Review - Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born

Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born by Tina Cassidy

rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I first saw this book and wanted to read it, I thought it would probably strip me of any desire ever to have children. Fortunately, it actually accomplished the opposite, affirming that no matter which way you prefer to give birth--with drugs, without drugs, squatting, lying down, with a midwife or a doctor--there is probably someone out there who has tried it before and there are lots of arguments for your preferred method.

I could detect the author's bias toward giving birth the natural way with a midwife, and frankly felt convinced by it. It seems that our history of treating birth "like a disease" rather than a natural process and interfering with all sorts of drugs, tools, and doctors who think they know better than women who have been through it has caused more harm than good.

The mini-biographies of all kinds of natural birth advocates have me convinced that if my husband and I ever have a baby, which I hope we will in a few years, I would want to try it the natural way. Pain is manageable without drugs and it sounds like there are less risks overall (for example: the numbness of an epidural can take away a woman's ability to push, thus increasing the risk of breech babies, a required C-section, or the use of forceps and episiotomies. Babies can be accidentally cut during C-sections, and those operations also increase the future risk of pregnancy complications or infertility since a placenta has difficulty attaching to scar tissue).

My main criticism of the book is that it's so packed with information that could have been better organized by time period. The author chose to organize it by category, which worked well for such an ambitious project, but the times jumped around so much that it was a little hard to follow at points. Other than that, I loved the stream of factoids and constantly interrupted my husband's own reading to share them with him.

Being informed about something always makes me much more calm about it than not knowing, so the positive impact of reading this book overall far outweighed the gruesome parts for me--but if you just want those, go ahead and Google the word symphysiotomy and you'll have had enough.


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Review - This Present Darkness

This Present Darkness by Frank E. Peretti

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Peretti really hooked me with this one. I read and read all weekend until it was done.

This is the story of the small town of Ashton, secretly under the control of a demonic horde. Unbeknownst to one another, Marshall Hogan, the owner and editor of the local newspaper, and Hank Busche, new pastor of a small church, slowly uncover the hideous secrets of the town.

All characters are largely unaware, save for brief encounters, of the details of the battle between angels and demons on the spiritual plane constantly taking place around them.

Although the massive conspiracy theory was implausible and the exorcism a bit overdone, it stood up as a suspenseful work and a fascinating illustration of spiritual warfare.

I would recommend slogging through the first thirty pages or so if you're a stickler for writing style--it's worth it to get to the main story, at which point Peretti finally learns the word "said" and tones down the cliche descriptions of people.

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Review - Lonesome for Bears

Lonesome for Bears: A Woman's Journey in the Tracks of the Wilderness by Linda Jo Hunter

rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is another one that I picked up during my library work. I really, really want to say I liked this book, because I learned a number of interesting things about bears from it (staying calm, staying put, and glancing away from a bear are ways of showing you don't want a fight, for example). Some of the author's imagery was quite good, and I could tell that she cared about her subject. However, I had several major problems with the book:

1. The narrative in the beginning seemed disjointed. I was expecting a book about a woman who overcame her fear of bears and grew to love them, but I felt that her fear of bears was glossed over within a very short space. It made it seem like the central conflict was over within the first chapter. In addition, before she and her husband became managers at Redoubt Bay Lodge, I wasn't sure when the previous events were happening. More dates would have been better.

2. Whatever the writing issue was, I just didn't feel for the bears like I knew the author did. Her prose seemed to lack in just the spots where it needed to shine the most.

3. The whole book lacked a central theme. Because of the solved conflict right at the beginning, the rest of the book read more like a journal chronicling several mostly unrelated events.

Again, great book if you want to learn more about bears--there are several very interesting and funny stories about them, the author being an expert tracker and guide. Not so great if you want an entertaining story that will move you and keep you on the edge of your seat.

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Review - Chief Sarah

Chief Sarah: Sarah Winnemucca's Fight for Indian Rights by Dorothy Nafus Morrison

rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked up this book after someone donated it to the library where I work. At first it looked like young adult level material, but I don't think it was necessarily meant for that audience--it's simply a short, well-written, concise account of one aspect of a very dark part of U.S. history, namely, the slaughter of largely innocent natives and the Bureau of Indian Affairs' forcing them onto reservations.

Chief Sarah, as she was called, was a member of the Paiute tribe. At first afraid of the white settlers, who looked like owls to the natives, she gradually learned their language and their ways, serving as a bridge between them and her people. Natives of Nevada, her people were forced to move to multiple states, at last being sent to Washington state and the Yakima reservation where many of them died of exposure and starvation. While some of them wanted revenge for their treatment, Sarah and her family of tribal leaders always promoted her grandfather's vision of peace, and were considered friends and guides by the U.S. Army. However, the Bureau of Indian Affairs at that time tended to lump all Indians together, having no concept that separate tribes might have different philosophies and intentions. The ever-brave Sarah went as far as traveling to Washington D.C. on behalf of the Paiutes, but was seemingly thwarted at every turn.

The book left me angry at the ignorance of that time--the belief that all Native American tribes were the same, and must be "civilized," which meant being taught to settle down in one place and learning how to farm. Some of the leaders of the reservations actually helped them do that, but most of them mistreated them and stole the money that was meant for their care. All of this was mostly because settlers wanted to "own" the land that they roamed freely.

When some white men came upon native encampments, they would slaughter everyone they found down to the women and children. Then if the remaining members of the tribe tried to take revenge, the settlers would see it as a "unprovoked" attack and send out more men to take down the rest of the tribe.

I admired this courageous woman, Sarah, whose tribe found themselves in such a lose-lose situation. She believed that education was the key to peace, not violence. Still, it saddens me that the tribes of today are still forced to either stay on a reservation, or integrate with a society that in some ways is just as foreign today as it was 150 years ago.


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