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
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