Thursday, September 13, 2012

The Doula by Bridget Boland ~ review

  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Gallery Books; Original edition (September 4, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1451641516

This book is also available as an e-book.

September 4, 2012

When you come from a family of funeral directors, the telephone rings ominously in the middle of the night. For a doula, it resonates with eager anticipation. Either way, it always means lives are about to change. . . . It might seem like birth and death lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, but to Carolyn Connors, they are mirror images. Caro is no stranger to death, having grown up in a funeral home, but after witnessing her mother’s miscarriage and her brother’s tragic drowning as a child—neither of which she is allowed to discuss—she chooses to become a doula, celebrating the arrival of life rather than its departure.

When her glamorous lifelong best friend, Mary Grace, calls with the exciting news that she is pregnant, Caro packs up her life and leaves home to be MG’s birthing coach. But tension escalates between Caro and MG’s domineering husband, Brad, and the sensitive doula’s advice falls on deaf ears. MG cuts off all contact until complications with her pregnancy leave her with no one else to call. Hurrying to the unborn child’s rescue and watching the life drain from her best friend’s body, Caro thinks the nightmare can’t get any worse. . . .

Until Brad accuses her of medical malpractice. For the first time in her life, Caro must confront the painful guilt, loss, and shame that have trailed her from the past, leading her to the most profound rebirth of all.

My take on this book:
I  must admit, when I first decided to read this book I really had no idea what a Doula was, but the cover was so inviting I was certain that the story had to be good.Well it didn't take me long to learn that a Doula is someone who assists an expecting mother. 

The author  easily pulled me into the lives of the characters in this story.In a sense I felt like it was a coming of age story for Caroline, but that really was only part of the story, because we also see Caro deal with her past once something happens that might threaten her future. There were several interesting characters, and one of my favorite had to be Caroline's great aunt Ruby. Her character along with her other aunt's also known as the ABC's were so easy to envision and really added another layer to the story. Overall I really enjoyed this story, my only complaint was I found a few errors with spelling that sometimes had me pausing to reread a line or two which inturrupted the flow of the story. I will certainly be watching to see what this debut author comes up with next.

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