"Then Came You"-Jennifer Weiner

Book Title: Then Came You
Author: Jennifer Weiner
Version: ebook (Nook)
ISBN: 9781451617
Voice: Four Narrators First Person
Published: July 2011
Publisher: Atria Books
Number of ebook pages: 296
Genre: Contemporary Fiction


SYNOPSIS: Meet Jules, Annie, India, and Bettina, four women who live very different lives, so different in fact that if not for one very small connection, none of them would have met. The small connection? They have a baby together. Jules is a Princeton senior struggling with a past so dark and unforgiving that she is willing to do just about anything to erase it. Annie is a mother of two, living in a farm house with her high school sweetheart and trying desperately to figure out a way to help out financially without upsetting her very traditional husband. India is a woman who has finally found everything that she has ever wanted. A rich husband that adores her, and thinks she is still 38, a successful business, and a giant apartment that overlooks Central Park and spans two floors. What she doesn't seem to have is the ability to make a baby. Bettina, young privileged, slightly stuck up and the daughter of the man that India is married to. As soon as Bettina meets India she begins investigating her because she distrusts everything she about her.

When Jules is approached about selling her eggs to the Princeton Fertility Clinic she is at first hesitant not sure exactly how she would feel about it. When he mentions that she could easily walk away with twenty thousand dollars Jules pauses and begins to imagine just what she would do with that money. Get her dad into rehab, help him start a whole new life, and maybe even pay off some student loans. Annie, who wants to help her family financially, finds herself secretly applying to be a surrogate. The idea that not only would she be making money for her family but she would be helping another couple make a family makes her giddy. When India decides to go the surrogate route her and her husband spend hours picking the eggs and surrogate that they feel will make the best baby for them. Bettina, meanwhile, is doing everything in her power to oust India from her place as the stepmother. As everything begins to take shape with India's dreams of having a baby, things begin to fall apart for the other women involved.

Jules is struggling with her sexuality, and the fact that her dad will always be just an addict. Annie pregnant and still taking care of her two kids is trying to hold her marriage together. India finds herself, despite all her precautions, falling in love with her husband and trying desperately to get Bettina to stop her crusade against her. Bettina, still plowing ahead, is finding herself more and more alone in the "I hate India" club, with her brothers, and even her private detective crush, trying to get her to drop her cause. When a sudden tragedy brings these women together they all have to redefine what they believe family is.

REVIEW: I have loved Jennifer Weiner's books ever since I accidentally found a copy of "Good in Bed" in a bookstore in my hometown. When I saw that she had a new book out called "Then Came You," I immediately put it on my 'to read' list on goodreads.com. Being financially strapped I decided to fore go the pleasure of buying it right away and wait until I could afford the book. When I saw that it finally came out in paperback I was excited, but now I had a different problem a lack of space problem (I do live in New York,) and so I went with the ebook version. Thankfully I had my handy dandy Nook Tablet to read such a version on.

I was really excited going into it, I always find that Jennifer Weiner begins a book in such a way that it grabs me right away and I can't put it down. It wasn't so with this book. I was feeling slightly disappointed in it at first, it was slow going or something that kind of turned me off. But then something happened and I couldn't wait to see what happened next. I got caught up in the lives of these four women and started loving them and rooting for them. They are all amazing women and they all had their very own 'crazy' to work through. I liked that they weren't perfect, and though Bettina was by far my least favorite, I even enjoyed that she was so single minded on her path. They are great characters, rich, full of life, as well as strong and weak in totally human ways.

Her writing was, as always, fantastic. At times dark and tragic, at others full of life and hope. The way Ms. Weiner was able to write each of these women so uniquely and shape them so perfectly is just further testament, in my humble opinion, to just how great a writer she is. She is poetry and prose in equally perfectly balanced measure and it is a mixture that I find no end of enjoyment in. Jennifer Weiner's "Then Came You" is a book that is sure to stick with you in all the best ways. It's a book full of sacrifice, love, and family in all it's many forms. A book that shouldn't be missed, especially for the women in the world who are mothers, whatever that means to you.