After years of watching her best friends Ben and Claire try for a baby, Romily has offered to give them the one thing that they want most in Dear Thing.
Romily expects it will be easy to be a surrogate. She’s already a single mother, and she has no desire for any more children. But Romily isn’t prepared for the overwhelming feelings that have taken hold of her and which threaten to ruin her friendship with Ben and Claire-and even destroy their marriage.
Now there are three friends, two mothers and only one baby, and an impossible decision to make…
Thought-provoking, heart-rending but ultimately uplifting, Dear Thing is a book you won’t be able to put down, until you pass it on to your best friends. (via Goodreads)
I received an ARC of Dear Thing by Julie Cohen from Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.
For once, I find myself liking Dear Thing‘s summary. Thought-provoking, heart-rending and uplifting are an extremely accurate description of this novel that takes us through the pregnancy of baby “Thing,” as it is nicknamed. Dear Thing kept me reading well into the night, and I’m not even upset about it.
Dear Thing was slow to start, but I got wrapped up in the story. I loved the contrast between Romily and Claire, and the growth that we see them both go through. Romily is an introverted entomologist, and parent to the adorable Posie. Claire is a music teacher who is desperate to have a baby with her husband Ben, but her body keeps forcing miscarriages. Romily’s offer to have the baby for them is ill-advised, but everything winds up working out in the end. Romily writes letters to “Thing” talking about how much she wants this baby, and Ben. The letters were supposed to be private, but nothing ever truly stays private. It wasn’t exactly a happily-ever-after, but it was close enough.
The jealousy that Claire feels towards all mothers is apparently a common feeling, according to my mother, and it was really understandable. Wanting something so much and having your body reject that dream over and over again must have been exhausting and heartbreaking. I really didn’t like Ben, but I think that his dream of being a parent really blinded him to everyone else’s feelings, which got him into trouble.
I enjoyed this book, so I rated it 4 stars. It looks like this book was previously published in 2013 in Europe, but the US version is being published by St. Martin’s Press on March 29, 2016. You can read an excerpt on the author’s website.
