"The Two Week Wait" by Sarah Rayner~A Moral Story

 

SUMMARY :

 

A memorable and moving page-turner about two very different women, each yearning to create a family of her own.

What if the thing you most longed for was resting on a two week wait? From the author of the international bestselling One Moment, One Morning, comes a moving portrait about what it truly means to be a family.

After a health scare, Brighton-based Lou is forced to confront the fact that her time to have a baby is running out. She can't imagine a future without children, but her partner doesn't seem to feel the same way, and she's not sure whether she could go it alone.

Meanwhile, in Yorkshire, Cath is longing to start a family with her husband, Rich. No one would be happier to have children than Rich, but Cath is infertile.

Could these strangers help one another?

With her deft exploration of raw emotions and her celebration of the joy and resilience of friendship, The Two Week Wait is Sarah Rayner at her best.

PARTICULARS OF THIS BOOK :
Published by:  St. Martin's Press
Pages:  432
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction
Purchase the book:  Barnes & Noble  or  Amazon


A BIT ABOUT MS RAYNOR :

 

 

SARAH RAYNER was born in London and now lives in Brighton with her partner. She worked for many years as an advertising copywriter, and now writes fiction full time.

 

 

 

JESSICA'S REVIEW :

 

I was immediately drawn to the storyline summarized on the cover of this novel.  I am a woman who myself has been through the ups and downs, joys and sadness of the journey of fertility treatments, and IVF.  I couldn’t wait to see if what Rayner wrote on was at all close to the complexity that fertility and IVF brings.

 I loved many many things about this novel, but the two things I will highlight are Rayner’s  incredible gift for creating complex characters, and her ability to draw a reader into the story so much so that I re-established what I thought were my clearly established ethics.

Rayner’s characters are masterfully created, she is deliberate and insightful.  Each of the women in the novel are individual in their thoughts and struggles, yet each experience the deep heartache and longing to be a mother.  The emotions that both the men and women characters share bind them to the reader.  I felt compelled to read on, experiencing this journey with them.  I felt an immediate connection to all of the characters, seeing them all as separate entities, yet connecting them in my mind by drawing on emotions that I have felt during the long years of waiting for it to be my turn to be a mother.

I was also fascinated by Rayner’s ability to make me question my own ethics.  Rayner quietly and intentionally creates human experiences, connections, and limitations.   I had no idea when I started the novel that one of the characters longing to be a mother was a lesbian.  When this life choice was revealed early on in the novel, I felt myself immediately make a judgment.  Until this, I had liked the character.  It stunned me that I would  immediately shut down my compassion for the circumstance based on that particular character’s  personal choices.  I began to feel myself siding with the heterosexual couple, consciously noting the distance I began to place between myself and the gay couple. 

Rayner was able to take me out of my comfort zone, and draw me in to questioning my own so called established ethics.  I realized the compassion I was feeling for the women was not because of the life style they made, but because they were characters written with such detailed complex emotions, ones that I have felt, and do feel.  It became apparent to me, that I had consciously made a decision as a reader to negate characters’ feelings based on her sexuality!  I thought a long time on that.  Rayner, and her gift for characterization, helped me to take down the dividing wall I had built in my mind, and see them openly  as women, as people with the same desires and longings  I have had.

I really savored this novel.  It was to me an eye opening look at not only the ethical rollercoaster that fertility creates, but also the dividing boundaries that society instills in people.  This  novel is a love story, but not in the traditional sense.  It is a story of women with the powerful desire to be a mother.

I would recommend the novel to anyone.  This novel will take you on a journey, one that will leave you with a deeper understanding of the soul wrenching decisions one makes in the ultimate hope to be a mother.  I hope it does for you what it did for me, made me question my own morals and ethics, and opened the doors of my heart.  Bravo Rayner!  I applaud your bravery, your compassion, and deep understanding of the complexities of the human heart.

 

5 stars                 Jessica/A Bookish Dame

 

 



"Veronica's Nap" by Sharon Bially ~ Jewish Women Take Note!

Published by:  Connaissance Media

Pages: 236

Genre:  Contemporary Fiction, Women's Fiction

Summary :

Veronica Berg has everything she needs to achieve her dream of becoming a painter--a charming home studio in Provence, a hardworking husband, and a nanny who watches her two-year-old twins. Yet instead of painting, she spends her days lingering over meaningless chores and secretly indulging in lengthy naps.

When Veronica's Moroccan-born,Sephardic husband grows impatient with her aimlessness and challenges her to sell just one painting, Veronica must find a way to break the seductive rut that's overtaken her ambition and her life. Against the backdrop of the impending Iraq war, her quest triggers a surprising and often comical journey that reveals depression's sunny mask and the dark side of privilege and security.
With a cast of Sehpardic characters, Veronica's Nap gives a rare look at contemporary Jewish life in France.

Telling A Bit About Sharon:

As Authors go, Sharon Bially is a bit self-effacing, which is saying something...  She lived for 12 years in Paris and Aix-en-Provence before settling with her family in Massachusetts.  A graduate of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, she's a public relations professional and leads seminars for the Boston-based nonprofit literary arts organization Grub Street Writers. 

She's also a mother.


The Dame's Review :

This is the kind of book I want to recommend to all of my friends and family.  Sharon Bially has captured the angst of the artist, the struggles of motherhood, the trap of luxury and a coming to grips with growing into our best selves.  What a book, and what an exceptional writer.

I had a professor in art school who came right out of the box the first day of painting class saying, "You can never be a fine artist and be married with children."  Let me tell you, them was fightin' words in the '60's and early '70's to a bunch of women/feminist fine arts students!  Several of us were out to prove that man wrong. 

But, when my children were babies, I had to put away my beautiful brushes, oils and easels, though my sweet husband bought me a huge, gorgeous oak easel to encourage me there would "be a time" for me.

In "Veronica's Nap"  Sharon Bially takes up this question of "when are you going to paint?" Through her characters, Vero and Didier, we witness this struggle for motherhood, art and person hood.  Didier plays the prod with his constant badgering of Veronica to paint, to produce "just one painting" to sell.  It's no surprise that she's backed into the proverbial corner with a shocked and sleeping muse, which she's happy to join in her escapes to la-la-land.  It's also no wonder that she's tripped up by bouts of depression.

Sharon Bially is an author we need to watch.  Her ability to draw characters so likable and real is a literary achievement...particularly since she has her own children! And, her story is one that will resonate with women and men for many different reasons. There is a humorous twist to this book, but it may actually be an irony when taken in context, because in the whole it's not funny when we struggle to push against pressures to achieve and grow. Bially recognizes and conveys these things clearly; she writes her story in such a way that we're drawn chapter after chapter to the end.

This book is grandly universal.  I'm so grateful for that.  I learned so much about Moroccan, Shephardic family customs I wouldn't otherwise have had exposure to.  I enjoy reading about cultures that differ from mine.  "Veronica's Nap" gives us that flavor as well as another look at Provence and French culture.

This is a rich and beautifully tempered novel. In it you'll find ironic humor, tellings of motherhood, artistic sensibilities, marriage and family dynamics. A book you'll breeze through and want to share.


5 truly swirling stars

Deborah/TheBookishDame


Note:  This review is gratefully brought by way of "Pump Up Your Books" for an honest opinion on my part.

All Psychosis Aside, Motherhood ~ "The Winters In Bloom" by Lisa Tucker

Published by:  Simon & Schuster

Pages:  288

Release Date:  Sept. 13, 2011

Genre:  Contempory Fiction, Women's Literature



Book Summary :



Together for over a decade, Kyra and David Winter are happier than they ever thought they could be.  They have a comfortable home, stable careers, and a young son, Michael, who they love more than anything.  Yet because of their complicated histories, Kyra and David have always feared that this domestic bliss couldn’t last - that the life they created was destined to be disrupted.  And on one perfectly average summer day, it is: Michael disappears from his own backyard.

The only question is whose past has finally caught up with them: David feels sure that Michael was taken by his troubled ex-wife, while Kyra believes the kidnapper must be someone from her estranged family, someone she betrayed years ago.

As the Winters embark on a journey of time and memory to find Michael, they will be forced to admit these suspicions, revealing secrets about themselves they’ve always kept hidden.  But they will also have a chance to discover that it’s not too late to have the family they’ve dreamed of; that even if the world is full of risks, as long as they have hope, the future can bloom.

Lyrical, wise, and witty, The Winters in Bloom is Lisa Tucker’s most optimistic work to date.  This enchanting, life-affirming story will charm readers and leave them full of wonder at the stubborn strength of the human heart.

The Bookish Dame Reports:

With all seriousness I tell you you'll need to set aside a day with no disturbances to read this book.  It's a compulsive read.  Of all the contemporary novels I've read this year, this is the one that kept me on my toes.  Haunting and horrifying in its sheer contemporary relevance, it just kept me reading at a pace I couldn't control.

In my early mothering days, I visited my young, corporate attorney husband's office one afternoon after having a particularly trying day with my strong-willed, 5 yr. old son. I was holding back tears, only to find he was in a meeting, when his older, wiser secretary, Vida came to my rescue.   Vida had been around the block a time or two.  She was grey-haired, tolerated no fools and was not one to be trifled with.  She sat me down and gave me the lesson of my life; one that's kept me going ever since.  She said, "Listen, you can't win with what you do with your children.  No matter what you do, they'll still go to the psychiatrist's office and tell him it's their mother's fault.  So, just what you think's best."  LOL
Jewish mother advice that's been wonderful for me!    In "The Winters In Bloom" we find that some of this philosophy was employed to very little avail.  Mothering is in short supply. Psychological mysteries of motherhood and psychosis run rampant in this novel.

From the perspectives of Kyra and Amy, two girls who were abandoned by their mother, to their niece and daughter respectively; as well as to the mystery of a young mother's death of a child, and the mother-in-law who crosses all their paths...we trace the mental anguish, complications and psychological disorders of sisterhood, being a wife, mothering and becoming a parent. 

The men involved in these relationships are colored by their intentions and interactions, but also are drawn with an awareness of contemporary roles and emotional integrity.  Refreshing, I might add, in literature nowadays.  'though for the most part, they remain silent and uninvolved.

These psychological studies, and the mystery of a child abduction that creates the tearing open of secrets everyone has worked long and hard to keep under wraps, is the crux of the story.  What is so compelling is Ms. Tucker's moving from one character to another in perspective.  Not only are we brought into the mysteries in this manner, but we need to discern the truth this way, ourselves.

Tucker slyly gives us a hint wrapped in text:  "Kant's "Test of the Universal Maxim: One way to judge if something is wrong to do is to think how it would feel if everyone did it."  is one way to determine if all of her characters are to blame in the whole scheme of things.   If we take in all of the information given on abandonment, sibling rivalry, insanity, betrayal, bullying, hyper-medical and parenting, lack of parenting, murder and more...where will we come out?

Have I said too much?  I don't think so.  You still have lots to ferret-out in this fabulous book.

5 American motherly notions of stars

Deborah/TheBookishDame