3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Reading with Tequila, April 16, 2011
This review is from: The Baby Planner (Paperback)
The Baby Planner is a wonderful novel for anyone who enjoys a great pregnancy story, or several. Taking the concept of a wedding planning and twisting it for prenatal crowd works well and leads to funny and emotional scenes.
Katie is a wonderfully full character. Longing for a baby, but married to man who refuses to impregnate her, Katie fills the void by helping other women get ready for their own children. Having no real life experience, beyond being an involved aunt, she starts her business and quickly finds a niche market that never knew it was waiting for her. Through Katie's work, readers will experience multiple pregnancy situations - all of which lead to surprising ends.
Katie's marriage was something else entirely. She loves her husband, but he refuses to have a child with her. Their relationship and Katie's various pleas and tactics to get what she desires most left me wondering not about her sanity, but about my own. Katie's actions drove me crazy. I was never on the same page as her. I wanted her to "accidentally" get pregnant. She respects her husband and believes she can rationally convince him. I want her to run away from him as fast as she can. She then decides it's a good time to have a condom malfunction. You can tell early on how the story is going to play out, but there are some great twists along the way.
The Baby Planner is unique and thought-provoking at times. Laughter and tears come easily and often. You may not always agree with Katie's decisions, but you'll care about her from the very first pages.The Baby Planner is the perfect next step for chick lit fans leaving singledom and entering babyville.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A cute book with a sweet message, September 13, 2011
This review is from: The Baby Planner (Paperback)
I have five children and I have never used a Baby Planner, not that it doesn't sound like a great thing to have, I just know that I could not afford one and most of what they do(according to the book) I wanted to do myself. I wanted to paint and sew and nest for my little ones and I think that it would have been hard to turn that responsibility over to another person, especially in one whose only purpose is to get paid.
But this is a review of the book, not of Baby Planners as a whole. The book was sweet and cute. I love the little quotes at the top of each chapter, a few of my favorites:
"Making a decision to have a child- it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside you body." Elizabeth Stone-With my oldest away at college I feel this one daily, I miss him.
"A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest." - Irish Proverb
"Children make you want to start life over." -Muhammad Ali
The main character Katie is a strong women looking to have a child of her own and the way she goes about trying is funny and sad at the same time. I feel for the characters and their struggles, life is hard enough without adding additional people in the mix. But without my children my life would be less then it is today. I could identify with the pregnant women in this book and I laughed out loud in a few places.
I did not care for the sex, it felt out of place and too graphic for the subject matter, a few kisses and the next day would have made better reading. The book as a whole was quirky and fun to read with a good message about love making a family, not biology. I would suggest this to anyone who enjoys Chick-Lit. 3 1/2 stars on my blog.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fun and feisty, July 11, 2011
This review is from: The Baby Planner (Paperback)
Katie Johnson is 37 years old and is assistant testing director at Safe California, a consumer protection agency. When Safe California is eliminated due to state budget cuts, Katie is suddenly jobless, with no idea what she really wants to do. Her sister Grace is expecting a new baby, and when she asks Katie to help her plan her nursery (Katie has a degree in interior design), Katie ends up with a binder full of ideas. When she and Grace go to a store to pick out some products, a woman sees the binder she made, assumes she is a baby planner, and "hires" her on the spot.
As Katie works towards getting her new business, Making Mommies Smile, off the ground, she is contending with her own childlessness. Her husband of six years, venture capitalist Alex, is dead-set against their having a baby, which is something that Katie didn't fully realize when they married. He has his own 10-year-old son from a previous marriage who is now living in Holland with his ex-wife. Katie is determined to change his mind, and even resorts to some subterfuge to get her way.
She's also dealing with clients as diverse as a Congressman's wife who thinks nothing of calling at 6:30 in the morning to bounce ideas off of her, another who has a 13-year-old girl by a previous marriage and is determined that her new husband not know that the new baby will be a girl as well, one who is on bedrest due to previous miscarriages and is almost scared to plan for the new arrival, a soon-to-be single mother whose baby's father is married, and a widowed father whose company SkorTek is one of Alex's new ventures, as well as many others.
This is an enjoyable, quick read, with some unexpected (one VERY unexpected and rather shocking) turns, not all of them enjoyable. Katie is very likable, even though she DOES stoop to some lows in her quest for a baby. Her family is wonderful and supportive, but her husband is selfish, and as we find out, very manipulative and deceitful as well. Katie puts up with some things from both her husband and her clients that most of us would kick them in the shins for, and her adventures with her clients are sometimes sad, but often fun. The ending is perfect as well.
Definitely recommended as a fun, entertaining summer/beach-time read.
QUOTES
Prior to Ariel's death, she was inordinately shy.
Since then, she's been practically comotose.
Whenever I came, I brought sandwiches and coffee. A few times I'd brought a sack of groceries so that she'd have milk and bread in the house.
With Ariel gone, she'd quit going to the store.
I know why. Because there is no one to buy groceries for, to care for.
A mother who has lost her child loses herself, too.
"Who do you believe, Willemina or me?"
Does it matter? No, of course not. Because I love him, even if I don't believe him.
Besides, once I'm pregnant, there'll be nothing he can do about it.
". . . But some of the moms can be pretty picky as to whom their kids play with."
The way Fanny says that makes me wonder if she suspects that they were put off by her. Even in San Francisco, you don't see a lot of Barbra Streisand impersonators in the parks.
Well, at least not ones who are au pairs.
Writing: 4 out of 5 stars
Plot: 4 out of 5 stars
Characters: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Reading Immersion: 3.5 out 5 stars
BOOK RATING: 3.75 out of 5 stars
Sensitive reader: There are some not-extremely-graphic, but not-extremely-vague-either sexual scenes
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