Customer Reviews

Don't Think Twice

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sarcastic, teenage and pregnant Anne renders an honest, touching and tear-jerking portrayal of the brutal realities of teenage relashionships and pregnancy.

Anne, the unrequited lover of Jake, her boyfriend who impregnates and then breaks up with her, is shunned from her family and sent to a home for pregnant teenagers. Bitter and depressed, she narrates sarcastically and honestly, profoundly capturing human emotion and pain. Unwillignly, she becomes attached to her companions at the pregnant home, and together they struggle through their deeply painful issues. By the end of the novel, Anne is not healed and perfect, but she has made a remarkable journey of self awareness that is ironically relatable.

I am an avid reader who devours on average 5 books a week. That in mind, now take into consideration this was truly one of the best books I have ever read. It is entertaining, elegantly crafted, has funny, relatable characters, a sense of realism... and above all, Anne's strong voice conveys an amazing story of self awareness and overcoming hardships.

Anne is seventeen and accidentally pregnant. Before this, her life had seemed to be going pretty well. Her mother was sometimes depressed and in and out of mental hospitals. Her sister Pamela was the classic dumb cheerleader type, very concerned about her looks and about getting boys to like her. Anne was very smart and involved in high school and her father lavished attention on her. She was his pride and joy, but her pregnancy disappoints him and turns off any emotions he had for her. Anne and her family don't want anyone to know she is pregnant, especially the boy she used to date and whom she thought loved her, the boy who got her pregnant.

So Anne is stuck here at a home for unwed mothers in the country. She and a bunch of other pregnant girls are living together with a housemother who takes care of them and gets them to the hospital when they go into labor. None of the girls has much contact with her family while at the home, and Anne is no exception. She receives occasional letters from her family, but they never acknowledge her pregnancy. Anne feels like she is moving father and farther away from them, and feeling closer and closer to these other girls who once seemed so strange and different from her. How will this pregnancy end up changing her life? Will Anne be able to give up the baby once she gives birth?

I liked that this book showed a pretty realistic view of pregnancy from the point of view of a girl who didn't want to be pregnant. Pregnancy wasn't romanticized or portrayed as something completely wonderful. The characters were interesting and I liked how each one helped Anne gain some insight into herself.

I didn't like the parents of any of the girls, who sent them to this place instead of supporting them and letting them stay at home. I was also horrified at the party the girls had where they were smoking and drinking. I couldn't stop worrying about the damage they could be doing to their babies.

This book was excellent. I laughed out loud several times. It took me right back to 1967, what it must have been like to be a young pregnant girl back then, when everyone was so intolerant. The characters were interesting. Anne was hilarious. The end was very touching and moving. The only thing that made me nervous was when they all got drunk, but then I realized no one back then knew that alcohol will hurt an unborn baby.

This book would be a really great movie.

I just havta say, the new cover for the book doesn't look very appealing and I think the cover that was on the edition I read was much better but that's besides the point.
This book was WONDERFUL. There is no judgement and it is full of honest truths. Anne at first appears to be unlikeable but once deep into the book, you feel for her very much. The different situations that the other pregnant girls went through were also very well described and written. Considering this is Ruth Pennebaker's debut novel, I am much in awe of her writing talent and look forward to reading her other novels.
Even though you've probably read other synopsises of the story, my version is: An unwed pregnant teenager is pregnant in a time when she shouldn't be: the late 60s. Abortion is still illegal and her family is in no way accepting of her predicment. She is sent to a home where girls of the same age and in the same situation are sent. The book takes us through the pregnancy months and we watch Anne's situation change and her own self grow and change.
This book is NOT sterotypical and I urge you to read it!

I think Ruth Pennebaker, the author of Don't Think Twice, did a good job portraying a pregnant teenager's experience. She emphasized how people reacted to something like that from back in the sixties, which is when the story took place. It was a great book. Anne is a seventeen-year-old teenager who got pregnant after meeting who she thought was the love of her life. Her family couldn't bare the embarrassment of having a young pregnant daughter so they sent her to an unwed mother's home. The setting of the book mostly took place in Texas at this home Anne was in. She spent most of her pregnancy there till the time she gave birth. Her life changed a lot at the home. Her hormones were raging and she had a different out look on everything. She really had time to evaluate herself and the people around her. Anne spent most of her time around the girls in the home. She learns about experiences. While reading the book you see Anne and the girls learn what it's like to be out casts. They have to wear fake wedding ring to pose as married women and have people stare at them as if they were aliens. Throughout the book Anne has to make a decision of whether or not to give up her baby for adoption. If you think about it giving up something that spent nine months in you is hard, so the ending is definitely something to look forward to.
It's funny to read how Anne lashes out on people when she's in her moods. It's one of those stories where you laugh out loud to yourself when she pokes fun at her airhead sister, but you want to cry when one of the girls tells her story about how she was raped. It is a book filled with many emotions and it has a good moral as well. I would recommend it to everyone.

I think Ruth Pennebaker, the author of Don't Think Twice, did a good job portraying a pregnant teenager's experience. She even enphasized how people reacted to something like that from back in the sixties, which is when the story took place. It was a great book.
Anne is a seventeen-year-old teenager who pregnant after meeting who she was the love of her life. Her family couldn't bare the embarrassment of having a young pregnant daughter so they sent her away to an unwed mother's home. The setting of the book mostly took place in Texas at the home Anne was sent to. She spent most of her pregnancy there till the time she gave birth. Her life changed a lot at the home. Her horomones were raging and she had a different out look on everything. She really had time to evaluate herself and the people around her. Anne spent most of her time around the girls in the home. She learns about their experiences. While reading the book you see Anne and the girls learn what it's like to be out casts. They have to wear fake wedding rings to pose as married women and have people stare at them as if they were aliens, because they have to travel in a group. Throughout the book Annehas to make the decision of whether or not to give up her baby for adoption. If you think about it, giving up something that spent nine months in you is hard, so the ending is definitely something to look foward to.
In the book Anne lashes out on people when she's in her moods. It's one of those stories where you laugh out loud when she pokes fun at her airhead sister, but you want to cry when one of the girls tells her story about how she was raped. It is a book filled with many emotions and it has a good moral as well. I would recommend it to everyone.

Okay, okay, okay. I'm not an editor. I don't know the author. All I know is what I like. And I either like it or I don't. Well, as soon as I picked up this book, I couldn't put it down. It was just so... it was sad, yeah and funny and heart-breaking, so so real. Okay, the main character Anne, lived in like 1967 but she reminded me so much of myself... without the pregnant part. It was honest and believable. Very sad, but I liked it. And I didn't even realize it would be so hard to give up a baby. So, read it

Don't Think Twice is a fine debut novel by Ruth Pennebaker. Pennebaker's narrator Anne Harper leads the reader through her weeks spent at a home for unwed mothers with a razor-sharp sarcastic wit and an increasing self-awareness. The cast of supporting characters allows Pennebaker to show teen pregnancy and its many effects, and the setting in the late sixties lets the reader know both how far we've come and how little we've progressed from the idea that an unwanted pregnancy is entirely the girl's responsibility.

This book is so sad. I have read it a couple times and every time I am brought to tears. It is wonderfully written and Anne has a funny, fresh voice. This book is fiction, but it is an accurate representation of many women's experiences. These unwed mothers homes of the 1960's were all-too real. Girls were sent away for a few months, the father was never told and they were expected to forget about it.

I absolutly LOVED this book! Although it started out slowly, the end had me gripping onto my chair for stability. I cried my eyes out. Don't Think Twice literally changed my life and my views on teen pregnancy. Anne's transformation as an expecting mother is what transformed me as a reader. Pushed into this place where she thought she had nothing in common with anyone else, this teen went through so many stages of pregnancy. Through rejection and depression, and then to feeling nothing, more or less, until she finally loved this person she had been keeping safe inside her. Ruth Pennebaker's book significantly changed my life and this is an amazing book I reccommend to any teen girl. This book has a heart and a soul that melts your emotions and flips your world.