Then Came You

I admit it - I'm a sucker for any story where it takes a village to raise a child.  Families that don't fit the mold fascinate me, and when a story combines women, pregnancy, surrogacy, and a unique family, I am hooked from the first page.

Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner fits that bill perfectly.  This latest from the bestselling author of Good in Bed and In Her Shoes tells the story of egg donors, surrogates, and parents desperate for a family, all mixed together with drama, personal growth, and lots of fun twists and turns in the plot.

In Weiner's latest, we meet Jules, who is the perfect candidate for egg donation.  As a college student eager to have enough money to send her father to a rehab facility, it seems a quick and relatively painless way to come up the necessary funds. Across the state, Annie is a mom of two young boys who dreams of going back to college and finding herself, and the thing she is best at is being pregnant.  And in the heart of New York City, India and her husband want a second chance at parenthood, but are unable to carry a baby to term.  These three groups of people will come together to discover heartache, love, and the true meaning of being a family.

This is a book that could be cloying and filled with stereotypes, but under Weiner's skillful writing we get glimpses of humanity and genuinely feel for the chararcters as they stumble, fall, and eventually redeem themselves.  The ethical issues surrounding both donation and surrogacy are handled gently; the pain and regret felt by both Jules and Annie is clear, but so is the knowledge that they are helping to create a family.  The ending is tidy (as Weiner's books usually are) and made me sigh as I finished the final page - particularly satisfying was the epilogue, where we get to see several years into the future at what life for this little baby holds.  This book is the ideal beach read, or (now that it's Fall) for an afternoon of relaxing on the couch.