I finished reading Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner last week, and the end of it left me speechless. It hit a nerve for me, and while I am not going to give away any of the twists and turns I will admit I cried over this book (for several days).
When I Googled this book to find an image for this post I learned that this is a book is actually a sequel to Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner (which for whatever reason I passed up at the library for this book - I saw the first book but was pulled to this one); thankfully this novel does not rely on you reading the first novel first. As was clear by my reaction when I learned of the first book.
Certain Girls follows the heroine Candace Shapiro and her daughter Joy as the navigate the mother-daughter relationship in the pre-teen years; while at the same time deal with the fall out from the book Candace wrote in the first novel.
One of the minor themes this book explores is having children via a surrogate. I've often thought of this as something I would like to do. I toyed with the thought for years before meeting Husband and lately it's something that has been on my mind quit a bit. I love the idea of being able to give another human the gift of parenthood that they may not have been able to realize without my help. I love being pregnant; but I wonder would I be able to walk away from the baby. Knowing completely well that it was not mine, that I was "merely" caring for it for 9 months; like a long term babysitter if you would. I think this doubt is what has stopped me from looking into doing this further; but the women that are able to do this are truly amazing.
This book is wonderfully written and though provoking. It's one of those books you just can't stop reading.
1 comments:
Hm. I might have to read it. I thought about surrogacy for years, but had issues that prevented me from pursuing. Obviously now I'm too old. I always thought of it like a long term babysitter, but knew that it's also not really like babysitting too. No matter how you thought about it, it would be HARD to hand over the baby... you'd definitely bond with it. But wow... what a gift to give someone. I can't imagine anything more selfless and loving.
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