Customer Reviews

Rattled!: A Memoir

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Christine Coppa seems to be an extremely confident woman, who has lived a very blessed and fortunate life. She had an idyllic, suburban childhood: beautiful home; two older brothers who adore her; affluent, loving parents. Now as a young adult, she lives in Manhattan and has a glamorous job, an exciting social life, and a hot new boyfriend, referred to as "A" throughout the book.

In the midst of all this, a night of unprotected passion with "A" results in an unplanned pregnancy. Fortunately for Ms. Coppa, her family (including her elderly Italian grandmother), her coworkers, and a huge network of friends trip all over themselves vying to be the most excited, non-judgemental, and approving of this development, and to offer the most support. The heroine herself almost immediately begins anticipating the birth of her baby with joy. "A" alone does not share in this general feeling of awesomeness, and ultimately runs for the hills, but that barely ruffles her feathers.

I am long past my "Glamour" reading years, so I am unfamiliar with Ms. Coppa's blog, but I assume it is a better showcase for her writing style; and perhaps already being a fan of the blog is necessary to enjoy "Rattled." While I can be happy for the author and her adorable son and how perfectly everything all worked out, it's hard to understand why any of this is supposed to have made an interesting book. The pacing is dull, there is no dramatic tension, no climactic moment or shocking revelation. Ms. Coppa suffers no real ambivalence about motherhood, nor did she experience any significant hardship - financial, medical or otherwise - to bring her baby into the world.

Christine Coppa can write, and I certainly don't blame her for capitalizing on the popularity of her blog. But I suppose I expect a memoir to be the story of someone who has accomplished something great, or about someone who has overcome great adversity to triumph in an inspiring way, or at the very least to be a new or extremely witty twist on a familiar theme. "Rattled" is none of these.

While the story of a woman who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant and then unemployed has the potential for a great read, I found the book filled with way too many random and repetitive dialogue and scenes. I was interested when Christine first finds herself pregnant and had to break the news to close friends and family, but by the time she's still writing about telling her out-of-town friend weeks later, I couldn't help wonder why we still needed the play-by-play. I also found much of the book to be quite focused on Christine's defensiveness about entering single-parenthood, which was anything but inspirational. As a formerly single mother myself, I find it disturbing how quickly and easily Christine took every inquiry about the baby's father as a judgement of her as a single mother. Is it really fair to fault the surgeon for asking if the father would like to attend the C-Section? For the sonnogram technician for referencing the father in the pictures he provided? Her observations about others looking at her pregnant belly and then looking for a ring also struck me as unneccessarily paranoid. As very few women I know have actually been able to wear a ring by the third trimester, I doubt very much that most would even use the lack of a ring as relevant. I hope this is an attitude Christine can lose as her child gets older and that she learns to handle the situation with more grace and dignity, before he picks up that chip himself.

I am a reader of Christine's blog Storked! I enjoy reading it daily and am always amused by her stories of single parenthood. This book was a huge disappointment for me. There was no flow. It was choppy and too easy to read. I felt as though this book would be better suited for a high school level reader who is easily engulfed by stories of overly priced items and a woman who refers to the same moments and the same feelings over and over in the book. Christine was always reaching some revolution, always feeling proud (which she most certainly should!) but telling of it over and over and over. Thousands of single mothers (even married mothers) give up much more than weekly splurges on $70 t-shirts, $200 jeans and daily cosmos after work with their girlfriends. Christine should be any more applauded than any of the others.

I adored this book so much I wrote a review when I was just a few chapters in (which I had to delete to post this review). Well, I have finished it, and I can say with certainty that this book was wonderful from beginning to end. Coppa's writing is engrossing. I saw this book while I was checking out at Barnes&Noble. It was sitting by the check out counter on the mother's day stand and the bright chick-lit-esque cover caught my eye. I quickly read the back and decided to give it a try. I was unaware that Coppa writes a blog for Glamour (I'm a Cosmo girl myself), so I was not sure what to expect.
For any woman who has peed on a sick and either hoped to God it was one line or two this book is for you. Whether you have had a close call, are a mother yourself, or just have a soul, you can relate to Coppa's journey into a situation that turns out so magically. Of course most single women do not plan to become single mothers, but Coppa makes an amazing revelation that I loved. She does not want to be pregnant, and hates the situation she is in, but she wants her baby. That is so often the most overlooked aspect of unexpected pregnancies with younger women. Coppa got something so wonderful out of a not-so-good predicament.
This book is a total page turner. Her attention to detail is unreal. I felt like one of her best friends, like I was there through this with her the whole 9 months. This book really impressed me, especially coming from such a young author. If it is any foreshadowing into what Coppa will bring us in the future we are all in luck. I can't wait to read more from this author, and I definitely hope she writes some more about her life with her son, Jack.

I followed Christine Coppa's Glamour blog prior to her son's birth and then for a number of months later, but it has fallen off of my list in recent months (mainly because of some changes to Glamour's RSS feed that made it harder to keep up). Until I saw a comment elsewhere, I was unaware that she had turned her story into a book, and was delighted that it came out the day before I had a long flight planned. The perfect download for my Kindle.

At first, I was worried that this would be a rehash of much of what was on the blog, and while the story was ultimately the same, obviously, this book was absolutely wonderful to read. Christine really put a lot of thought and passion into writing this story. As a woman around her age, I could really relate to her fear of the unknown, and understand her adoration and frustration with her family at times.

I absolutely could not put this book down. It was completely engrossing, even though I knew how it turned out. I definitely recommend checking it out.

My husband bought me this book because I've enjoyed the blog Storked! However, I found the flow of the book really choppy. So many pages dedicated to her disbelief over being pregnant, then about a paragraph devoted to her quasi-boyfriend's abandonment. Random stuff is brought up and never explained or followed through on, like the fact that her parents have been "separated for years and will practically be divorced by the time the baby arrives" and her anger at the disappearing father of her child. Not sure if it's the fault of the writing or the editing. This book felt like a first draft and not a finished product, which is too bad because I really enjoy her blog and find her personally likable online. Oh well!

I read 40 pages and then returned it. This girl goes off on boring tangents that have nothing to do with anything. I skimmed the rest of the book and saw that she pretty much kept on doing it. And there's such a strong sense of "ooohh look at me! look at me, I have done the impossible and shall go down in history." There's nothing interesting about this memoir that separates it from the others about single motherhood.

I managed to finish this book but the entire time I was reading it I couldn't get over how obsessed and repetitive the main character was. The same problems kept coming up and the same thoughts kept popping into the main character's mind. I understand being left after finding out you're pregnant is tough, but the main character's family was there the entire time, so this "sob" story really isn't. I was always waiting for some sort of climax (such as the main character meeting a new man or something of that nature)... but SPOILER ALERT: She doesn't.

This book may empower women who have gone through or are going through the same thing but for those who aren't it's simply another means of birth control.

I have been a follower of Chrissy's blog so I decided to pick up her book. I must say, it is very well written. Others have called it choppy, I didnt think that at all. She pays great attention to detail and I can totally visualize exactly how she went through everything. It is an easy, light read but brutally honest and she definitely puts herself out there by sharing her story of singlemom life with the reader. I would recommend this book to anyone. It wont let you down.

I'm a daily reader of Coppa's Storked! blog on glamour.com, and I have to say I was pretty disappointed with her memoir (sorry, Chrissy). I felt like it was the same information I already knew from reading her blog, peppered in with a few additional details. While she's obviously a very talented writer, I didn't feel like this gave me any deeper insight into who she is than what I already get from her blog. Plus, I was annoyed to find two typos in the book. I give this book a solid, "Meh."