It has been a long time since I posted on this blog. Too long. It isn't that I haven't been reading; I have. I just haven't taken time to come and write reviews of the books. I am going to try to post more frequently. Please feel free to share this with your book-loving friends.
I believe I have mentioned that Robert Whitlow is one of my favorite fiction authors. His latest book, The Choice was no disappointment. You might guess from the title that the story may have something to do with abortion. And you would be correct. Sandy, a young high school student in Georgia, gets pregnant in 1974. To make the situation more complicated, she is from a Christian home and is a leader in her class at school. Not the typical unwed mother of the time and location.
This story is like the proverbial onion with layers upon layers. There isn't just one choice to be made by this young woman, but multiple ones. The first, of course, is whether to have an abortion or give birth. After the initial choice for life instead of death for her baby, there are other choices to be made: to marry or not to marry, what to do about finishing high school, where to give birth, what about her future, to keep and raise her baby or put it up for adoption? All complicated questions with complicated solutions.
All of these decisions are made and it sounds like a pretty boring, typical story line. And it might be if it ended with the above paragraph. But that is only the beginning. There was an old woman in a convenience store who approached Sandy and made some very bold predictions. The LEAST of the predictions was that Sandy would have twin boys. How could this stranger know Sandy was pregnant when the pregnancy wasn't even showing yet? Was she carrying twins? And, if so, what was Sandy to do about the rest of what the woman said, the really bazaar part of the prediction?
Then the story jumps forward thirty-ish years and the girl turned woman who thought her decisions were all behind her suddenly finds herself with decisions she never dreamed she would face. Some of these decisions are a direct result of one or more decisions she made years ago. Others are more of an indirect result, due to the person she has become through facing those long-ago hard choices. Things happen that seem impossible, especially considering the precautions Sandy took to prevent disaster. If her long-ago precautions weren't adequate to prevent the disaster, what could she do? Did she suffer all she did just to come to the point of more, deeper suffering? That possibility was too horrible to be true.
If I am being too vague it is because I don't want to give any hint of the several surprises in this book. I love it when an author surprises me. The best books are the ones you read all the way to the end without guessing how it will end. Several times I thought I knew how this would end. I was wrong. Again, Robert Whitlow has surprised me; not once but multiple times.
I wish I could discuss this book (and others) with people who love books as much as I do. For various reasons that isn't practical. However, if you read The Choice I would enjoy hearing what you think of it.
Happy Reading :-)
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