A candid, valuable look at infertility.
An exceedingly honest examination of the reality of infertility and the emotionally traumatic experiences involved.
In what is said and left unsaid in Hopewell’s memoir, a clear picture emerges of the emotional effects that infertility has on a couple trying to conceive, as well as how it affects their lives in ways they hadn’t imagined. From descriptions of treatments and procedures to an insightful look at the community within the world of in vitro fertilization patients, a reader looking to learn about IVF or the process of using a donor egg will find many answers here. Hopewell takes the reader through the ordeal chronologically with chapter titles that humorously depict the stages of a harrowing experience. Her honesty illuminates the stark reality of infertility and the many unappealing procedures required to verify it, as well as unglamorous other means to become pregnant, if the woman so chooses. Parallel to the medical aspects is Hopewell’s personal experience: the upsetting conversations with her children about the specifics of adding a new family member and the difficulties she faced in making the decision to use a donor egg. The emotional implications of any pregnancy can be far-reaching—the ostensibly joyous occasion can be colored by any number of complications, as Hopewell frankly describes. Well-written and thoughtful, Hopewell’s memoir sheds a sometimes unflattering light on her life en route to an unconventional pregnancy; her bluntness is to be commended because it may be just what some women in similar circumstances need. Readers will gain a new understanding of how infertility affects one’s family, social circle, career and self-perception.
A candid, valuable look at infertility.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2011
ISBN: 978-1936940110
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Epigraph
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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