The Midwife’s Confession
By Diane Chamberlain
Mira 2011
When Noelle commits suicide, her best friends Tara and
Emerson are shocked. The women are left with only a mysterious note in which
Noelle apologizes to a woman named Anna for something that is left unwritten.
Tara and Emerson dig into Noelle’s past, interviewing the women she worked with
as a midwife, determined to find out what dark secret caused her to take her
own life.
Meh. Is that an appropriate reaction to a book? I was
interested enough to continue reading, but that may have been in part because I
was leaving to go on vacation and wanted to finish the book before I left. I
could figure out what the big secret was fairly early on. Then there was
another plot twist, which I also saw coming. The characters just didn’t really
hold my interest. I actually had to check a few times if the current chapter
was from Tara or Emerson’s point of view.
While Ms. Chamberlain does occasionally have some good
insight into grief, it always seems to just be skimming the surface. Tara is
dealing with losing Noelle in addition to losing her husband the previous
March. When she realizes that her husband’s message is still on the answering
machine, “I stared at the phone in my hand for a moment, then started to cry,
hugging the phone to my heart. I sat on the stool next to the kitchen island
and sobbed so hard my tears pooled on the granite. I’d thought I was done with
this part of the grief – this sucking-down, soul-searing pain – but apparently
not.”
So this book was ok for me. I didn’t hate it, but I probably
won’t pick up another book by this author. There were so many places to go with
the topics introduced within the novel – grieving, the relationship between
mother and child, the extent to which we really know each other, the experience
of childbirth - but it feels like a cursory effort throughout.
Oh man! That's too bad, it sounded really promising from the blurb. But if you say it was predictable, than I definitely wouldn't enjoy it.
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Lah @ LazyGirl Reads
I liked but didn't love this one
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