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Knocked Up: Confessions of a Hip Mother-to-be
 
 
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Knocked Up: Confessions of a Hip Mother-to-be [Paperback]

Rebecca Eckler (Author)
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)

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Book Description

March 29, 2005
Rebecca Eckler is a popular newspaper columnist who lives the fabulous life and gets paid to write about it. So when a tipsy romp with her fiancé on the night of their lavish engagement party leaves her unexpectedly expecting, she is utterly at a loss. How will a woman who loves nothing more than a night out on the town sipping cocktails with her fellow party girls survive the pregnant life?

Knocked Up is the witty, engaging and refreshingly frank chronicle of a modern woman’s journey into motherhood. We follow Eckler from the first trimester (a.k.a. the longest three months of her life), through the “fat months” of the second trimester, on to the "even fatter months" of the third. Flipping the pages of this Bridget-Jones-style diary, we share in Eckler’ s discovery of prenatal vitamins and nursing bras, ultrasounds and obstetricians. And we experience her growing horror at the physical symptoms of pregnancy: all-day “morning” sickness, fatigue, varicose veins, and cravings. And the weight gain, oh the weight gain. Who knew the day would come when she could no longer put on her own socks?

Along for the ride is a cast of characters as comical as any met in fiction. There’s the Sexy Young Intern, a Sophia Loren look-a-like with her skinny eyes set on Eckler’s job; the glamorous friends who continue to drink Manhattans, while Eckler sips Perrier; and the Cute Single Man who knows just when she needs a carton of ice cream or a game of Scrabble. And then there’s the fiancé, living in another city, who, thanks to the miracle of long-distance phone lines, appreciates better than anybody the highs and lows of the hormonal rollercoaster pregnant Eckler is on.

Lighthearted, intimate, and very funny, Knocked Up is the diary of a modern mother-to-be determined not to let pregnancy and motherhood change her life. Not. One. Little. Bit.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Canadian journalist Eckler was a young hipster covering club openings, trends and the minutiae of yuppie life for a newspaper when a "whoopsie" moment after her engagement party (later dubbed the Conception Party) left her pregnant. The 29-year-old author and her fiancé, who lived far away and whom she planned to marry and move in with at some point, were initially shocked but later accepting. This wasn't exactly in Eckler's plan (though what was in the plan isn't quite clear, either). She becomes cautiously excited about her vague perception of parenthood, but repeatedly horrified by what pregnancy brings: weight gain, a ban on alcohol, stretch marks. Eckler writes, diary-like, about each of these revelations as well as more than anyone would want to know about both her weight and her daily trips to McDonald's. Eventually, she and her fiancé move in together and seem genuinely excited about the baby's arrival, which may comfort readers unimpressed with some of Eckler's other decisions (she doesn't completely stop smoking; she schedules a C-section for nonmedical reasons). Sometimes this mommy memoir feels like a humorous crash course in maturity, though at other points the author's attitude comes dangerously close to that of one who has a baby as a chic accessory.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

When journalist Eckler--Canada's answer to Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell--became pregnant on the night of her engagement party, she decided to chronicle the travails of pregnancy as experienced by the Cosmo-drinking crowd. Eckler woke up the morning after the party and simply knew she was pregnant (despite the fact that her symptoms fit both pregnancy and a hangover). Since she wasn't living in the same city as her fiance, Eckler was able to experience pregnancy as a quasi-single mom-to-be. Knocked Up is a fast, light read that will either entertain or infuriate readers interested in pregnancy and child rearing. Those who see a bit of themselves in Eckler will identify with her maverick stance, but those who take issue with smoking and drinking during pregnancy (she cuts down but doesn't quit) and elective C-section (she didn't want to go through labor) won't be charitable. Straddling the two camps will be the ambivalent few who feel they should be infuriated but can't help secretly admiring Eckler for admitting that she continued to smoke and drink. Beth Leistensnider
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

  • Paperback: 373 pages
  • Publisher: Villard (March 29, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0345475755
  • ISBN-13: 978-0345475756
  • Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 7.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #835,891 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

46 Reviews
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 (15)
4 star:
 (9)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (3)
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Average Customer Review
3.0 out of 5 stars (46 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Don't buy this travesty of a book!, May 10, 2007
This review is from: Knocked Up: Confessions of a Hip Mother-to-be (Paperback)
Please, may I review with fewer than one star? In all my life I have never, never, read a book as bland and inherently dull as Rebecca Eckler's Knocked Up. Buying it along with a few books on pregnancy, I thought it would be a breath of fresh air, a break from all the other tomes offering serious advice. Nope.

Why on earth did this writer feel she should share these uninspired musings on pregnancy? How on earth can a 30 year-old woman be so clueless about her own body? Is she honest? Maybe, but boy she is so self-centred and self-absorbed, while pondering why her friends are just that. I have no use for this book or for her writing and am incrdibly sorry I spent $14 to purchase it. What a sad little life she leads, valuing all the wrong aspects of her soulless existence while truly feeling she is a hip mother-to-be!

Someone out there should write a funny yet informative first-hand book about first time pregnancy. This is absolutely not it. Are we supposed to sympathise with this selfish and shallow woman? By the end of the book (and I was so glad it came) I could not stand her. This woman does not have a single ounce of writing talent. Read anything else, anything at all.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars TRASH, July 4, 2007
By 
Compulsive Reader (New York, New York) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Knocked Up: Confessions of a Hip Mother-to-be (Paperback)
A stupid, stupid woman who puts her own needs first at every turn. This, she thinks, is "hip" motherhood. One for the trash basket.
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49 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars A Child Having A Child, March 31, 2005
By 
Randy Macdonald (Mississauga, ON, CANADA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Knocked Up: Confessions of a Hip Mother-to-be (Paperback)
My interest in considering reading a book like this was a desire to understand the changes occurring in a man or woman before and after they have a child. I've found it fascinating that almost everyone in our society, many of whom have heretofore lived lives of independence, affluence and freedom would undertake something so radically at odds with their lifestyle as having a child, and often without a murmur of objection. The sorts of questions I have about child birth and child bearing are: why do it? are there certain pivotal events in the single life that precipitate the wish to have a child? If so, what are they? Is the decision to have a child an indication of strength and devotion or resignation and ignorance? Fundamentally, how does a person change when they have a child? In what aspects for the good, and what aspects for the worse?

Rebecca Ekler writes her memoir in diary format, and the first entry is the aftermath of her engagement party. At the party she got really drunk, and because of that and the "evil", possessed new black dress she barely wore that makes men do evil things to her she had unprotected sex with her fiancé for the first time. It's interesting she intuitively knows she is pregnant the morning after. This is confirmed by the *four* pregnancy tests she uses to make 100% certain. It CAN'T be true!

Before I read the book I read the near complete and vehement scorn this book received by almost all the other reviews out there, especially the ones here on Amazon. I noticed the book was subsequently removed from Amazon and re-appeared a few months later in March 2005 with a new cover. The scorn the book previously received was so universal that it reminded of a quote by George Bernard Shaw: "all great truths begin as heresy".

I wanted to believe this quote. I wanted to believe that scorn arose mostly from doting mothers incensed at Ekler's negative attitude toward pregnancy and her candour in expressing herself it and the prospect of child bearing. I wanted to believe that the scorn was a knee jerk reaction by mothers neck deep in child bearing, living in quiet desperation, who never had the sense of self Ekler has to acknowledge, much less confront, how much having a child causes your life to recede into the background in favor of theirs. I wanted to read about a modern woman taking a stand for herself and her life.

But after reading the book I realized the scorn towards this book is probably much more due to who Ekler is as a person. I think Ekler's world view is most succinctly expressed as follows: "My fiancé is always telling me that I "live in a dream world" and that in "the real world," not everyone has to like me. I always argue back that living in a dream world is better than living in the real world, which, I suppose, is where most consultants, stockbrokers and lawyers live. Most of my friends - artists, television personalities, and writers - live in the dreamy place I inhabit. The "real world" is for people who pay their bills on time. I'm glad I don't live there."

When you live in a dream world, you are free to mold reality in whatever way suits you, whatever the consequences. It's your world, right? There you are God, and the dream world's laws are your laws. But with someone as child-like, insecure and fearful as Ekler, living as an adult in a dream world, when the real world comes knocking, it's a recipe for a poisonous personality. The book is rife with instances of her narcissistically manipulating those close to her, making them accord with Rebecca's dream world laws, whatever they might be at the time. For instance, when her fiancé decides to go on a diet during the throes of her pregnancy weight gain, she is enraged - she can't accept this decision at all. Here in her dream world the fiancé only wants to lose weight to impress his attractive nutritionist - but in the real world this is called bitter paranoia or neurosis. She has absolutely no evidence that he even has a nutritionist, much less an attractive female one. Even worse, far from accepting a positive decision by her fiancé to improve himself by dieting, she enacts the textbook definition of narcissism (the desire to see only yourself in other people) when she tells the fiance "I want you to gain weight with me!". An even more appalling instance of her petulance is an episode with a fellow appearing occasionally whom she calls Cute Single Man. (It's slightly odd how she never names any of the significant males in her life). This guy is one of those not-quite-boyfriend-but-not-quite-friend-but-nothing-has-happened-yet relationships. In one instance he offers to come over to Ekler's apartment (the fiancé lives in another city) and she asks him to bring a tub of chocolate ice cream. He arrives with a tub of toffee flavored ice cream. Instead of doing what most of the real world does (accepting the gesture with some measure of gratitude), Ekler launches into the most hissy, callous rant against the poor guy for not getting the exact flavor she wanted. Incredibly, she even demands that he go back to the store and exchange it for the chocolate ice cream. She also tries to dictate who this guy dates, even though they are not dating. Yet, despite her misgivings following this ice cream episode, shortly after she decides to capriciously cast off Cute Single Man because the relationship seems awkward and "I need to focus on my baby and my future". I've been on the receiving end of this sort of capriciousness and hollow reasoning from a few women too and it really hurts. Believe me, any men in Ekler's life with a modicum of self respect have fled from her.

Often this book is like watching a horror film that's unintentionally comic, absurd and entertaining. She describes occasional episodes of a manic state she calls "The Fear" where she hysterically flutters around about whatever (often trifling) thing is causing the sky to fall in the dream world. Try to imagine the Evil Dead movies or the Michael Jackson "Thriller" video, morning sickness, shopping at Baby Gap, and fleeting images of the Sex and the City lifestyle.

The course of the book is Ekler going through the typical motions of pregnancy, very reluctantly and peevishly coming to grips with it. Toward the end of her pregnancy she even comes to accept it and eventually welcomes her new child's arrival. I've never read a book that ended so abruptly. Only about half a sentence on the last page gives a faint indication of a conclusion. Pretty lame, considering that Ekler is a columnist in a daily newspaper.

Rebecca Ekler is quite witty, and I really dig her sense of humour. It even comes close to redeeming all the toxic aspects of her personality ... but not quite.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
OH SHIT! Did I . . . did we . . . did he . . . in me? Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
ovulation calculator, ultrasound appointment, maxi pads, iced latte, last vacation, home pregnancy tests, vaginal route, most rewarding thing
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Cute Single Man, Baby Rowan, Sexy Young Intern, Fear Phone Call, Big Macs, New York, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Conception Party, Louis Vuitton, Baby Gap, Brooke Shields, Golden Arches, Rowan Joely, Sophia Loren, The Deadline
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