My Review:
I finished The Idea of You a few days ago but I have found this review quite hard to write. Yesterday was Mother’s Day in the UK and I thought about this book a lot, thinking of the women who would be struggling with the day, thinking of babies that they hadn’t got to hold in their arms.
Lucy is aware of her clock ticking when she meets Jonah, he is slightly older and has a teenage daughter from a previous relationship. They fall in love and get married and both agree that they want to have a baby and are overjoyed when Lucky quickly falls pregnant. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be and Lucy lost the baby with an early miscarriage. Subsequent pregnancies ended the same way, each time breaking Lucy’s heart in two.
Since I finished this book I read that the author has personal experience of miscarriage and this did not surprise me, the way that Lucy feels after each loss is so raw and real and I know that many readers have shed many tears reading The Idea of You.
But that doesn’t mean that The Idea of You is a depressing read, there is a lot of love and courage and inspiration in the book. When Lucy’s stepdaughter comes to live with them she struggles with the relationship while at the same time coping with her losses. Lucy has to find an inner strength that she didn’t know that she had while coming to terms with what is happening and things that happened in her past. There is a lot of healing in this book.
What I liked was that this book didn’t have your typical happy ending that so many other books would have, yet the ending is still happy. Whether you have experienced miscarriage or not, this book will give you plenty to think about.
Thank you to Amanda Prowse and her publisher, Lake Union, for the opportunity to read and review The Idea Of You.
Blurb:
With her fortieth birthday approaching, Lucy Carpenter thinks she finally has it all: a wonderful new husband, Jonah, a successful career and the chance of a precious baby of her own. Life couldn’t be more perfect.
But becoming parents proves much harder to achieve than Lucy and Jonah imagined, and when Jonah’s teenage daughter Camille comes to stay with them, she becomes a constant reminder of what Lucy doesn’t have. Jonah’s love and support are unquestioning, but Lucy’s struggles with work and her own failing dreams begin to take their toll. With Camille’s presence straining the bonds of Lucy’s marriage even further, Lucy suddenly feels herself close to losing everything…
This heart-wrenchingly poignant family drama from bestselling author Amanda Prowse asks the question: in today’s hectic world, what does it mean to be a mother?
About the Author:
Amanda Prowse was a management consultant for ten years before realising that she was born to write. Amanda lives in the West Country with her husband and their two teenage sons.
The Idea of You is out now and available from Amazon UK and Amazon US.
If only I could read faster 