Books Baby Proof
Books and Publications Average Rating:

Rating: - Promises Made, Promises Broken
Claudia Parr has decided she does not want children. Her hopes of finding someone that felt the same seem slim. That is, until she meets Ben. He feels the same way and now things are perfect. They fall in love and get married. Happily ever after, right?? NOT. Claudia and Ben's closest friends become pregnant. And now Ben changes their minds. Now everything is completely off balance. Claudia feels betrayed. And she insists that she will never have a child.

Giffin infuses humor in this all so difficult topic. Will Claudia and Ben stay together? Will she decide to have a child? The cover is very deceiving. I thought with the sparkly booties it would be a rather slow and boring story. It was total opposite and I read the book in one sitting. I haven't read a book in one night in a while. You most definitely have to read this book.

Donnica Copeland
Sista Talk Book Club

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Rating: - Fascinating book
I really loved this book and was fascinated by the topic. No, not the baby topic (though I thought it was very well drawn out with Claudia, her sisters and Jess), but the idea of what would be a non-negotiable issue in an otherwise wonderful relationship. Giffin is a smart writer and makes the book entertaining and thought-provoking at the same time. Also, really loved the ending. I love that some questions are answered, but that some are also left open. Makes it more authentic.

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Rating: - Somewhat Disappointed...
I've read Emily Giffin's two other novels (Something Borrowed/Something Blue) and I have to say that this one was not as enticing compared to the other two. The book didn't keep my attention like the other novels, I think because the ending was too predictable. In the middle of the book I already knew the outcome and I felt like I was forcing myself to finish the book to the no surprise ending.

Maybe this book was dull because her other books referenced to each other, however this one really had no reference to her previous books. I'm going to try her last novel... I hope the next one is better than this one.

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Rating: - Author cannot write a believable childfree woman at all
Baby Proof is a fake childfree book written by a parent trying to impersonate the childfree voice, and she gets it all wrong.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

Claudia, the main character, is like a background player in her own novel. I kept wondering why, in a book about a nominally childfree-by-choice woman, so much time was given to X, Y, or Z mommy or mommy-wannabe of the protagonist's acquaintance. She had no interests of her own besides her job; most of the time it felt like she was sitting around waiting for the phone to ring so she could listen to the mommies go on and on about themselves. All Claudia ever did was work and serve as a sounding board, babysitter, and supporter for the mommies she knew. When she finally hooks up with the hot childfree guy and goes on a fantastic vacation with him, she can't enjoy it because "something is missing." Gee, could the missing thing be...A BABY??!1?! Subtle, Giffin ain't.

And Ben, Claudia's husband, comes off as so shallow, naive, and selfish that I couldn't stand him, and couldn't comprehend why Claudia wanted him back. When she left him, I thought GOOD RIDDANCE! He came off like a whiny, pouting, manipulative child himself. I couldn't imagine how any woman would want HIM around, let alone want to have his baby.

Then towards the end, Claudia finally gets lonely and beaten-down enough to try to get back together with her husband by offering to have his baby, and at that point I wanted to throw the book across the room. It stopped being chick lit and became, for me, a very subtle horror story about how loneliness and relentless, soul-deadening social pressure force unmaternal women into having unwanted children just to get along in a world that treats non-mothers like second-class citizens. Yet Giffin depicts this slow erosion of her protagonist's true self as PROGRESS. Gee, glad to know that even women who are 100% sure they don't want children really-truly always want one deep down. Biology always IS destiny then, no matter what that woman's pesky CONSCIOUS MIND wants. Good to know.

A very insidious book. Perhaps for an encore, Giffin can write a novel about a gay woman who gets pressured into a heterosexual marriage because everyone in her life wants to pretend she's straight. Or maybe she can give us the story of Ben and Claudia's 16-year-old daughter, who grows up knowing that her mother Claudia never really wanted her and only had her because her father Ben demanded it.