Category: Fiction

The Farm is a nickname for the Golden Oaks surrogacy center in Boston where rich patrons known as Clients, pay exorbitant amount of money to have their kids carried for them by women referred to as Hosts. Most of the Hosts are minorities. White Hosts are so scarce/hard to find that the few they have are referred to as “Premiere Hosts” because as you can guess they are considered “white, pretty and smart, but not intimidatingly so”. The Hosts are nicely compensated by their Clients but what makes it a little uncomfortable is that the women are very closely monitored from the moment they have  viable pregnancy. Their diet, their emails, their every move is being watched by Coordinators and they are not allowed contact with the outside world.

Our protagonist, Jane is a single, Filipino mother of a 6 month old who has recently split from her husband. She is living in a dorm with her resourceful cousin, Evelyn who she refers to as Ate. Ate does all she can to make money to send back to her kids in the Philippines and has now become a sought after baby nurse in NY. After suffering a heart attack, she enlists Jane to sub for her but when that goes awry she suggests being a surrogate at Golden Oaks. Being desperate for money, Jane agrees and begins this new life for the next 9 months.

Mae Yu is the ambitious manager of the center who comes off as the villain in this book because she would stop at nothing to get wealthy clients including Madam Deng. She keeps a special eye on Jane who becomes friends with two fellow white Hosts – Reagan, an idealist who wants to believe doing this is her helping the world in some way while dealing with her family issues and Lisa, the wild free spirit who is doing this for the third time and is the person who coined the center “The Farm”

You guys, I could go on and on about this plot of this book because it was that rich and that layered. I’ve been in a reading rut for a while and it was great to finally read a book I was excited about. I have seen a lot of comparisons to The Handmaid’s Tale or saying it is a dystopian book, but I don’t think so at all. I think it is a realistic plot that is current (Goodreads tells me there is a center similar to this called Golden Generations – scary).

What did I like about this book? So many things.

This book was written through the lens of an immigrant and Ramos gets it right using the personal stories she has heard and experienced as a Filipina herself. She touches on the guilt so many immigrant parents face when faced with making the choice between being able to provide from afar or being close to them but not being able to provide. I liked how the book made me think.

Jane just always had an internal battle but there is a scene where Evelyn says Jane seems to have a knack for making the worst decisions at the wrong time and I agree. Jane is so ruled by her emotions, it got frustrating sometimes. Reagan just wanted to do the right thing and represented the white person that is cognizant of their privilege and racked with white guilt but at what point do you make it make sense and live your life? Mae is of Asian descent but seems to be one of those who sees herself as white, there is a point where she doesn’t get why her classmate who is black has been considered one of Forbes 30 Under 30 and doesn’t think she would have achieved that if she wasn’t black – which is probably the thought process for a lot of Americans.

“The colonizers let us tell stories. Even angry stories … They please the colonizer, make him feel hip and cool … What the colonizer would be frightened of is an uprising where the colonized took the means of representation and production and made them equal, for everyone, of all backgrounds.”

I liked how intelligent the book was with tackling racial and social status without being too preachy. Ramos made this very multi faceted with superb writing skills. I wish she had expanded more on what happened at Jane’s baby nursing job and the ending didn’t leave me fully satisfied or had me convinced but everything else was good enough for me to overlook. I fully recommend.

Taynement

“Life with a cheat code isn’t life. Our existence isn’t something to be engineered or optimized for the avoidance of pain. That’s what it is to be human – the beauty and the pain, each meaningless without the other.” 

Neuroscientist Helena Smith, in a bid to find a cure for Alzheimer’s and save her mother’s life, accidentally builds a machine totally unprecedented. This machine allows you to store a memory, then go back and relive that memory and your life from the day of the stored memory all over again.

New York city cop, Barry Sutton, is investigating a devastating phenomenon called False Memory Syndrome, where residents are waking up with false memories of lived full lives, different from ones they are living now. Suicide skyrockets and Sutton tries to get to the bottom of the phenomenon before memory as we know it is destroyed. Needless to say, these two stories collide in a way that’ll make you question time, memory and love.

“There are so few things in our existence we can count on to give us the sense of permanence, of the ground beneath our feet. People fail us. Our bodies fail us. We fail ourselves. He’s experienced all of that. But what do you cling to, moment to moment, if memories can simply change. What, then, is real? And if the answer is nothing, where does that leave us?” 

Who doesn’t want a do over in life? Personally, I don’t trust people who say they have no regrets. If you’re offered a way to go back in time and relive it, with all the knowledge you have now still intact, who wouldn’t be tempted to take that chance? This and so many questions are asked and answered in this book. Crouch writes a very human novel. Infact, I’d argue that this book is basically a love story. We see how much love pushes us to be the best or worst versions of ourselves, how desperate love makes us and ultimately, how love breaks us.

Other questions like, would you go back and stop Hitler? What are the consequences of that? If World War 2 never happens, then half the population on earth now stops existing and we get a totally new world. Blake Crouch turns his incredible imagination loose in his latest thriller and your mind will be racing trying to keep up with him.

“He has wondered lately if that’s all living really is—one long goodbye to those we love.” 

Ignore the science. Honestly, don’t try to understand all the facets of this. Get the gist of how the base science works then let everything else go. I find that’s why people think they can’t read science fiction because they get bogged down by the science. Understand the basics of how this world Crouch is creating works and then let everything else go. Reviewing Crouch’s book is not an easy task; there’s a huge limitation on how much of the plot I can talk about without spoiling something, and I don’t want that.

I will say that when Helen Smith relives her life over and over and over again till the readers are out of their minds with the familiarity of it all, it gets to a point where you just want it to freaking end. This gives you a glimpse of how Helen feels and your heart absolute breaks for her. I think this section of the book pushed the book up a star for me because if  I went crazy as a reader,  just imagine what the protagonist felt, living her life over and over again, trying to stop the inevitable from happening.

“My soul knows your soul. In any time.” 

If you’re looking to venture into science fiction, I think you should give Blake Crouch a try. Underneath all that science, Crouch writes human stories. I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads. If you read this and enjoy it, you should give his first book, Dark Matter, a shot.

 

Leggy

“The thing is, Peter, grown-ups don’t know what they’re doing any better than kids do. That’s the truth.”

The book begins with two young Irish cops who are partners, Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, talking about their future and suddenly we are fast forwarding a few years and Brian moves next door to Francis with his new wife, Anne. Francis lives there with his wife, Lena and they already have their first child.

We fast forward again, Lena has two more kids and Anne has a son. The two never hit it off but Lena’s last born, Kate and Anne’s son, Peter become best friends. Kate is an escape for Peter, whose home life is not the best given his mom’s instability and his dad looking the other way and not doing anything about it.

Now teenagers, Peter and Kate sneak out one night and pledge undying love to each other and share their first kiss. Something major also happens that night that changes the trajectory of all their lives because, it unfortunately is also the last time Peter and Kate see each other for a long time and sets the stage for occurrences in the next decades in the lives of these two families.

FOMO led me to this book. It was everywhere on our feeds and in the book community and even though I didn’t know what it was about, I promptly got on the list for it at my library. I am glad I did because I quite enjoyed it. I’d classify it as a slow build that never really becomes a full fire but was still rich.

“There was no real way for a person to try something out, see if he liked it…because you try it and try it and try it a little longer and next thing it’s who you are.” 

What I liked about the book was how human it was. It showed how generational patterns are hard to break. You see something you didn’t like growing up or you swore you would never do from your parents and somehow you end up there in the same place. And just how flawed we are as human beings. Keane was skilled enough to make some of her characters empathetic even through their ugliest moments. I liked how no character was left to be a saint and when you least expected it, their flaw would pop up and we would be immersed in a journey of the characters trying to work through it.

“They’d both learned that a memory is a fact that has been dyed and trimmed and rinsed so many times that it comes out looking almost unrecognizable to anyone else who was in that room or anyone who was standing on the grass beneath that telephone pole.”

It’s no spoiler to tell you that Kate and Peter reconnect and get married and their marriage and how everyone else reacts to it is an integral part of the story because it begs the question of how were they able to move past that fateful night? The book reminds you of how we get to see our parents as actual human beings as we get older and get a better understanding that they were trying to do the best they could. Except that some of these characters could have done better.

“She’d learned that the beginning of one’s life mattered the most, that life was top-heavy that way.” 

Ultimately for each of these characters, Keane reminds us that no matter how old they got, their childhood eventually played a huge part of who they became as adults. Peter by all accounts was a good man but his demons eventually came to light and was stronger than his will to be a good human being.

When Francis and Brian become neighbors, I wish Keane had taken the time to let us know why the two weren’t close anymore. They didn’t even seem like they liked each other, so why did he move by him at Francis suggestion? I thought that was a bit weird. I wish Lena was dealt a better hand in life but again…life. Like I mentioned earlier, I liked this book. It’s not a feel good, happy book but it’s also not depressing. It’s more of an introspective one that reminds you that life can be complex but sometimes, there are rays of hope that usually comes with a lot of work.

Taynement

“I always hated hearing old people yammering on like this when I was young. And I do want to assure you: I’m aware that many things were not better in the 1940s. Underarm deodorants and air-conditioning were woefully inadequate, for instance, so everybody stank like crazy, especially in the summer, and also we had Hitler.” 

It’s 1940 and Gilbert’s narrator, Vivian, has just been kicked out of Vassar College for a terrible freshman performance (she was ranked 361 out of 362, just ahead of the girl who contracted polio). Not knowing what to do with her, Vivian’s parents send her off to New York to live with her Aunty Peg who owns a crumbling theater, off-off-off Broadway, called the Lily Theater. Vivian has no interest in acting or writing but is quite talented with a sewing machine, so Peg makes her the theater’s costume designer and what was intended to be just one regular summer in her life becomes the defining summer that drives the rest of her life. Now at 95, our narrator is looking back on her life and mapping out the effect of that time in New York on the rest of her life.

“I was long and tall, that’s all there was to it. And if it sounds like I’m about to tell you the story of an ugly duckling who goes to the city and finds out that she’s pretty, after all-don’t worry, that is not that story. I was always pretty, Angela. What’s more, I always knew it.”

Gilbert said – “My goal was to write a book that would go down like a champagne cocktail- light and bright, crisp and fun.” and she definitely achieved that. This book is light even though it’s set in the 40’s with the war looming, during the war and after the war. It is fun and easy to read. This book started very well, I loved the main character, her voice was strong and funny. Everybody in this book had so much life and energy, it was a parade of very interesting people in the theater world all with a hint of glamour. The amount of detail Gilbert put in her descriptions were very impressive. The way she described the dresses, the society, the theaters, the effects of war on people, made everything so tangible and easy to imagine. This book had these burst of humor that really shined and Vivian’s retelling of how she lost her virginity was absolutely hilarious.

“The world ain’t straight. You grow up thinking things are a certain way. You think there are rules. You think there’s a way that things have to be. You try to live straight. But the world doesn’t care about your rules, or what you believe. The world ain’t straight, Vivian. Never will be. Our rules, they don’t mean a thing. The world just happens to you sometimes, is what I think. And people just gotta keep moving through it, best they can.”

Ultimately, this book was way too long. This book is almost 500 pages but should have been edited down to 300 pages. This book is essentially a letter Vivian writes to her friend’s daughter describing how they met and their effects on each other’s lives but honestly, that entire part could have been cut out. I didn’t think this line of the story moved the story forward in anyway. I was bored and kept wondering what this had to do with anything. This book shines when it is all about Vivian, when we are hearing about her promiscuity, the war, the professional scandal that sends her out of New York for the first time, and an inner look into the workings of the theater world in 1940 New York. I don’t think light books that go down like champagne should be almost 500 pages long.

“The secret to falling in love so fast, of course, is not to know the person at all. You just need to identify one exciting feature about them, and then you hurl your heart at that one feature, with full force, trusting that this will be enough of a foundation for lasting devotion.”

Even though I thought this book was longer than it should have been, I quite enjoyed it and definitely recommend it. It’s essentially a beach read and perfect for summer. I gave this 3 stars on my Goodreads.  Have you read this book? Are you going to? Let me know in the comments!

P. S – If you enjoy this book, you should check out Amor Towles’ “Rules of Civility”.

 

Leggy

 

I’d seen this book EVERYWHERE on our instagram feed (follow us!: @nightstands2) and my strong FOMO made me tell myself that I have to read this book. I have had Forever Interrupted in my TBR list forever and just haven’t read it because at the time I got it, a friend told me I might not be emotionally ready for it, so I kept putting it off. I had read Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo some time ago and enjoyed that. I had seen in the comments that it was best to do this as an audiobook, so I put this on hold at my library and jumped on it when it came through.

Daisy is an up and coming artist who is a free spirit and doing what people did in those days – drugs, sex & rock n roll. The Six is a band trying to make it big and led by Billy Dunne, a rocker who gives in to the whims of fame and becomes an addict and isn’t always faithful to his loyal girlfriend, later wife, Camila who finds out she is pregnant with their first child the day before The Six leaves for their first tour.

The story of Daisy & The Six begins when Daisy joins the band and is in close paths as writer and lead singer with Billy Dunne. The band becomes one of the biggest bands in the 70’s up until their split and the book is about all the ups, downs and turmoils behind the scenes.

Guys, after reading this I think Taylor Jenkins Reid shot up as one of my favorite authors. The structure of this book was amazing and really impressive story telling by Reid. The book is told in documentary style a la Behind The Music, so it is told from the various character’s point of view (another reason why the audio is better). By the time you get sucked into the story, it’ll be so hard to not believe that this is NOT an autobiography and it is NOT about a real band.

Reid makes the characters sound so real and details their struggles with love, addiction, egos, turmoil etc so well which is probably why they sound so real. Based on the two books I have read of her, I have noticed that she knows how to write flawed human beings so well. It’s crazy how she can make a character who is doing shitty things still be charming and you still are on their side. That’s a skill, I tell ya.

As if the book wasn’t real enough Reid also wrote original music (which can be heard in the audio book), talk about commitment. I love the way the female characters were written. They were all strong women who weren’t taking shit from men and stood in their own truths and convictions and also were there for each other. I especially liked Karen and Camila’s friendship.

I can see how people could find the format annoying but it worked for me. It especially worked because it has been optioned as a TV show and I can literally see it playing out in my eyes in it’s transcript style. I promise I am not trying to sell the audio book but one last fun thing about it was the celeb voices such as Judy Greer, Benjamin Bratt and Jennifer Beals as Daisy.

If you couldn’t tell already, I liked this one and I recommend it (in audio of course)

🙂

Taynement

There is nothing Hollywood loves more than adapting a book (or a podcast). We have written about this in the past before . All the books mentioned in that post have been turned to screen except “Hello Sunshine”. There is enough material to go around as we have a couple of books coming up on TV.

Here are some books being adapted to TV:

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: The book about a mother and daughter who come to town and shake things up was a favorite of mine and I enjoyed reading it. It was a book that made you think and really leave you wondering what the right thing is/was? It is going to be a TV series on Hulu starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. I will be watching. You can see our review of it here.

Normal People by Sally Rooney:  Based in Ireland, the book tells the story of the sweet but complicated relationship between Connell and Marianne beginning from their high school days all the way to college and beyond. Hulu has ordered this straight to series and it’ll be 12 half hour episodes. Our review of the book can be found here.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makai: A recent one I loved that talked about the AIDS crisis, the people that lived through it and living with the ghosts of the people who they lost. The book was optioned by Amy Poehler’s production company and has not been bought yet but this should be a somber but good watch. This is what we thought about the book.

The Expatriates by Janice Y.K Lee: Following 3 women who live as expats in Hong Kong, this book is set to be an Amazon series starring Nicole Kidman. We are yet to review it here on the blog but can Nicole Kidman do any wrong?

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid: The book reads like a VH1 Behind the Music episode or a documentary. It’s even more intriguing as an audio book. I have enjoyed past works by Taylor Jenkins Reid (The 7 Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, anyone?) She is an interesting writer. This book is being turned to an Amazon TV series produced by Reese Witherspoon.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead: I have not had the pleasure of reading this book but I have heard good things about the book that tells the story of  a young slave girl named Cora and her daring escape from a cotton plantation in Georgia through an underground railroad. Barry Jenkins of Moonlight fame will be directing all 11 episodes on…you guessed it?…Amazon. A cast has already been put together and it includes Joel Edgerton and Thuso Mbedu.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee: The multi generational story that also gives part history lesson on Koreans who lived in Japan after the war was inevitably going to be made into a TV show. This time, Apple TV is who takes the reigns on this. I liked this one and you can see what I thought about it here.

Any books on the list pique your interest in reading?…or watching?

Taynement

“I was born without a voice, one cold, overcast day in Brooklyn, New York. No one ever spoke of my condition. I did not know I was mute until years later, when I’d opened my mouth to ask for what I wanted and realized no one could hear me.”

This is a story of multiple generations of women trying to survive the deeply patriarchal culture that they are born into as we watch history repeat itself multiple times. 18 year old Deya, born and raised in Brooklyn primarily by her grandparents, is about to finish high school and is starting to meet with suitors. Even though she wants to go to college before getting married, her grandparents give her no choice in the matter.

Isra, Deya’s mother, also had no choice in the matter when she got married as a teenager in Palestine and moved to America to be with her husband, Adam. Finally, there is Fareeda, Isra’s mother in law, who knows and accepts her role in this culture. She thinks this is a man’s world and all the hardship and abusive she suffered in her own husband’s hands are just parts of being a woman, so she looks the other way when her son begins to act just like her husband.

“A real choice doesn’t have conditions. A real choice is free.”

I really loved this story. A lot of people of color and immigrants know that you do not air your dirty laundry in public. You do not want to confirm the West’s single story about the Middle East or Africa so you, deny, deny, deny! But this book lays bare all the stereotypes and gives them human emotions. It centers around the people that matter and does not care about the white gaze at all. As someone who was born and raised in Nigeria, this book could have easily been a Nigerian story. We see women who have been treated terribly in marriages, abused because they couldn’t give birth to a male child and just for being a woman, turn around and inflict the same conditions on the next generation.

Isra is unable to give her husband, Adam, a male child and is subjected to abuse from her mother in law who inflicts verbal abuse on her every time she gives birth to yet another girl. Adam in turn takes out all his anger on her by being physically abusive while Fareeda chides her for not hiding her husband’s shame and parading her wounds for all to see.

“…my fears while writing this novel—fears of further stereotyping and marginalizing my culture as well as adding to our “otherness” by bringing our domestic abuse and inherited family trauma to light. But these very fears are what shame our women into silence and, ultimately, what keep us from advancing as a society and culture.” – [The author, Etaf Rum on her fears while writing this book]

I do think a lot of people need to read this story and realize that this is just one perspective. I read a lot of reviews on goodreads that were mad that this book was written and worried about how it further stereotypes the Middle East, as being backwards and oppressive.

I think that as long as this story is a story of even one person then it deserves to be told. It is up to us as the reader not to use this book as a blanket read of everything about the culture, or as proof to further our stereotypes and biases. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recognized every woman in it as someone I have known in real life and there are a lot of people still living this life. I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads.

 

Leggy.

“I’m still me, I want to say to him, your son, but that would hardly help if I am currently everything wrong with the world.” 

Taynement: On to our third author of the year.

Leggy: I know. This was a pretty short read.

Taynement: Yes, it was but I think he did a lot with a short book and more authors could take a page from his book. Pun intended.

Leggy: I actually think he did way too much for such a short book. At some point, I got whiplash like am I reading a different book?

Taynement: Interesting. I disagree. I think he integrated a lot of themes with perfect balance.

Leggy: I really didn’t like the shift in focus to police brutality. It’s rare you get a book from an African author about being a gay, second generation African in America. I would have appreciated the book so much more if he had focused on that.

Taynement: I liked that he didn’t dwell too much on the different themes save for  the focal theme of Niru being Nigerian and gay and trying to deal with that.

Leggy: I enjoyed the first half of the book but after the incident, I skimmed the rest of it.

Taynement: Really liked that angle. He touched on the Nigerians but didn’t dwell. Even when they went to visit Nigeria, he described Nigeria so well and the way his father’s behaviors changed was so apt. Even touching on how Nigerians revere pastors and how they deal with homosexuality. I wasn’t expecting the incident and right after, all I felt was rage. I really hated Meredith. But again the way I interpreted it was a touch on how you might think you’re Nigerian in America but at the end of the day, all they see is your skin color.

Leggy: I think this is why I didn’t like that part of the book. I was waaay too angry while reading it. I couldn’t understand how anybody would react the way Meredith and her family did after the incident. Okay, what is done is done, that part wasn’t your fault but you let this young man’s reputation be dragged through the mud without any interference.

Taynement: Reminder of the havoc white women wreak. There was a part in the book when Niru’s dad, half angry-half pleading says “All you people do, wherever you are in this world, is just bring death and destruction, you bring nothing good, nothing good”

Leggy: I just couldn’t understand what kind of parents would do that. Also, reading this book from Meredith’s point of view filled me with so much rage.

Taynement: Exactly. Her parents were the worst and I wished bad things for Meredith but, I think we digress. Moving back to Niru, it’s an interesting look at Nigerian parenting. Niru was a model child that was even headed to Harvard and yet his gayness overshadowed everything. It also showed your basic Nigerian marriage dynamic.  I felt his mum was weak and she could have stood up for him more.

Leggy: When his father said it was better if he had murdered someone, and then the irony of the incident. Well, he kind of got exactly what he asked for. You could tell his mother didn’t think it was that bad, being gay that is, but she didn’t have the guts to stand up for him all through.

Taynement: Can I just say that I wondered a little about how his older brother OJ was written. I actually thought he was dead. Niru kept referring to him like he was a memory.

Leggy: Never got the idea that he was dead. Just think he is basically such a god in their eyes that it made him sound like a memory more than an actual person. He should have called his brother when the whole thing blew up in his face. Also his friendship with Meredith was weird to me. I felt it wasn’t a real friendship on Meredith side because it was built on her infatuation of him. Is it a real friendship if you spend the entire time lusting after said person? Or maybe I just hate her.

Taynement: Fair enough. She’s not a likable person. She has that typical white girl entitlement air about her but as Niru said “Without her life is quiet, with her it is often unbearably loud”

Leggy: Also, it’s quite interesting how so ashamed Niru’s dad was of his gayness that he couldn’t call a conference and say his son is gay. Even with the accusation, he was still too ashamed to admit that. They had proof that he was gay. He had a Tinder account. He had gone on a date. But they chose silence over that option.

Taynement: That’s so deep and so sad and I give Iweala all the credit for delving into this topic and as an acknowledgement nerd, I read it and he felt the need to clarify that he isn’t gay. He also mentioned how this story evolved from a short story of his about a teenage boy outed to his Nigerian parents. He originally did not set out to write about a gay character. He wanted to write about the immigrant experience but he ended up here coming form a community that is conservative about issues of identity and orientation.

Leggy: Of course he had to clarify that he is not a gay guy considering how crazy Nigeria as a society is. Also shows how no matter your credentials and money and background, you’re still black, black, black! His Harvard didn’t matter at the end. His parents living on the right part of town didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the color of his skin.

Taynement: Yes, I mentioned that earlier, still black at the end of the day. Overall, I thought it was a good book and I would recommend it. I did not like the ending.

Leggy: I did not like the ending either, I just felt like Meredith does not deserve closure or anything good.

Taynement: Lmao. I feel like you focused more on Meredith than Niru or rather she had more of an effect on you.

Leggy: She definitely had more of an effect on me. The whole situation was just too crazy for me. And she kept acting like she was helpless and had no agency at 18. Overall, I would recommend this book too. Gave it 3 stars on Goodreads.

 

Leggy & Taynement

 

“It stood to reason that both life and death began with a spark of light”

The Center is a woman’s reproductive health services clinic that provides gynecological services to women, including abortions. It’s one of the last of its kind as the people of Mississippi do not take kindly to abortions mostly because of their religion. One fine morning we meet a whole bunch of characters who go to the center for different reasons.

15 year old Wren was there to get birth control with her aunt. We have Joy, who is there to get an abortion and Janine, who is a pro-lifer that was at The Center undercover to get ammunition. There are a host more others who are unfortunate to be in there when a gun man seeking revenge, walks in and holds them hostage. To make matters worse, the lead hostage negotiator turns out to be Wren’s dad and the situation becomes personal for him.

“Your religion should help you make the decision if you find yourself in that situation, but the policy should exist for you to have the right to make it in the first place. 

When you say you can’t do something because your religion forbids it, that’s a good thing. When you say I can’t do something because YOUR religion forbids it, that’s a problem.” 

It’s been a while since I read a Jodi Picoult book. The only thing I remember about her books was she must always have a character that dies. This book was mainly based around abortions and was a challenge to pro-lifers everywhere, to see the other side of the coin. While it was clear where Picoult stood, she was very fair in showing both sides of the argument. Each character was fully fleshed out and you really got to understand why they made the decisions they did and how they ended up at The Center.

The book is written in reverse order, starting at 5pm and it.drove.me.nuts! Now for those who rush to the back of the book before starting, this may not be an issue for you. It just took away from whatever semblance of a buildup there was. There was also a twist that came from nowhere and seemed like an after thought.

Overall, I liked the book okay because it was a timely issue – women’s rights, with strong view points. It’s one of those books that you hope makes a difference and helps people have a well rounded view. If you don’t think reverse chronology would bother you, I’d definitely recommend.

There were so many good quotes that I figured I’d share some of my favorites:

“Laws are black and white; lives of women are shades of gray”

“We are all drowning slowly in the tide of our opinions, oblivious that we are taking on water every time we open our mouths.” 

“Louie believed that those white men with their signs and slogans were not really there for the unborn, but there for the women who carried them. They couldn’t control women’s sexual independence. To them, this was the next best thing.”

“Vonita, God rest her soul, used to say that if men were the ones to get pregnant, abortion would probably be a sacrament. The Super Bowl halftime show would celebrate it. Men who had terminated pregnancies would be asked to stand and be applauded at church for the courage to make that decision. Viagra would be sold with a coupon for three free abortions.” 

Taynement