Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Jodi Picoult on Motherhood

A couple of weeks ago, as you know, I went to the library and grabbed a bunch of books for myself and a bunch for Gwen. I love judging books by their covers, and am generally pretty good at picking out the type of fiction I like, even if I've never heard of the author. I chose a book called Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult to read first.

On page 17, I came across this passage:

"I figured that motherhood would be something that descended naturally, the same way my milk came in - a little painful, a little awe-inspiring, but part of me now for better or for worse. I waited patiently. So what if I didn't know how to use a rectal thermometer on my child? So what if I tried to swaddle her and the blanket never tucked tight? Any day now, I told myself, I am going to wake up and know what I'm doing.

"It was sometime after Faith's third birthday that I stopped hoping."

That was it - I was hooked. That is *precisely* how I feel about motherhood, right down to the patiently waiting.

I am terrible at writing book reviews, so I won't even attempt to. I'll just say that I really enjoyed this book and link to the Amazon site so you can read other reviews. I also really enjoyed the coincidence that it turns out Jodi Picoult, far from being an obscure author, is "the bestselling author of thirteen books," several of which have been or are currently being turned into movies. The movie "My Sister's Keeper" is based on one of her books, too.

I'm tickled that I found a new favourite and am now determined to read all her novels.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fun! It's always great to find a new to you author!

Surprised Suburban Wife said...

We did "my sister's keeper" in my book club. I didn't like Jodi's trite writing style, but agreed with the other women in the group that her story pulled at our heartstrings, especially those of us who have children. I think she raises some interesting issues in her books (even if they do have some copout endings). I love that passage that you pulled though - it's exactly how most of us feel!

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