Customer Reviews

Bed Rest CD

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Quinn, known as "Q" is a young up and coming lawyer in New York City working her way up the corporate ladder until life throws her a curve. At a regular doctor visit six months into her pregnancy Q learns that in order to save her babys life, she must get total bed rest until delivery time.

Written in journal entry form we spend three months at home with Q as she tries to reconnect with her work obsessed husband, mend relationships with her mother and sisters, help the neighbors fight a legal battle, and play confidante to a friend who is having an affair with a married man.

By the end of the story, Q has her baby but life will never be the same after spending 3 months on Bed Rest.

Sarah Bilston has put out a wonderful debut novel about motherhood, marriage, and bed rest and is currently working on another book titled Sleepless Nights. I sure hope it follows up with Q and Tom.

This was quite predictable, and simple in plot. It was an easy read, and had some humorous moments.
Perhaps I am not at my most appreciative, since I am just halfway though a four month bedrest myself right now, and found some of the parts of the story ridiculous.

Quinn "Q" Boothroyd is a young British lawyer married to an American. She works at the law firm of Schuster and Marks, in New York City. Her fast-paced life comes to a screeching halt after her obstetrician appointment. Dr. Weinberg is very concerned because Q's body is not producing enough amniotic fluid for the baby to develop properly. Q's fluid level has to rise or the baby will be delivered almost three months too early. The answer is strict bed rest. Q may not walk or lift anything. She may shower once a day, sit up for dinner, and go to her OB appointments. That is it! Nothing else!

Tom, her husband, goes back to his own hectic work zone quickly. Q is bored within eight hours. She can see no way to spend three months in a reclined position without going insane. Q begins writing in a journal to kill time. But soon she needs more. She begins trying to live through others. As she gives legal advice to her neighbor, tries to feel happiness for Brianna's (a friend) love life, becomes closer to mother and sisters, and tries to reconnect with her husband, Q finds her outlook on life changing. The time Q spends in bed rest teaches her a lot about herself, life in general, and most importantly, about the baby growing within her.

*** This is a humorous tale told in a first-person view point. If you have ever been pregnant, whether you've had a career at the time or not, you will easily empathize. ***

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

I am a L&D nurse and deal with women with these issues everyday. I reed this book and found very funny. Not all facts true of course, but good read for any mom or someone about to be a mom.

Sarah Bilston does a fairly good job showing how a pregnant woman must feel like to be on bed rest. Some of the characters seem a little boring, leaving you with a feeling that you really didn't know them. The beginning was slow, but the story line picks up leaving you dying for more. I couldn't wait to see how their marriage was going to work out.....

Bed Rest is Sarah Bilston's first novel. I think that's probably what drew me to the book: I like reading first novels. Perhaps it's because I want to be able to talk about having read the great author back when they were first starting out, and impress people with my literary prescience. Perhaps it's because I figure if I read enough first novels, I'll figure out how to write my own. And perhaps it's just because first novels are such unknown quantities - you don't know how the author writes, what kinds of characters there will be, the settings, etc. First novels are truely the "undiscovered country" of literature.

In Bed Rest, Bilston tells the story of Quinn Boothroyd (just "Q" to almost everyone), a driven, successful woman. Q is a lawyer married to a lawyer, living in New York City. That right there points to success and affluence. And Q is expecting her first child - a boy.

When the ultrasound test indicates a low level of amniotic fluid, her doctor puts her on complete bedrest for the remainder of the pregnancy. And that, as they say, is where the fun begins. The book is Q's diary, her worries, fears, and reflections as she sits in her apartment all day, every day, while the world she used to participate in goes on without her. Needless to say, the experience has a profound impact on her, and her husband.

I love character-driven fiction, and this book is nothing but character-driven. We watch Q as her entire personality changes, and she experiences things and interacts with people that she never would have as "Q the lawyer." Her relationships change. Her sense of purpose changes. And it's not just her - I can't think of a static character in the book, unless it's her coworker Fay, and even she changes a little bit. There's not a lot of action in the book; how could there be, when the protagonist/narrator is bedridden? But when complications arise in the pregnancy, and Q is rushed to the hospital, we tense. Bilton manages to pull us into the story, when Q complains about nobody going to see her, or calling her on the phone, we want to find her number and call her ourselves.

My wife is pregnant with our second child, just shy of her third trimester. So a lot of the things that happened to Q in this book made me a bit nervous. I'm very conscious of things that I wasn't when my wife was pregnant with our daughter.

The other person on LibraryThing who owns this book has tagged it as "chick lit," and I guess that's true. So what am I doing reading "chick lit?" I'm enjoying a little character development - something that is unfortunately missing in a lot of popular fiction these days. These are characters I care about, and want to find out more about. And that is the mark of a successful first novel. I think that Sarah Bilston will gain some fans with this one, and they'll eagerly await Sleepless Nights, the sequal to Bed Rest.

Quinn is placed on bed rest for her last trimester. Her days on the couch are broken up by visits from friends and relatives, increasing tension with her workaholic husband, and her involvement in helping a tenants' group that is being wrongly evicted by a real estate corporation which is curiously enough, represented by her husband's law firm. Will Quinn and her husband get through a rocky spot in her marriage? Will her visiting mother drive her over the edge? Will Quinn manage to help the tenants? And most importantly, will the baby be ok? Bilston does an excellent job of portraying the dull days of a pregnancy on bed rest. The other plot lines are interesting, but somehow not compelling. Nevertheless, this is a fun read for anyone who's been on bed rest or anyone who has been pregnant.

My wife, who is seven months pregnant, put "Bed Rest" in my hands and told me that I should read it if I wanted to understand what she is going through. Even though she is not on bed rest (thank goodness), she identified with the main character Q's loss of control over her life. I've never read much "chicklit" -- really just "Bridget Jones's Diary" and Meghan Daum's "Quality of Life Report" -- but I found "Bed Rest" just as tightly plotted and often as funny as "Bridget Jones" (and much, much better than "Quality of Life Rpt"). What sets "Bed Rest" apart is the emotional depth that the author Sarah Bilston gives Q and her situation. There is real darkness in Q's life: unresolved issues about her job, parents, siblings and husband that rise to the surface when, temporarily and involuntarily, she gets off the professional treadmill. And all the while, there is the unimaginably sad possibility of a baby who won't survive birth. The scenes in the hospital are unforgettable. That Bilston can write so gracefully about the humor and the terror of being on bed rest is a tribute to her considerable literary gifts, keen intelligence, and resiliency, having spent months on bed rest herself.

Boy, did this book bring back memories. "Q" is a British lawyer married to a American living in NYC. But when he doctor tells her that she must spend the last 3 months of her pregnancy in bed it throws her whole sense of reality into a tailspin. Now, if she could just keep he baby health, her marriage together and enough chocolate chip cookies on hand her life would be on the road to perfect.

This was a fun book and enough going on to keep you reading.

Can't wait for the next in the series.

There is more to Sara Bilston's 'BED REST' than meets the eye. On the surface it is a witty tale of a woman ordered to be on bed rest for the remaining 15 weeks of her pregnancy. Quinn, or Q as she is affectionately called, decides to write a diary about her weeks on bed rest for her child to read one day but as bed rest starts to take it's toll, Q soon realizes that her life may not be the perfect life within which to raise a child.

Q and husband Tom seem to have it all. They are both high powered corporate attorneys with a small but great NY apartment who are both crazy about each other...that is when they actually get to see each other. After a rare passion filled evening, Q finds herself pregnant and thrilled but when she finds out that her amniotic fluid is low and she must be on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy she is obviously scared to death. However, during her time on bed rest (which is no easy feat for someone used to the hustle-and-bustle of life as New York City attorney) Q soon realizes a few things about her life. Her job is not all that it is cracked up to be, her family may be a bit more misunderstood than she imagined and most earth shatteringly that her marriage may not be as solid as she's once imagined. Workaholic Tom doesn't seem to have any time for her so what is going to happen when the baby arrives?

`BED REST' does not have the usual chick-lit clichés such as the doting husband the quirky friend or Q trying to scheme her way out of the bed every time you turn around. This is an honest take on life, the effects of a new baby on a marriage and the real life scares of a high risk pregnancy. This novel all though dragging at times was overall a fun read and certainly not predictable! 31/2 stars!