3.5 stars
#CBR11 Bingo: Summer Read (would also work for Cannonballer Recommends and/or Own Voices)
Official book description:
Natalie Chin-Williams might be a cranky professor of climatology who thinks the world is doomed, but she believes in lasting love…just not for herself. She has a long history of failed relationships, plus the men she dates inevitably want children and she doesn’t.
Now thirty-six and single, Natalie expects endless comments about her love life when she attends her baby sister’s wedding. Worse, weddings are always drama-filled disasters in her family. She needs emotional support to get through the weekend, so she enlists the help of her friend Connor Douglas, the dependable family doctor.
The wedding reception goes south when a drunk aunt announces a family secret that sends Natalie reeling and shakes her faith in love. Luckily, she has her long-time friend to lean on—a man she somehow ends up kissing. But there’s no way this could turn into anything lasting, is there? That’s impossible for her, especially now…
Fellow Cannonballer, kissing book enthusiast and long-time internet friend Emmalita has reviewed several Jackie Lau books this year, which is what made me really take note of the name. During the discussion of the very super depressing anti-abortion legislation being passed not that long ago, Jackie Lau put this book up for sale for $0.99, because of its pro-choice message. I bought it, and since it also fit into my Keyword Challenge this month, it didn’t end up forgotten on my TBR list like so many other sale books do.
So yeah, minor spoiler, the heroine of this book has had an abortion. If that’s a deal breaker for you, this is probably a book to avoid. In so much of romance, coupling with a man and having a baby seems to be the goal. The pregnancy epilogue is a popular trope for a reason (especially in historical romance). When I was struggling with fertility problems myself, even contemporary romance novels seemed to be bursting with insultingly fertile couples – women getting knocked up from one-night stands (while using protection and/or on contraception). When you’ve spent time, money and tremendous amounts on emotions on unsuccessful fertility attempts, that just seems extra hurtful.
We are constantly bombarded with proof that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and much faster than we previously believed or predicted. So many people are choosing not to have children, and now that I do have a child, I’m constantly wracked with guilt about bringing him into this world when we’re clearly all going to die, and possibly before he sees adulthood. I’m so sorry, Gabriel. I know many women who don’t want children (and who didn’t want children even before it became clear that we live in a dystopian nightmare). So if reading romance is difficult for women with fertility issues, I can’t imagine how rarely voluntarily childless women find themselves represented.
Full review on my blog.
With this review, I finally reach my first Cannonball of the year. I would have to go back and check, but I’m pretty sure that this is a new record (sadly, for longest time it’s taken me to complete 52 reviews) in my decade of Cannonballing. This may be the year I fail to complete my goal of a double.