Midwives: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A thoughtful novel of Vermont life
Review: Chris Bohjalian is a truly amazing storyteller, lovingly (and with humor) portraying life in his adopted home of Vermont. In this book, not only is a wonderful story told, but the reader is invited to think about a world in which natural childbirth is put into direct conflict with modern views on health care, resulting in a difficult legal situation.

Rating:
Summary: Good book; not too compelling
Review: I really enjoyed this book but I can't believe how long it took me to get through it. I have lately been whipping through books but this one I realized took me a long time. Not because it was boring but because it didn't grab me...therefore I found myself not devoting a lot of time to reading it. It was a great story line and I did bring it up in conversations with friends so I must have liked it, but just wasn't too compelling.
There is better, there is worse.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Read
Review: Midwives: A Novel, is one of the best books I have ever read. Set in Vermont in the 1970's, it is a story of a beautiful hippie midwife who has a patient die in childbirth during a fierce snowstorm. But did her client die from the midwife's error? Told from the P.O.V. of the midwife's young teen daughter, Midwives is thoroughly engrossing. As the picture on the cover of a house in the middle of nowhere, barely visible in the snow-filled night indicates, this is a book to curl up with. The reader alternately squirms during graphic medical sections, is mesmerized during the trial proceedings, and sympathizes with, or hates, the well-portrayed characters.

Midwives was written by a man, Chris Bohjalian. I could not believe that such a book, so sensitive to and understanding of women, was not written by a woman. One of Oprah's book club picks.