Sunday, May 13, 2007

She Births

Tonight I finished reading, She Births, another one of my birthday books. I was really excited to get this book and was kind of let down by the actual experience of reading it :-( It has a great cover image though (and I love the title too)! I found myself thinking, "where's the book?" as I was reading--I was three quarters of the way done and hadn't learned anything or considered any new ideas. It was like I was reading, but getting *nothing.* It is hard to explain. I found the last quarter to be more interesting at least. Also, there are a huge number of typos/errors in the book that I found distracting. I know I'm not a perfect writer either, but I get very "jolted" by typos in books and it makes it harder for me to respect the message if the delivery is marred by mistakes. I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more when I was actually pregnant? As I was reading it, I was thinking that I need to re-sell it, but after I finished it, I decided I need to keep it and try again with it another time. Maybe I just wasn't in the proper mood to read it!

Added on August third after a discussion online about this book:
Basically, I was disappointed with the book. Especially after reading all the mixed reviews (i.e. some of the “I’m so shocked by this book!” type ones), I was expecting something special. I am very into the idea of birth as a transformative rite of passage, etc. so I thought this book was going to be right up my alley. I was also expecting to glean some great new ideas to use in birth education classes. I just was really expecting something new and exciting and I didn’t really learn anything new or find any of my ideas expanded or challenged by it :(

I guess I did get something out of it in that she likens the experience of giving birth to a spiritual rite of passage like a vision quest or walking across hot coals, with the idea that moving through the pain of birth is a purifying, transformative, spiritual, cleansing experience. (I think this is the idea that most bothers some reviewers.
)

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