This is a book for every mother who questions herself, has a bad day, or thinks that challenging athletic feats and professional achievements may in fact be easier than being a mother. That is—most of us.

After one of her six-year-old twins puts a hammer through a wall, Megan Williams feels as if she is failing the test that is motherhood. And it’s one she’s been failing ever since her twins were born at twenty-nine weeks. Recognizing a hole in her life that is eerily similar to the space left in the drywall, Williams abandons her academic career to apply to the Police Academy. She needs a win.

Through a grueling two-year application process, Williams confronts her mental and psychological abilities. She runs laps around younger candidates, but she fails her physical because she takes Prozac. Yet another obstacle arises when her mandatory polygraph insists that she is a drug dealer. During it all, Williams measures herself against the other candidates and other mothers with brutal honesty and black humor. She confronts the paralyzing fear that she is a bad mother, as well as the real possibility that she might not make the cut at the Academy. In the end, she makes peace with a motherhood far different from the dream sold by our culture.