Trigger warnings
Miscarriage, internalised misogyny, child-as-punishment, slut shaming, potential abuse, alcoholism
The Book
Here's the start of the dedication:
The Idea of You is dedicated to every woman who has known the pain of miscarriage, who has felt her hopes and dreams of motherhood end without warning.
Firstly, not just women get pregnant, and not just women go through miscarriages. Even in a supportive heterosexual relationship, I'm pretty sure a miscarriage would affect both people. Secondly, I'm a 26 year old, disabled, queer woman, and I do not want to have children, nor can I have them. This was going to be interesting.
I'm going to preface this by stating something. Miscarriages happen for a variety of reasons. It could be a lack of access to healthcare, or a multitude of other reasons. Sometimes, there is no reason, it just happens. The one who is pregnant is never to blame. Be aware that while I'm talking about this book, I am not dismissing anyone's experience of miscarriage. I am just talking about this one book, and the characters in it.
In Chapter One you meet Lucy, a single woman at a baptism, who clearly believes that life is a race and that having children and a holiday home in Portugal is the best thing a woman can have, because clearly a woman can only have achievements around what comes out of her womb. Like I said, I'm not the target audience, and at this point, I'm just already tired. Then we meet a man who becomes the love of her life; he talks about his wedding with his ex wife, marrying Lucy, and then asks for her name. No, seriously. That is how it happens.
I admit that I am a fangirl; I wholeheartedly ship (i.e.: put fictional characters in fictional relationships) characters, and love it when characters have healthy relationships. At no point in the entire novel did I understand why Lucy and Jonah were together. Their relationship seemed very unhealthy; during one argument for example, Jonah says "You sound jealous, horribly jealous, and it is very unattractive." This set alarms bells ringing for me. In the middle of an argument, regarding Lucy's emotional state regarding his daughter, all Jonah can call her is jealous and unattractive. Even during their "romantic" scenes, their love seems out of place. I do not see any romance between the two.
Camille, Jonah's daughter from his previous marriage, is in her late teens. Lucy makes some degree of an attempt to be supportive, but then this happens and alarm bells start ringing again for me. Lucy is basically sexualising a minor, and then goes on to "see the attraction" in Camille's seventeen year old boyfriend. I'm not sure if I'm seeing alarm bells because of my past, but no one should sexualise a teenager. No one. Clothes do not equal consent, but Lucy seems to think it does.
Let's talk about Lucy, since she is the main character.
Lucy has two aspects to her personality: she has a job, and she wants a baby. She was slut shamed by her mother into giving up her child for adoption when she was sixteen, but by the age of forty she has not made any attempt to contact her daughter. For someone who wants a child so badly, it would make sense to me for her to try to make contact.
Lucy is also highly critical of other women, while at the same time thinking life is a race. She says herself that she will only get the "bronze medal" for having children late in life. This is ridiculous, and of course no one calls her out on it; because she is the main narrator (third person limited, following Lucy), not even the narration calls her out on this. I genuinely have no idea if this is how other people see their achievements, but it seems wrong to me. Beyond that, Camille admits that her mother is an alcoholic and has abusive tendencies, but nothing comes of it; Lucy does not offer support, but consoles Camille and glosses over it.
I want to make it crystal clear, once again, that I am not the target audience. I will never go through a miscarriage, but nor will I ever want to be pregnant. I do not want children. Lucy devotes the entire book to wanting children. She has three early stage miscarriages, but once Camille has her son, Lucy seems to be content being a grandmother. Her desire to have a child vanishes, and she is happy. Despite being slut shamed by her husband, Lucy is still happily married. This is clearly child-as-punishment (Lucy and the child she gave up for adoption) becoming child-as-reward (Lucy helping to look after Camille's child) and I don't understand why.
When I first read the synopsis, I thought this would be an interesting read; I thought it might be a commentary on the expectations of women to have the perfect career and the perfect home life with a husband and children. I couldn't be more wrong. It is never even stated why Lucy wants a child, just that she does. Her miscarriages feel like they are meant to be the central arc of the story; instead it feels that Lucy dusts herself off and moves onto the next one, with only a few tears and arguments in between. Once Camille declares that she is pregnant, Lucy focuses on that instead.
Reading other reviews for this book on Goodreads made my heart sink. Was I alone in seeing the problematic nature of this book? Then there was a light, shining in the darkness. Author Lucy Banks (who wrote The Case of the Green Dressed Ghost that I fangirled over previously) also read this novel, and I'd like to quote a little of her review here. She sums it up rather well.
I bristled at the underlying sentiment that a woman needs a man / baby in order to have a fulfilled life. I also found the protagonist's attitude to miscarriage a little bemusing at times. I simply couldn't imagine how a pregnant woman could be unaware of the possibility of miscarriage, to the point where they started knitting baby clothes when they were only 8 weeks gone? It didn't quite add up for me.
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Not to mention the fact that I found the character of Lucy to be a bit of a flake. Her husband Jonah came across as fairly patronising (talking down to the 'little woman' at times, you know the sort of thing) - though I'm pretty sure this was unintentional. Perhaps it was just my interpretation. And the end of the book? I'd imagine some might find it poignant. I myself felt that it was a little bit sickly.
NetGalley requires an honest review and here is a summary of mine: this is not a book I would recommend.
If you want to read more of my Fangirl Friday posts, where I talk in depth about books I actually love, take a look here.
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