Customer Reviews

My Miserable Lonely Lesbian Pregnancy

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

 

 

I understand that memoirs anymore are striving for the 'shock and awe', but this book takes it a little far. I suppose if you are interested in reading this novel and are A.) NOT pregnant or wishing to become pregnant or B.) NOT a lesbian, I get that it might be charming or funny, in a satirical way.

I didn't find Ms. Askowitz endearing in any way. She came across as whiny and petulant, and I spent the whole time wishing she'd just shut up and quit complaining. As a lesbian, it's not like she became pregnant on accident. I know that pregnancy isn't always blue skies and perfection, but do I really need to hear someone b*tch about it for an entire novel? I'm actually upset with myself for finishing the book, since it didn't end any better than it began.

The one thing I'll give her is that she does admit that she's a pain and her attitude was poor at times. Even with those admittances, I still found her memoir disheartening and ugly.

When I bought this book, I read all the reviews saying it's a cheeky, cute, funny memoir and thought to myself that it would be a good read for me, a lesbian hoping to conceive a child soon. I was completely and totally wrong. My partner and I were both horrified by this novel. If you're looking for a nice, funny memoir about a lesbian pregnancy, THIS IS NOT IT. The title is less tongue-in-cheek than you might think. I considered re-selling it through Amazon, but I'm not even willing to put this book back into circulation!

This book may have a rubber ducky on it and a baby born at the end of it, but beyond that, it has little to do with most parenting/pregnancy books, and the fact that Askowitz is single or a lesbian aren't, ultimately, what sets it apart so much as her outlook. She's supposed to be ecstatic; she split up with her long-term girlfriend and went through the rounds of picking out a sperm donor specifically so she could become the mom she's longed to be.

But she's not happy. At all. She misses her girlfriend fiercely, and is still dealing with the harrowing death of her lifelong friend. Both of these events, the breakup and the loss of her friend, form the backdrop to the growing life inside of her. Yet they don't stop Askowitz from being scathingly hilarious, sparing no one, including her siblings, parents, extended family, friends, exes, coworkers and Lesbian Camping. When talking about how her ex-girlfriend Kate gained 40 pounds while they were together, Askowitz doesn't hide her revulsion, and upon being asked "Would you want my body?" Askowitz replies "No, but it's perfect on you." Askowitz then wonders, "Why couldn't I have said nothing, or changed the subject?" It might be tough to take if your its recipient, but as a reader, Askowitz has taken her best moments and turned them into something that readers can laugh at.

Oh, and she also rightly calls Sex and the City on a particularly self-loathing moment, which Amazon probably won't let me repost (it has the "p" word in it). Prepare for a lot of profanity. Prepare to sometimes get sick of Askowitz's whining. Prepare to laugh uproariously at very simple but moments, like her reflections on one of her potential sperm donors: "5599's brother was diagnosed and treated for obsessive-compulsive disorder at 21. He wrote: `My brother's health is excellent. He's taking medication, and he's fine now.' His maternal grandmother drank herself to death at 45. He'd probably say she's fine now. He's out."

Sometimes it's hard to wonder just how those in her life put up with Askowitz's demands during her pregnancy, yet this is what makes powerful memoir: honesty. She doesn't sugarcoat her grouchiness or the intensity of labor. And perhaps the most vital story here isn't about Askowitz becoming a mother, but searching for acceptance from her family after feeling like the family freak after she came out as a teenager. The end is the tearjerker the rest of the book hasn't quite prepared you for, yet she still ends on a note so befitting this book, I'll just have to quote it: "Excuse me, Dana, that's my tit."

Askowtiz may have been miserable and lonely, but this book is full of humor, not the kind going for cheap easy laughs, but a very strongly Jewish, feminist, often righteous, lesbian brand of humor Askowitz was clearly born with. It's uncensored, full of dyke drama, told in sometimes brief diary snippets, with other asides into her childhood in Los Angeles. This memoir has roots, and will make you laugh as well as cry as it goes from childhood to death to birth and circles through the three. I'm glad Askowitz didn't try to soften any of her edges, because her sadness, flashes of anger, moments of self-pity and doubt coincide perfectly with her humor and faith in the future and her child. And you so don't need to be a lesbian or pregnant to enjoy it (though I'd imagine being either will make it an even better read).

I loved this book. I felt like a voyeur, an experience that felt
both naughty and satisfying. I got to know Andrea Askowitz. Now I
feel like she's a really good old friend.

I've read some of Andrea's work, and now raced through MY MISERABLE LONELY LESBIAN PREGNANCY that justjustjust came out. Yum.

Here's what I'm thinking: Andrea is one of those me-me-me JAPs. But she has no buff hubby who went to the right law school. She does, however, champion a non-profit for inner city kiddies. She doesn't do country clubs, although she plays killer tennis. And she has decided to be a mom, even though she isn't even in a committed relationship, and still grieves the death of the last fall-out ad nauseum. Oh yeah, and she is a frank, forthright, fervent lesbian. How do people like this happen?

Yeah: this is not your average JAP who decides to have a kid.

I hate those reviews that say "laugh out loud funny," because I rarely laugh out loud when I'm reading, and I am reading lots of books every month. But this was a smile a minute. Some really big smiles. My favorite is still the Pity Party she held for herself, black attire...

Want to know about pregnancy? You'll get it.

Want to get an alternative Jewish view of reproduction? It's here.

Want a liberal lesbian's view of parenting? Bingo.

Want a true story about love and loss and heart? For sure.

Want to meet a breathlessly passionate, in-your face, honest, funny character? Sign up now.

Yeah, I liked it a lot.

Very few books make me laugh out-loud, this one did. The author's style of writing is shameless, open and raw. You feel like you are truly being let into her life. Her experiences go beyond lesbianism or pregnancy. I am neither gay nor pregnant and I still sympathize with her. Pregnancy can apparently be a bitch, but the ending is happy. This book is a good read and well worth your time. I promise you will laugh and cringe at the same time. AWESOME!

A sure testament to a writer's talent is her ability to draw and hold a reader for whom the subject matter is congenitally unfamiliar. Andrea Askowitz has lots of talent: her comic tale of the hormonal trainwreck that was her Left Coast pregnancy without a partner kept me - a homosexual, non-Jewish man from the East Coast with no intention of raising children -- in stitches from start to finish. Never has schadenfreude been so sweet.

After breaking up with her girlfriend of five years, Askowitz decides to try pregnancy alone. She goes to the sperm bank, sifts through donors, falls in love with her OB/GYN, becomes deeply depressed, disses her brother, obsesses over everything that could go wrong, self-diagnoses non-existent cancer, gets "fat," learns what "doula" and a thousand other strange words mean, and ultimately gives birth to a child. Some of the fun along the way is certainly born of her self-absorption and misery and malcontentedness, but Askowitz is looking for witness as much as laughs. She imagines a party in which she invites her closest friends, insists they wear black and listen to her recite her top ten complaints about her life. "Thank you for coming," she writes. "Do not have fun."

Askowitz writes in a manner so immediate that the emotional surges, flashes of envy and of fury, and instant judgments as to people's worth are visceral. I didn't like those people Askowitz didn't like, and for those who complained about Askowitz's uncensored mouth, I stood by her in saying, Get used to it! I even winced when her nether parts ripped from stem to stern during birth.

A selection of some of Askowitz's choice humor:

* Days before Askowitz gives birth, "Nurse Jones ... shoves her finers into my vagina like she's digging for a pickle at the bottom of the jar. I say, `That hurts!' and she looks at me like, Girl, this is nothing. If you can't handle this, you're in big trouble [when the baby comes].
* Askowitz keels over on the sidewalk with pregnancy-induced dry heaves. A neighbor passes. Explaining why she did not stop, the neighbor says, "I thought you were praying."
* When her would-be sperm donor proves to be shooting blanks, Askowitz bemoans her fate: "I was a lesbian with male fertility problems."
* Askowitzs friend says, "think of your body not as the athlete's body it used to be, but as a life creator." Askowitz's reaction: "I take that to mean I'm fat."

The sheer crankiness of at least eight of her nine months pregnancy proves a perfect foil to the almost speechless (well, not quite, this is Askowitz after all: she does get in a few gripes about the grape-sized hemorrhoids that result from her child's birth) awe with which Askowitz regards the miracle of her newborn child. "I have a crush like no other I've ever experienced. It's one-sided, pure and egoless. ... " Hell, after reading this memoir, I was ready to go get knocked up myself.

My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy is author, Andrea Askowitz's brutally honest memoir recounting the months she spent trying to get pregnant, actually pregnant, and as a new mother. As can be easily discerned from the title, Andrea did not enjoy being pregnant and she makes no effort to sugarcoat her experience. Askowitz is frank and extremely open in describing the messy and oftentimes unpleasant experiences involved with pregnancy and child birth.

What makes My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy work as a memoir is the balance that Askowitz manages to maintain between candid description of her opinions and admission that those opinions might have been skewed by her own gloom. Askowitz pulls no punches in describing her bitter disappoint with her friends, her ex-girlfriend, and her family; however, her harsh judgments are tempered by her acknowledgment that her estimations were not always fair and that she was a big pain in the neck. Askowitz's ability to call herself out on her own issues makes her endearing and likeable.

Askowitz's ability to be so unguarded in her writing oftentimes results in uproarious hilarity. Her recounting of her arguments and passive-aggressive altercations with her therapist will leave readers in stitches. She is candid, annoying, funny, loving, infuriating, and a whole host of other contradicting descriptions that make a person complicated and interesting.

Overall, this is a thoroughly enjoyable memoir that lifts the curtain on the rosy, glowing pregnancy façade that is usually presented to reveal the difficult, hard, and ugly side of pregnancy.

I do, however, feel a responsibility to future readers to mention that this might not be the book for those who consider themselves exceptionally squeamish, prudish, or easily offended.

I laughed, I cried, I laughed some more . . . Andrea's story was funny and very real -- everyone can identify with some aspect of this lonely, lesbian, pregnant (and very funny) woman.

Okay, so as a gay man I wasn't really interested in reading this book but a friend of mine insisted her and her friends thought it was hilarious and biting, which they seem to think is right up my alley (I wonder). Thus I gave the book a shot and really it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, in fact it does have it's moments of biting sarcastic humor, not quite as literistic as say Sedaris but still, better than most. Ms. Askowitz does lay it all out there and sometimes comes off as a whiner and you really just want to tell her to get over it and be happy or at least move on from the ex-girlfriend Kate, who really, it seems, is just dragging her down. But I'm guessing one can chalk her continual moodiness up to the over stimulation of hormones pregnant women go through, or at least I hope that is the case. It seems so as towards the end of the book she comes to some kind of acceptance for being a single mom and loving the little one she has given birth to, she almost seems relaxed for her new role. I'm not going to say every gay man should read this, because let's face it most could care less, but for those other few of us and for single women looking to have a child, it's worth a read.