Midwives By Chris Bohjalian

Don’t know how many of you are into Oprah, but this is one from her book club. I have read quite a few from this list and have enjoyed many of them. Midwives, as the title suggests, is about midwifery. Not necessarily a book I would have picked up but it came from a new friend who suggested I may enjoy it after we had spoken about several other titles. It does get a little graphic sometimes but not for shock effect; just as an emotional as well as instructional standpoint. It is written from the perspective of a daughter of a midwife, who was 13 at the time of the story but is now grown. The story itself definitely holds water. The addition of the hormonally charged teens just adds to the reality of feelings expressed throughout. Your opinion of ‘at home birth’ may even change. I have to say for me personally one of the main characters who describes herself as a hippie and my personal view of that genre has been completely blown up with her passionate description of what it means to her and how she has lived her life. Maybe just a little thing but really made her character come alive and made me think even more how I wish we could all just ‘get along’. Understanding how we are all different is great but really honouring it can be completely different too. On a completely different note as I was laughing about a section in the book my 13 year old daughter asked me what I was reading that was so funny so I explained briefly what a midwife was and the paragraph was something akin to pushing a pickle through a straw when she asked why anyone would want to do that, completely horrified. Good question. Perspective is everything.