Someone Else's Baby [Mass Market Paperback]

Geraldine Kaye (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 27, 1996

"Superb . . . The author is a genius."

--Philadelphia Inquirer



"[A] MOVING AND HEARTFELT STORY."

--Publishers Weekly (starred review)



Seventeen year old Terry Browning has a problem. She is pregnant and doesn't know who the father is. But the big, tough question remains: Will she keep the baby or put it up for adoption? Her strict parents demand that she give up the child or move out. Then another teenage mom says maybe they can both rent a room and raise their babies together.



As Terry writes her thoughts down in a series of notebooks, hoping her baby will see it one day, she considers the most important question of her life and comes to realize some very important lessons about responsibility, honesty, and unconditional love.



"A REALISTIC, ACCESSIBLE NOVEL."

--Kirkus Reviews

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Kaye poses a lot of hard questions and provides no easy answers in this moving and heartfelt story of a pregnant teen. Terry, 17, doesn't want to think about her future, even though she's five months pregnant, doesn't know who the father is and hasn't told her parents. In the journal she keeps for her unborn child she reasons, "What's the point in thinking ahead, when the past is dead and gone and the future may never happen and the present is swinging all around you?" Considered helpless and incompetent by her parents, Terry has never been one to make choices for herself. But as her pregnancy progresses, she gradually becomes more responsible for her own life. Still, she feels like a failure when she gives up baby Elizabeth for adoption and consequently suffers an emotional breakdown. This is no mere cautionary tale for wayward girls: Terry ultimately grows to like herself and live life on her own terms. However, as she confesses to Elizabeth in the book's penultimate lines, "I still think about you and dream about you a lot. I guess I always will." Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up-- Terry, 17, has become pregnant, by an unknown assailant, while in a drunken daze at a party. Through journal entries, she chronicles her vacillations between wanting to give the baby up for adoption or keeping it. Her feelings towards her unborn child abruptly change from indifference to love. In the end, though, she allows the wheels already set in motion to grind on and she gives the baby up. The only faintly interesting element is the thin thread of suspense about her final decision. It is difficult to care, however, about a character who is mad at the world for no apparent reason, and who dislikes herself but doesn't strive to transcend her passivity. The tone in the journal is consistently detached and emotionally bland. Terry's parents and siblings are a mix of good and bad, but there is no insight into what has made Terry the person that she is. A more meaningful story about a pregnant teen is Jacqueline Woodson's The Dear One (Delacorte, 1991). --Jacqueline Rose, Southeast Regional Library, NC
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Fawcett (November 27, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0449704572
• ISBN-13: 978-0449704578
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,991,048 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars extreamly good book; every young adult should read it., September 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Someone Else's Baby (Mass Market Paperback)

This book was amazing everyone should read it it teaches you a great deal aboout teen pregnancy and the responcibility of a single parent.