I could not get into this book, ultimately it was not form me and I could not finish it. It may be one for other readers

A very interesting and intriguing book. I have taken a lot from reading this book. Well written and very informative.
Thank you to NetGalley for gifting me the book

DNF. I've read some more academic feminist accounts of abortion/abortion rights theory recently and they resonated more with me than what I read of this, which was more of an account of a her struggles with her marriage and the abuse she faced in her past than I was anticipating. That's fine, I am not from the U.S. and am in a country with (for the moment) decent public healthcare, so didn't feel it was worth getting progressively angrier at the U.S. healthcare system for what it is.

I do think it would be important to read if you live in the U.S. states where abortion is more accessible. Also if you've read this I would recommend Without Apology by Jenny Brown for more of an academic (but accessible) look at why abortion rights are so important and why they have become so contentious.

Thank you to NetGalley for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. For the most part a very insightful memoir covering thematic issues relating to womanhood, pregnancy, choice, abortion, healthcare, and more. I do think a couple of times the argument fell off the wagon and got a little murky, deviating from facts or any linear train of thought. Still, some good statistics are presented and an eye-opening comparison of women’s healthcare (or lack thereof) in West Virginia - some ugly truths are confronted and addressed well in this. A quick and worthwhile read.

This is a powerful memoir both of one woman's thwarted attempt to exercise her right to reproductive choice, and of the wider legal and social context of female healthcare in the US.

Christa Parravani was a forty year old mother of two trying to make her way in a new career which would give her family much-needed stability, when she discovered that she was pregnant for a third time. Having already taken maternity leave whilst new into the job for her second pregnancy, and with a husband who contributed little to the family in terms of either financial or emotional support, she was terrified of what a third child would do to her income, her mental health and her daughters' quality of life. She decided on the option of abortion but quickly found that, whilst legal in West Virginia where she lived, her choice was blocked on all fronts. From health care professionals denying her access, to barriers of cost, travel and time to go further afield, she found herself in the position of continuing the pregnancy. When her son was born, she was further let down by the healthcare system which left her baby unable to properly feed and with pain from an undiagnosed birth injury.

Christa's story is a raw indictment of a system which is blighted by religious morality police and unequal access, brought to its knees by a lack of funding and exacerbated by big industry's environmental impact. There's a lot to take in throughout this book, and none of it makes for happy reading - not least that these are the experiences of just one women out of millions, and a woman who was in a more privileged position than many others. As someone looking at this from the outside context from a country of far more equal healthcare provision and access, employment rights and maternity leave/pay (not perfect itself, but for which I'm eternally grateful), this was a jaw-dropping read.

I've seen a few people criticise this as not a memoir about abortion rights, but as a thinly veiled dig at a pretty useless husband (who wrote Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles, fact fans. And whom I wanted to give a shake for his disgusting selfishness). I think they're missing a point here - lack of money and partner support are key factors in many women's choices with regards to pregnancy. On the surface, with her professional job and existing children, Christa's case would be held up by anti-abortion types as a selfish choice, one without "reason" for abortion. But this goes to show that without being welcomed in, no one knows what's going on behind closed doors. It illustrates that there is no such thing as a selfish reason, that each choice is a personal one.

And perhaps having a more "acceptable" reason for why she wanted an abortion was what gave Christa the courage to share this very important story. It pains me that someone should have to expose all the flaws in a marriage or family to justify a choice which is legally her right to exercise, and it also pains me to commend someone on their bravery for tackling this subject in the first place. But it is the reality of a life where that right is continually stamped on by people who wont have to shoulder the burden of an unwanted pregnancy and who literally couldn't give a damn about the woman, baby or family once that right has been successfully stripped away.

This book is honest and compelling, not just from the facts laid bare but by Parravani's pose. She is an incredible writer and I appreciate that this story was told with someone not only with the bravery to tell it but with exquisite tools with which to do so.

This is a memoir of motherhood and sacrifices, as well as the story of an unplanned pregnancy within a family already at breaking point.

I was expecting to absolutely love this but it fell short for me. I think it tried to do too much within a fairly short book.

I felt that at the start of the book it took quite an academic look at abortion rights and availability within the US. I enjoyed this section but the authors decision seemed to be made very quickly with no examination of this decision. After this the abortion angle was just dropped. I felt like it was 3 different books all crammed into this which I don’t think was entirely successful.

However, some of the writing, particularly the nature writing sections, was so beautiful.

Incredibly inspiring memoir! An incredible tale of the sacrifices mothers make and everything that being a mother implies. It will make you want to phone your mum when you finish it.

A searing look at women’s rights in conservative states in the USA.

When did women give men, religion or anyone else the right to dictate what they can do if they find themselves pregnant with an unwanted, unplanned baby? Christa Parravani raises this question and points out the pitfalls on wanting to terminate a pregnancy from the very early stages in the conservative states in the USA.

This is an “angry” memoir. However, as I read this quite harrowing tale of trying to terminate her third pregnancy – Christa fails to have the abortion and genuinely loves Keats, her longed-for son when he is finally born. His birth is traumatic. The hospital is not adequately equipped, and the doctors and nurses don’t seem to care. Keats’ shoulder is broken during the birth because he’s pulled out of her. This break is not picked up by the hospital – Christa keeps saying, “there’s something wrong with his arm” and like many women is told that she’s overwrought.

Women are so often overlooked and treated like they have no idea what they’re talking about when they KNOW that there is a problem with their child. He also has a problem taking to the breast and bottle. Again, the problem is overlooked until finally, someone realises that there really is a problem! From thinking “Gosh, you’re angry” I found myself gritting my teeth and fuming about how women are treated in this the 21st century.

I didn’t enjoy this book. Far from it – my feminist, “get out there and fight for equal rights” way of thinking kicked in, and I was all for catching the first plane to the USA to defend women’s rights to make their own decisions. I find it so exasperating to think that I fought so hard for laws to change in South Africa during the 80s and 90s and yet here we are in 2020, and things are going backwards in America.

This memoir was harrowing for me. Having said that, I’d recommend this book to men to read as well. No termination is taken lightly. Christa had precise reasons for requesting the procedure. Her story is just one – but many women find themselves alone in a very hostile world trying to convince doctors or nurses to listen to their stories and then receive the help they so desperately need. Maybe if we all tried to be less judgemental and more understanding, life would be a lot easier.

Thank you Christa Parravani. I wish I was closer to help you fight for women’s right to make their own decisions when it comes to abortion without feeling stigmatised.

Rony

Elite Reviewing Group

Loved and Wanted is both a moving and brutally honest memoir of motherhood and the sacrifices we make for our children as well as the story of a stressed family, an unplanned pregnancy, and a painful, if liberating, awakening. Christa Parravani was forty years old, in a troubled marriage, and in bad financial straits when she learned she was pregnant with her third child. She and her family were living in Morgantown, West Virginia, where she had taken a professorial position at the local university. Haunted by a childhood steeped in poverty and violence and by young adult years rocked by the tragic death of her identical twin sister, Christa hoped her professor’s salary and health care might set her and her young family on a safe and steady path. Instead, one year after the birth of her second child, Christa found herself pregnant again. Six weeks into the pregnancy, she requested an abortion. And in the weeks, then months, that followed, nurses obfuscated and doctors refused outright or feared being found out to the point of, ultimately, becoming unavailable to provide Christa with reproductive choice. This is a candid look at the societal forces that shape women's lives.

By the time Christa understood that she would need to leave West Virginia to obtain a safe, legal abortion, she’d run out of time. She had failed to imagine that she might not have access to reproductive choice in the United States, until it was too late for her, her pregnancy too far along. So she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Keats. And another frightening education began: available healthcare was dangerously inadequate to her newborn son’s needs; indeed, environmental degradations and poor healthcare endangered Christa’s older children as well. Loved and Wanted is the passionate story of a woman’s love for her children, and a poignant and bracing look at the difficult choices women in America are forced to make every day, in a nation where policies and a cultural war on women leave them without sufficient agency over their bodies, their futures, and even their hopes for their children’s lives. I found myself moved to tears at times by this simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming memoir and felt the incisive social commentary couldn't be more necessary or timely. Many thanks to Manilla Press for an ARC.

A compelling memoir of the hard choices women and mothers must make, and are all too often denied, in modern America. sometimes harrowing, deeply and profoundly personal, and always engaging, book.

This is an incredible, painful, beautiful book about mothering and womanhood and navigating a patriarchal world with a female body.


I keep thinking about where Parravani writes of not addressing certain aspects of her relationship to spare her children's feelings and her concern about what her children, and especially her son, will think when they are old enough to read it. It is unusual to see these concerns addressed in a text in such a vulnerable way, without one shred of defensiveness. I hope they admire their mother for her courage..

It seems women can't fully inhabit their own lives once they become mothers. The pram in the hall is the enemy not of productivity but openness because something always has to be held back. I found this book all the more important because of this.