Nobody's Child by Austin Boyd ~ review

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Zondervan (July 26, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0310328195
• ISBN-13: 978-0310328193

About the book:

Nobody's Child sweeps you into a world where unprecedented choices never intended by heaven lead to unintended consequences never before seen on earth.Meet...Laura Ann McGehee---Determined to honor her father's dying request, the young West Virginia woman will do whatever it takes to save the family farm, including using the one remaining financial resource she has---her body.Sophia McQuistion---Thanks to the unusual sacrifice of a woman she has never met, she carries the child she could never conceive.Ian Stewart---In Laura Ann's time of need, he's more than just a close friend. He is a source of grace, a man who loves Laura Ann through her many trials.When unusual circumstances place Sophia's baby in Laura Ann's care, Laura Ann is now the virgin mother of her own biological son. The media call him 'Nobody's Child.' But somebody wants him badly enough to steal the baby.Weaving together bioethics and faith, Nobody's Child dramatizes a future that is already upon us with consequences we can no longer avoid.

My take on this book:

Laura Ann McGehee was raised on the family farm in a remote area in WV, her mother died when she was young so she was  raised by her father, who raised tobacco and cattle to make ends meet, but when he is stricken with cancer and no health insurance they do what they have to do and mortgage the family farm to pay the medical bills that are piling up. When Laura Ann hears of an advertisement about a fertility clinic in Morgantown that's looking for donors she sees it as the only way to save the family farm and to help her dying daddy. Guilt and shame force her to keep her trips to Morgantown a secret,from everyone including her best friend Ian, but when pregnant Sophia McQuistion shows up wanting to thank Laura Ann for giving her the precious gift of being able to have a child a bond forms between the two women.  When Sophia suffers from complications of pregnancy Laura Ann is faced with the fact that she might wind up raising the child. Not only that the relationship between Ian and her has developed into something real, but how can she tell him what she has done?

I wasn't sure what to expect with this story, but I must say once I started reading it I didn't put it down until I finished. Set in a tiny area of WV the author captures not only the essence of the struggles of farm life, and the dependence of tobacco as a cash crop. The small town feel of the story was fantastic the descriptions so realistic that I wondered if maybe the author was actually from the area. Laura Ann was a very mature young lady facing circumstances that would have been difficult for someone twice her age, but she did what she had to do to keep a promise to her father. Ian was the perfect person for Laura Ann, he was steady and strong, just what Laura Ann needed. Granny Apple was so easy for me to imagine a wise woman who was like a grandmother to Laura Ann. The character of Uncle Jack was truly a villain ,who got what he deserved in the end.

This story also provided a bit of an education for me as well because it deals with the topic of artificial insemination and the rights of the donors, a topic I never really thought alot about. 

A story with plenty of twists and turns that had me wondering how it would all work out with strong characters that stayed with me long after I finished the final page.

 I would easily say its one of the best books I have read all year! 

A complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.