Official Review: Not My Daughter by Barbara Delinsky

[Alexandra Bayer]

Susan Tate has made up for her mistakes. She had her daughter at the age of seventeen and raised her as a single mom, but since then, graduated university, moved to a new town, and is currently the high school's principal. She taught her daughter to be smart and make good decisions. Now seventeen herself, her daughter, Lily, is pregnant. Susan doesn't understand how her mothering could have led to this; did she do something wrong? But when word comes out that Lily's two closest friends are also pregnant, parents worry that more pacts and copycatting will occur. Susan will have to learn how to be a mother to a mother when the pregnancies get hard and friendships and loyalties are tested.

My mother had checked this book out from the public library a few years back and started it, but couldn't finish it, since all she could think of was how she would feel in Susan's place. I, however, found the summary interesting, and seeing as how I have no children, had no problem reading the book. From the first page, I found this book compelling. It started off very quickly, immediately delving into the pregnancy issue. I found this to be a good strategy, since the reader doesn't have to suffer through much character building while waiting for the main topic. Barbara Delinsky expertly built character and storyline, intertwining them to produce a magical read.

As well as being entertaining, this novel was also very informative. I learned a lot about babies, pregnancies, and diseases, not to mention pacts, copycat crimes, and rules of humanity. The reader finds out that Lily's baby has a somewhat rare disorder called congenital diaphragmatic hernia, CDH for short. This adds on another layer of intrigue to the fact that Lily and her friends formed a pregnancy pact. When the girls were impregnated, they told the boys they were on the pill, since they wanted to raise the children on their own without the boys' participation and support. This was very interesting to me, because who would choose to become a single mother at age seventeen? This book opened up plenty of inquiries for me.

Although I usually enjoy books from the first-person point of view much better, this book was written in third and I found it better that way. Although the main character was Susan, the viewpoint would switch between Lily, her other pregnant friends, and their mothers, Susan's friends, as well as the girls' ex-friend on the outskirts and her mother. Although it sounds complicated, it really lent a hand to the character building and happening of important events. If the story wasn't written in third person, the reader would have had to hear about these relevant occurings through the ears and eyes of Susan, instead of getting the information first-hand as it happened. Some writers are made to write in third person; Delinsky falls into that category.

I found this book to be entertaining, heartbreaking, and compelling. I never wanted to put it down. I would rate it four stars, because I sincerely enjoyed it, even though both the writing style and genre are not what I am used to and usually enjoy the most. I would recommend this book to any reader looking for the rises and falls of motherhood, taboo events, and community.