From the time we are little girls playing with dolls, most of us long to be a Mother. Lucy is no different. She is a woman who finds love a bit later in life than most women. She meets her knight in shining armor at the christening of her friend/co-worker’s baby at the age of 39. After they marry, they find that trying to start a family is not as easy as they had hoped. Her new husband, Jonah, has a teenage daughter that comes to stay for the summer amidst their attempts at a successful pregnancy. This puts further strain on their marriage. This novel is the story of their love, marriage, parenting and attempts to have a baby.
As a Mother who suffered a miscarriage at 12 weeks, I empathized with and felt sorry for Lucy. I, like Lucy, blamed myself and wondered what I had done to “cause” this to happen. As with Lucy, “I did everything it said in my book”. I did not know how to grieve openly. I did not know how to be happy for those around me who bore children around this time. I did not know how to deal with those people who carelessly told me things like “you can have fun trying again”, “you were ONLY 12 weeks”, “it will be OK… you can try again” or “it was God’s will”. Sometimes, I wanted to smack them. You can only fully realize her pain if you, too, have laid on the couch with your feet up in the hope that you can stop what you know is happening or checking for a bit of blood every time you go to the bathroom.
I found the author’s use of “letters” to the baby interesting and a great way to convey parts of the story. Everything wraps up fairly nicely, though not perfectly for Lucy in the end.
Release/Publication Date: March 21, 2017
Genre: Literary fiction, romance, psychological
Cover: Perfect, but only after you finish the novel.
Source: I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review. Thank you!
Rating: 3.5 stars (rounding to 4)
No comments:
Post a Comment