from sleepless nights with the babies. So maybe we don't fall into the target readership. But it would have been nice to get a brief run-down somewhere in the book of the author (she is a musician) and her credentials. It's possible I missed her background material but nothing leapt out at me.

Klass does, though, dwell on her exploits in the television programme "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here" and the quickie in a bathroom afterwards that resulted in her pregnancy. And, ultimately, this book. I was embarrassed for her when I read that part. I might have even blushed.

Reading My Bump and Me is not unlike eating your way through a box of Thorntons chocolates or watching hours of reality television. Pleasant enough at the time, but leaves you empty and disgusted at yourself afterwards.

It's the utter banality that gets to you. Not even knowing she's pregnant, Klass gets grumpy with her boyfriend, then is relieved to discover it's raging hormones that are causing the arguments. She is awed by the miracle of new life growing inside her, gets fed up with NHS maternity servies, is forced 'in desperation' to go private, debates baby names, reassesses her relationship with her own mother, moves house, gets in a tizz, needs to wee a lot, puts on weight and mentions her work modelling for Marks & Spencer about a dozen times too many.

When she poses almost naked for Glamour magazine (a nod to Demi Moore), a job for which she would surely have been paid handsomely, she describes the shoot as 'flying the flag for mamas'.

Her publishers brought in somebody to select and edit material for the book, but unfortunately much of the writing reads like one long text message.

She complains, in a mild way, about well-meaning but unwanted advice from friends, family and random strangers. This does not stop her offering her own tit bits of advice, (take drugs in labour if you feel like it, don't be forced into breastfeeding). But I suppose we're all guilty of offering advice when we would do better to say nothing.

Despite this, Klass herself comes across as a nice, cheerful person with a good heart. And she sounds like she'll make an excellent mother to her much-loved little girl. I wish I had more positive things to say about My Bump and Me. It does have a readable, compulsive quality (I read it in an evening) and it's innocuous; without anything upsetting or nasty about it. Unfortunately, I have to say I found the book a little bit vacuous. Not unlike the celebrity culture that created it.

My Bump and Me, Myleene Klass. £7.99, Virgin Books.