Ahhh, my new career.

I'm a literary critic, remember? This is much like the time my mother became a portrait photographer because Daddy got her a new point & shoot camera with a portrait setting on it. She spent an entire day taking pictures of Art, Princess, Busha and me and every time we complained she'd announce, "But I am a Portrait Photographer!"

Well, Quirk Books has been sending me books to review for my darling blog readers, so that officially makes me a Literary Critic. Soon I will begin expounding upon the memoirs of Eastern European heads of state and classic lit like Jude the Obscure. But before that I think I should tackle something a bit more in my range.....The Pregnancy Test 150 Important, Embarrassing, and Slightly Neurotic Questions by Melissa Heckscher with Emily Sikking, M.D.


When Eric (remember my friend Eric?) emailed me about reviewing the latest Quirk Book I was surprised to find it was a book on pregnancy. But then everyone else has published one. Why not Quirk? I think I'd much rather know what the folks at Quirk Books think we should expect while we're expecting than what Jenny McCarthy has to say about it.

I am packing this little pink book away to give to the next first time mom that pops up in our family. When I was preggers with the FarmHands my go-to texts were What to Expect When You're Expecting (I'm pretty sure it's required reading in these parts) and The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy. I really liked them both, but The Pregnancy Test takes the best parts of both books & smashes them together in an easy to access format.

Instead of reading through an entire month of symptoms or searching through unrelated paragraphs for answers to your most neurotic (and often embarrassing) questions, The Pregnancy Test gives them to you in bite sized, easy to swallow portions. They ask you either a true/false or a multiple choice question & let you take a shot at the answer first. Turn the page & you'll find out what the experts have to say.

I wouldn't say this book is the be all, end all of pregnancy books, but I do think it would be a very handy little book to keep in your purse the entire 40 weeks you're growing a person. I wish I'd have had it way back when.....and before you ask, no, I will not be expecting again just so I can put this book to good use. Besides, after four kids I could probably write my own book on pregnancy, except that I have four kids and therefore barely have time to write a blog much less an entire book.