Posts tagged books

I’ve always been somewhat of a book worm.  However, the volume of books that I read has drastically declined since the birth of my kids.  I simply don’t have enough time in my day to read.  I miss snuggling up on the couch with a good book while  Scott watches {insert the name of any meaningless man show here}.  There was a time that I could easily finish 2 or 3 novels in a week.  Aaah, how I miss those days.

Anyway, during a recent trip to BJ’s I was browsing through the books (mainly to look at kids stuff) and came across a few that caught my eye.  I made note of the titles and then requested them at my library.  When I was notified that they were in, I became anxious to find the time to read again.  But how was I going to make time in my day to do this?  Well, I decided that I’d kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.  I’ve been trying to make time in the day to get back into working out (which has fallen off my planner since around Christmas time, eek!).  So now, a few nights each week, I go down and get on the treadmill and instead of listening to my iPod or watching TV, I open a book.  Last night while I was walking and reading, Scott came down and tried to talk to me.  I shooed him away declaring this “alone time” for me.

The book that I’m currently reading is Between Here and April by Deborah Copaken Kogan.  I saw it that day in BJ’s and it looked like a good, quick, easy read.  I’m pretty drawn to stories about mothers, children, families, etc.  Here is a brief synopsis of the book taken from the book jacket:

When a deep-seated memory suddenly surfaces, Elizabeth Burns becomes obsessed with the long-ago disappearance of her childhood friend April Cassidy. Driven to investigate, Elizabeth discovers a thirty-five-year-old newspaper article revealing the details that had been hidden from her as a child—shocking revelations about April’s mother, Adele.

Elizabeth, now herself a mother, seeks out anyone who might help piece together the final months, days, and hours of this troubled woman’s life, but the answers yield only more questions. And those questions lead back to Elizabeth’s own life: her own compromised marriage, her increasing self-doubt and dissatisfaction, and finally, a fearsome reckoning with what it means to be a wife and mother.

I’m not going to attempt to write a book review here as I’m only half way through the book.  However, as I was reading last night I came across a shocking fact. (Yes, this is a book of fiction but after reading this “fact” I was compelled to look it up to see if it were actually true, and it is!)  This might be common knowledge to some, but I had no idea and was pretty surprised by it.

Did you know that Postpartum Depression was not recognized as a mental illness by the legal system until 1994?  A main theme in this book is PPD and it just amazed me to see how this was handled in the late 1960s and early 1970s. PPD isn’t something that was really on my radar until I was pregnant with my first child but even when I first became aware of it, I never would have imagined that the thoughts, feelings and emotions that some women go through after childbirth would have been completely discounted as recently as the 70s.

I’m anxious to finish the book to find out what happens.  It’s not really an engrossing read thus far, but it’s not something that I’m ready to abandon half way through either.  I’ll keep you posted!