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The Gift
When Celia, a Princeton scholarship student, sees an advertisement in the university newspaper for an egg donor, she immediately decides to respond. An aspiring writer, Celia is eager to pursue new experiences, but her precarious financial circumstances are also a concern. Raised by her father in a dying South Carolina mill town, Celia worries that she does not belong in the affluent Ivy League environment. She has watched her father drift into alcoholism and welfare since the local mill shut down, and she fears that at some point she may need all her resources to save him.
Elise, a freelance editor who has left full-time work to focus all her energies on her fertility quest, is impressed by Celia’s eloquent response to the advertisement and decides to select her as the donor. Still struggling with the an eating disorder, Elise spends much of her time in therapy agonizing over her past, most notably her involvement with a charismatic Nigerian author named Eric Babu. Elise’s husband Peter, a graduate student in Near East Studies still trying to begin his dissertation after six years in graduate school, is ambivalent about his wife’s headstrong determination to use whatever means possible to have a child. Embarrassed by his own privilege, Peter has never been able to move beyond his heyday as a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco fifteen years before, the only time in his life when he felt any sense of purpose or direction. Under pressure from Elise to finish school so that they can begin their “adult” lives, Peter becomes even more anxious when his impulsive spouse quits her job and decides to befriend her donor.
Shifting among the perspectives of the three main characters, The Gift draws attention to the muddy moral questions raised by modern reproductive technologies as well as the drastic lengths to which Americans are willing to go to engineer their genetic offspring.
Elise, a freelance editor who has left full-time work to focus all her energies on her fertility quest, is impressed by Celia’s eloquent response to the advertisement and decides to select her as the donor. Still struggling with the an eating disorder, Elise spends much of her time in therapy agonizing over her past, most notably her involvement with a charismatic Nigerian author named Eric Babu. Elise’s husband Peter, a graduate student in Near East Studies still trying to begin his dissertation after six years in graduate school, is ambivalent about his wife’s headstrong determination to use whatever means possible to have a child. Embarrassed by his own privilege, Peter has never been able to move beyond his heyday as a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco fifteen years before, the only time in his life when he felt any sense of purpose or direction. Under pressure from Elise to finish school so that they can begin their “adult” lives, Peter becomes even more anxious when his impulsive spouse quits her job and decides to befriend her donor.
Shifting among the perspectives of the three main characters, The Gift draws attention to the muddy moral questions raised by modern reproductive technologies as well as the drastic lengths to which Americans are willing to go to engineer their genetic offspring.
270 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 8, 2013
29 people are currently reading
742 people want to read
About the author
Rachel Newcomb
6 books22 followersI'm a cultural anthropologist and freelance writer whose work has appeared in publications including Washington Post, MarketWatch, USA Today and MoneyGeek. I love writing and traveling, and especially observing and learning from other cultures. I have a creative writing master's degree from Johns Hopkins and a PhD in Anthropology from Princeton.
I've written ethnographies about my fieldwork in Morocco and a novel. More about my books can be found at my Amazon page, which has links to all my books.
I've written ethnographies about my fieldwork in Morocco and a novel. More about my books can be found at my Amazon page, which has links to all my books.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
October 11, 2013
Couldn't even finish this book. Didn't want to waste my time. I got so far and then it completely went off track.
July 24, 2013
This novel hit me hard. It hooked me early on and then I read the last half of it in one compulsive, I-can't-put-this-down-don't-bother-me-children!-can't-you-see-I'm-reading? spree last night. When I finished at 10pm, I felt like I'd been knocked flat. I couldn't stop thinking about it and I was feeling edgy and anxious and I sat down next to my husband -- who was trying to watch TV -- and forced him to listen to an extended description of the plot and why it affected me so much.
And the funny thing is that I don't see myself in these characters. I don't have fertility problems. I have the most easy, uncomplicated marriage ever. I'm not particularly neurotic or OCD. I finished my PhD a while ago, but even when I was working on it, I wasn't anxious and competitive about it like the characters in this book.
So why did this book hit me so hard? I guess because it rings so true, like an alternate universe that's shifted just a couple of degrees away from mine, a universe where every neurotic tendency or competitive feeling or worry about procreation or anxiety about career success that I've ever had is just slightly magnified and twisted, just a little bit distorted, just enough so that it reminds you of all those tendencies and feelings that you suppress, and makes you look around yourself anxiously and wonder, geez, is that what it's like for other people? Is that what it's like for *me*?
By that measure it's an astonishing literary accomplishment, to make me feel those things that I usually don't feel, to suck me in so deeply that I couldn't think of anything else after I finished reading.
The book description here on Goodreads is quite accurate, though when I read it, I was totally confused and didn't find it so compelling. But once I started reading, I got to know and identify with the 3 main characters quite quickly (warning: minor spoilers below):
There's Elise, the 35-year old neurotic NYC editor and wife of a Princeton PhD student who impulsively quits her job to pursue IVF to have a baby. She's not producing good eggs, and she blames this, irrationally, on a long-ago incident in college when she was drugged and had sex with a stranger -- an event that she refuses to call rape, even though it clearly has had a long-term traumatic effect on her, and it led to her volunteer work at a rape crisis centre (where, ironically, she didn't come to terms with her own experience because she was confronted with stories of much more violent rapes). Her feminist mother always encouraged her to never live off of a man, but she's a little too used to luxuries to be able to resist the temptation of drawing on her husband's trust fun so that she can shop at Dean and Deluccas and pay for the "high-quality" genes of a Princeton undergraduate egg donor. She approaches shopping for her egg donor the way she shops for gourmet food, and though ostensibly she's looking for "good genes," she also scrutinises potential donors for things that have nothing to do with genetics, like writing skills and a history of Evangelical church attendance (as if afraid she might accidentally bear a child with a genetic predisposition to charismatic Christianity). In one particularly funny scene, she makes her potential egg donor do a word association test, and celebrates their similarities, when in fact she's interpreted the donor's answers wrong. (For "Hemingway" the egg donor writes "dad," and Elise thinks it's a literary reference to "Papa Hemingway," when for Celia, the donor, it's actually a reference to her dad making her take a sleazy waitressing job one summer in the Florida Keys in a diner/bait shop that had supposedly been patronised by Hemingway.)
Elise's husband, Peter, is in Princeton's Near Eastern Studies Department (and the description of the professors, grad students, and undergraduates in the department ring strikingly true -- the author did her PhD in anthropology at Princeton but clearly she knew this department well, and at least some of the characters are thinly disguised real-life Princeton characters, including the guy who famously denied the Armenian genocide and was later revealed to have received millions in funding from the Turkish government). He's OCD in his obsessive adherence to a dissertation-writing schedule, but the writing isn't really going very well -- meanwhile his family keeps wondering when he's going to finish the damn thing, and he keeps fantasising about being a monk and brewing monastic beer. He also fantasises about getting an academic job in some picturesque New England university, even as he is hopelessly aware of how hard it is to get an academic job and watches the desperate, dehumanising, cattle call-like "Job Market" (he thinks of it always in capital letters) interviews at academic conferences. Peter is attracted to (and writing about) the history of Sufism, an apolitical, esoteric, mystical approach to Islam, but he is constantly being dragged into contemporary political debates by an undergraduate student who writes essays for the Arabic class Peter is teaching about how Israel is the only civilised country in the region, then puts Peter's name on the Campus Watch list (a real-life McCarthyist black list of academics who aren't sufficiently Zionist) and files a formal complaint with the department when Peter gives him a bad grade on the essay. He's trying to write a dissertation with a feminist approach, even as he wishes his wife would cook him dinner every night.
Both Elise and Peter are driven to want what they can't have: for Elise, it's the baby. She isn't particularly maternal, but once she realises she can't have kids, she quits her successful job to try to get pregnant. She also believes that having a baby will salvage her unravelling marriage. For Peter, what he couldn't have was originally Elise. When she seemed distant and ethereal and out of reach, he put enormous energy into wooing her. Now that he's got her, he spends most of his time in his tiny little carrell in the basement of Firestone library and hardly ever goes home. He's unnerved by the way she's transformed from this high-powered successful New York editor to this strange creature obsessed with procreation.
The third main character is Celia, the egg donor. She's at Princeton on scholarship and doesn't really fit in, which is as much about temperament as it is about privilege. She watches everyone around her at a distance, vaguely wishing to one day be a writer. She aspires to having interesting life experiences that she can write about, but doesn't recognise any of her own background (the depressed Southern mill town that she's from, her alcoholic father, the gay ex-boyfriend whose parents are trying to convert him to heterosexuality via the Baptist church) as anything to write about, except when other people prod her to think of it as material. "She longed to be conflicted about something," and she experiments with seeing herself as the victim in this egg donation scheme, and cruelly plays on Elise's anxieties to squeeze her for more money, while she makes a pass one night at Peter when they accidentally meet up at a party. She can never really decide if she's living her life or watching herself live her life, if she's doing things because she wants to do them or because she thinks she should want to do them, to give her experiences to write about.
I don't want to post spoilers so I'll just say that the end surprised me. There's nothing at all predictable about the plot, and yet everything rings true.
Every page has some little quirky observation that made me laugh out loud (e.g. Elise's eyes widening when Celia describes her ethnic identity as "pure Carolina cracker"). The Princeton arcana will entertain anyone who has ever spent time in that weird little town (McCaffrey's and Triumph and Small World and the Annex and the Dbar and the ceiling mural at the post office). Each character is simultaneously sympathetic and pathetic. There's no hero, no villain, and no cliched stereotype -- even as you can find in every character a bit of some stereotype, enough to recognise why it persists and yet see that it's awfully incomplete. The author does a particularly good and subtle job of dealing with class (and anxieties around class) at Princeton. For example, Celia recognises the way certain words have power, like the little comments that her friend Nicole drops that reveal her class privilege: Wellesley, Italy, artist.
Should be mandatory reading for anyone thinking about doing a PhD, or considering gamete donation and the peculiar ways that that "gift" is commodified and gendered. Will be of particular interest to people with an interest in Princeton, the politics of Middle East studies, or the publishing world. But I hate to pigeonhole the book in that way. The themes are much broader: desire, the complicated nature of marriage, the subtle ways that we sabotage ourselves.
Full disclosure: I did my PhD at Princeton in the Anthropology Department, and I've met the author a couple of times (though she started several years after me and was in Princeton when I was doing fieldwork in Egypt, so we never got to know each other at Princeton). But I swear I would say all the same things about this book even if I had never met her.
And the funny thing is that I don't see myself in these characters. I don't have fertility problems. I have the most easy, uncomplicated marriage ever. I'm not particularly neurotic or OCD. I finished my PhD a while ago, but even when I was working on it, I wasn't anxious and competitive about it like the characters in this book.
So why did this book hit me so hard? I guess because it rings so true, like an alternate universe that's shifted just a couple of degrees away from mine, a universe where every neurotic tendency or competitive feeling or worry about procreation or anxiety about career success that I've ever had is just slightly magnified and twisted, just a little bit distorted, just enough so that it reminds you of all those tendencies and feelings that you suppress, and makes you look around yourself anxiously and wonder, geez, is that what it's like for other people? Is that what it's like for *me*?
By that measure it's an astonishing literary accomplishment, to make me feel those things that I usually don't feel, to suck me in so deeply that I couldn't think of anything else after I finished reading.
The book description here on Goodreads is quite accurate, though when I read it, I was totally confused and didn't find it so compelling. But once I started reading, I got to know and identify with the 3 main characters quite quickly (warning: minor spoilers below):
There's Elise, the 35-year old neurotic NYC editor and wife of a Princeton PhD student who impulsively quits her job to pursue IVF to have a baby. She's not producing good eggs, and she blames this, irrationally, on a long-ago incident in college when she was drugged and had sex with a stranger -- an event that she refuses to call rape, even though it clearly has had a long-term traumatic effect on her, and it led to her volunteer work at a rape crisis centre (where, ironically, she didn't come to terms with her own experience because she was confronted with stories of much more violent rapes). Her feminist mother always encouraged her to never live off of a man, but she's a little too used to luxuries to be able to resist the temptation of drawing on her husband's trust fun so that she can shop at Dean and Deluccas and pay for the "high-quality" genes of a Princeton undergraduate egg donor. She approaches shopping for her egg donor the way she shops for gourmet food, and though ostensibly she's looking for "good genes," she also scrutinises potential donors for things that have nothing to do with genetics, like writing skills and a history of Evangelical church attendance (as if afraid she might accidentally bear a child with a genetic predisposition to charismatic Christianity). In one particularly funny scene, she makes her potential egg donor do a word association test, and celebrates their similarities, when in fact she's interpreted the donor's answers wrong. (For "Hemingway" the egg donor writes "dad," and Elise thinks it's a literary reference to "Papa Hemingway," when for Celia, the donor, it's actually a reference to her dad making her take a sleazy waitressing job one summer in the Florida Keys in a diner/bait shop that had supposedly been patronised by Hemingway.)
Elise's husband, Peter, is in Princeton's Near Eastern Studies Department (and the description of the professors, grad students, and undergraduates in the department ring strikingly true -- the author did her PhD in anthropology at Princeton but clearly she knew this department well, and at least some of the characters are thinly disguised real-life Princeton characters, including the guy who famously denied the Armenian genocide and was later revealed to have received millions in funding from the Turkish government). He's OCD in his obsessive adherence to a dissertation-writing schedule, but the writing isn't really going very well -- meanwhile his family keeps wondering when he's going to finish the damn thing, and he keeps fantasising about being a monk and brewing monastic beer. He also fantasises about getting an academic job in some picturesque New England university, even as he is hopelessly aware of how hard it is to get an academic job and watches the desperate, dehumanising, cattle call-like "Job Market" (he thinks of it always in capital letters) interviews at academic conferences. Peter is attracted to (and writing about) the history of Sufism, an apolitical, esoteric, mystical approach to Islam, but he is constantly being dragged into contemporary political debates by an undergraduate student who writes essays for the Arabic class Peter is teaching about how Israel is the only civilised country in the region, then puts Peter's name on the Campus Watch list (a real-life McCarthyist black list of academics who aren't sufficiently Zionist) and files a formal complaint with the department when Peter gives him a bad grade on the essay. He's trying to write a dissertation with a feminist approach, even as he wishes his wife would cook him dinner every night.
Both Elise and Peter are driven to want what they can't have: for Elise, it's the baby. She isn't particularly maternal, but once she realises she can't have kids, she quits her successful job to try to get pregnant. She also believes that having a baby will salvage her unravelling marriage. For Peter, what he couldn't have was originally Elise. When she seemed distant and ethereal and out of reach, he put enormous energy into wooing her. Now that he's got her, he spends most of his time in his tiny little carrell in the basement of Firestone library and hardly ever goes home. He's unnerved by the way she's transformed from this high-powered successful New York editor to this strange creature obsessed with procreation.
The third main character is Celia, the egg donor. She's at Princeton on scholarship and doesn't really fit in, which is as much about temperament as it is about privilege. She watches everyone around her at a distance, vaguely wishing to one day be a writer. She aspires to having interesting life experiences that she can write about, but doesn't recognise any of her own background (the depressed Southern mill town that she's from, her alcoholic father, the gay ex-boyfriend whose parents are trying to convert him to heterosexuality via the Baptist church) as anything to write about, except when other people prod her to think of it as material. "She longed to be conflicted about something," and she experiments with seeing herself as the victim in this egg donation scheme, and cruelly plays on Elise's anxieties to squeeze her for more money, while she makes a pass one night at Peter when they accidentally meet up at a party. She can never really decide if she's living her life or watching herself live her life, if she's doing things because she wants to do them or because she thinks she should want to do them, to give her experiences to write about.
I don't want to post spoilers so I'll just say that the end surprised me. There's nothing at all predictable about the plot, and yet everything rings true.
Every page has some little quirky observation that made me laugh out loud (e.g. Elise's eyes widening when Celia describes her ethnic identity as "pure Carolina cracker"). The Princeton arcana will entertain anyone who has ever spent time in that weird little town (McCaffrey's and Triumph and Small World and the Annex and the Dbar and the ceiling mural at the post office). Each character is simultaneously sympathetic and pathetic. There's no hero, no villain, and no cliched stereotype -- even as you can find in every character a bit of some stereotype, enough to recognise why it persists and yet see that it's awfully incomplete. The author does a particularly good and subtle job of dealing with class (and anxieties around class) at Princeton. For example, Celia recognises the way certain words have power, like the little comments that her friend Nicole drops that reveal her class privilege: Wellesley, Italy, artist.
Should be mandatory reading for anyone thinking about doing a PhD, or considering gamete donation and the peculiar ways that that "gift" is commodified and gendered. Will be of particular interest to people with an interest in Princeton, the politics of Middle East studies, or the publishing world. But I hate to pigeonhole the book in that way. The themes are much broader: desire, the complicated nature of marriage, the subtle ways that we sabotage ourselves.
Full disclosure: I did my PhD at Princeton in the Anthropology Department, and I've met the author a couple of times (though she started several years after me and was in Princeton when I was doing fieldwork in Egypt, so we never got to know each other at Princeton). But I swear I would say all the same things about this book even if I had never met her.
August 1, 2013
This review has been cross-posted on Captivated by Books
Celia, a Princeton scholarship student and aspiring writer, feels that she hasn’t had enough ‘life experience’ to have anything worthwhile to write about. So when she has to get a new job, she takes a chance on a newspaper advert for an egg donor.
Elise, a freelance editor, is determined to have a child and refuses to accept that her body won’t naturally create one. Elise is impressed with Celia’s written application and selects her, however Elise is determined to get to know Celia in the process.
Peter, Elise’s husband, is a Princeton Grad student, struggling to complete his dissertation. Between the stress of starting a family and Elise quitting her job, Peter finds it increasingly difficult to find his focus.
When I started reading, I wasn’t sure whether it would be something I would enjoy. However, that soon left my mind as I became enchanted with Rachel Newcomb’s words. There were so many times I had to stop and just drink in the beauty of the language used, which is something I rarely find in a book. This, surprisingly, didn’t detract in any way from the story. The main reason for this, in my opinion, is the strong and real characters Rachel has created; the fact that the story is told through a mix of the three main character’s perspectives only strengthened this.
I felt I could really relate to Celia. She is a young woman with dreams of becoming a writer, but once at College/University Celia starts to become aware of how sheltered her upbringing in South Carolina was and begins to worry that without exciting adventures, she won’t have anything to write about. While I related most with Celia, I could empathise with all the characters, feeling that I knew them as if they were friends.
Despite the controversial topics raised in this novel, I feel that The Gift is a novel about three people finding themselves and not simply constructed in an attempt to share the author’s opinions. There was enough information for me to understand what was going on in the sense of the egg donation, but that wasn’t the focus of the story. The novel completely revolves around the characters and I was sorry that it had to end. Though the beginning was a little slow, the only main issue I had with this novel is the title. The book felt so unique that I wished it had a title that not only encapsulated that, but one that won’t be easily confused with other novels (such as The Gift by Cecelia Ahern).
I would recommend The Gift to anyone who appreciates the beauty of language, as well as those looking for an interesting contemporary read which doesn’t allow the subject to create a heavy cast over it. I am definitely planning to read more novels by Rachel Newcomb.
[Disclaimer: I received this ebook in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
Celia, a Princeton scholarship student and aspiring writer, feels that she hasn’t had enough ‘life experience’ to have anything worthwhile to write about. So when she has to get a new job, she takes a chance on a newspaper advert for an egg donor.
Elise, a freelance editor, is determined to have a child and refuses to accept that her body won’t naturally create one. Elise is impressed with Celia’s written application and selects her, however Elise is determined to get to know Celia in the process.
Peter, Elise’s husband, is a Princeton Grad student, struggling to complete his dissertation. Between the stress of starting a family and Elise quitting her job, Peter finds it increasingly difficult to find his focus.
When I started reading, I wasn’t sure whether it would be something I would enjoy. However, that soon left my mind as I became enchanted with Rachel Newcomb’s words. There were so many times I had to stop and just drink in the beauty of the language used, which is something I rarely find in a book. This, surprisingly, didn’t detract in any way from the story. The main reason for this, in my opinion, is the strong and real characters Rachel has created; the fact that the story is told through a mix of the three main character’s perspectives only strengthened this.
I felt I could really relate to Celia. She is a young woman with dreams of becoming a writer, but once at College/University Celia starts to become aware of how sheltered her upbringing in South Carolina was and begins to worry that without exciting adventures, she won’t have anything to write about. While I related most with Celia, I could empathise with all the characters, feeling that I knew them as if they were friends.
Despite the controversial topics raised in this novel, I feel that The Gift is a novel about three people finding themselves and not simply constructed in an attempt to share the author’s opinions. There was enough information for me to understand what was going on in the sense of the egg donation, but that wasn’t the focus of the story. The novel completely revolves around the characters and I was sorry that it had to end. Though the beginning was a little slow, the only main issue I had with this novel is the title. The book felt so unique that I wished it had a title that not only encapsulated that, but one that won’t be easily confused with other novels (such as The Gift by Cecelia Ahern).
I would recommend The Gift to anyone who appreciates the beauty of language, as well as those looking for an interesting contemporary read which doesn’t allow the subject to create a heavy cast over it. I am definitely planning to read more novels by Rachel Newcomb.
[Disclaimer: I received this ebook in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
June 24, 2013
A great novel by a new author I will definitely follow. For anyone who has tried their own hand at writing, Rachel Newcomb perfectly captures the singular awkwardness of creative writing workshops, the subtleties and difficulties of marriage, and the isolation of anyone who has ever felt out of place on a college campus. I've never tried to write a Ph.D dissertation myself, but she definitely conveys the pressure and culture of of doing so. This novel is not just about academia though, Newcomb also juxtaposes Celia's dying hometown in South Carolina, and the way we sometimes idealize past trips to faraway places. I found myself relating to all three characters, which made this a hard novel to put down; my loyalties shifted as the main characters shifted. I always find it fascinating how the same situation appears so different to different people, and Newcomb does a great job at this. The plot was not formulaic at all, and I was surprised by the ending, but found it totally believable as well. This novel was both sophisticated and accessible, and I enjoyed it more than I expected.
September 8, 2013
Wow, what a let down. This book starts out great with tremendous build up. You're hanging on the edge of your seat waiting to find out what happens. A small scandal makes you believe something huge us coming.
And then it doesn't. The story just falls flat. Which is sad because the writing is excellent. :/
And then it doesn't. The story just falls flat. Which is sad because the writing is excellent. :/
August 3, 2013
I received this book as part of the GoodReads First Reads program. I could not put it down from page 1. It hooks you early and you keep thinking about what is going to happen. Great detail, quick and easy read. Once you finish, you will still be thinking about the characters.
May 20, 2017
I felt cheated by characters who didn't want to be doing what they were doing and a story that seemed pointless.
September 6, 2017
Good book
You people should just read this book yourselves and write your own review on this novel yourself and I really enjoyed reading this book very much so. Shelley MA
You people should just read this book yourselves and write your own review on this novel yourself and I really enjoyed reading this book very much so. Shelley MA
June 11, 2024
Not impressed
It seemed like the author was all over the place. The book just didn't seem to have any substance and the story seemed off.
It seemed like the author was all over the place. The book just didn't seem to have any substance and the story seemed off.
August 31, 2013
Finish Time: 6 nights. I chose this book for a few reasons. This book addresses the subject of infertility. It goes through the options/treatments Elise and Peter had weighed and/or undergone. The latest decision, and subject of this book is to find an egg donor. A controversial topic debated under religion, politics, and other venues. The book didn't get into any of that though. But infertility is something I have personally gone through and have watched many others as well. Some with happy endings, some with stories still "to be continued." So a topic that intrigues me.
The book doesn't go much into the history of Peter and Elise, just states that IVF (in-vitro) would have a small chance of taking, so they decided (or maybe just Elise) to pursue an egg donor via a newspaper ad. Conveniently they live in a college town (Princeton) where there happen to be some "starving" college kids. One of those being Celia. Celia came from a single-parent family who once lived the American dream, only to have it all taken away from them. Now at Princeton, she is trying to redeem that fall and again pursue the rags to riches dream.
Elise and Peter are not the most likable characters, or at least I didn't find them to be. They both are living off of family money as Elise recently quit a lucrative editing job to pursue starting a family which annoys her grad student husband, Peter, as he is writing his never-ending dissertation on the Middle East. Some points were dragged on by discussions on this topic, which (ignorantly) didn't hold my interest. I think the author tried very hard to make all the characters come off very intellectual, but it sometimes bored the reader (IMHO).
While the writing was good, I just found myself annoyed at the characters for most of the book. The marriage of Elise and Peter was not a good one and they think a child would make it better (#$%^?). Why would a reader root for a couple that clearly needed to work on their own relationship to bring another person into that dysfunction! Obviously a sensitive topic for me, and maybe that is what the author wanted? Who knows. The book ended how it should, but was another one of those that I didn't feel satisfied. I was glad it ended but felt it could have had so much potential to help couples dealing with infertility and maybe looking into egg donation. But it just ended up kind of depressing. Probably would not recommend.
On to something new now!
http://mydogearedpurpose.com/2013/08/...
The book doesn't go much into the history of Peter and Elise, just states that IVF (in-vitro) would have a small chance of taking, so they decided (or maybe just Elise) to pursue an egg donor via a newspaper ad. Conveniently they live in a college town (Princeton) where there happen to be some "starving" college kids. One of those being Celia. Celia came from a single-parent family who once lived the American dream, only to have it all taken away from them. Now at Princeton, she is trying to redeem that fall and again pursue the rags to riches dream.
Elise and Peter are not the most likable characters, or at least I didn't find them to be. They both are living off of family money as Elise recently quit a lucrative editing job to pursue starting a family which annoys her grad student husband, Peter, as he is writing his never-ending dissertation on the Middle East. Some points were dragged on by discussions on this topic, which (ignorantly) didn't hold my interest. I think the author tried very hard to make all the characters come off very intellectual, but it sometimes bored the reader (IMHO).
While the writing was good, I just found myself annoyed at the characters for most of the book. The marriage of Elise and Peter was not a good one and they think a child would make it better (#$%^?). Why would a reader root for a couple that clearly needed to work on their own relationship to bring another person into that dysfunction! Obviously a sensitive topic for me, and maybe that is what the author wanted? Who knows. The book ended how it should, but was another one of those that I didn't feel satisfied. I was glad it ended but felt it could have had so much potential to help couples dealing with infertility and maybe looking into egg donation. But it just ended up kind of depressing. Probably would not recommend.
On to something new now!
http://mydogearedpurpose.com/2013/08/...
September 1, 2013
I was really looking forward to reading this book as it sounded like a very interesting story. I was a little disappointed though. There were things I liked about the book and one thing I was not so crazy about.
Elise and Peter, a married couple, are trying to have a baby. However Elise is unable to get pregnant so instead of adopting they search for an egg donor. Elise runs an ad in the college papers and Celia, a college student, answers the ad. The story goes from there with time spent with each character and their own lives as well as their lives together through the egg donation process.
Elise and Peter are not the perfect couple. They each have their regrets and are battling their own demons. I liked the fact the author didn't make them a perfect couple except for their infertility. Their flaws is in part what made the book good to read.
Celia isn't quite battling any demons but is trying to discover who she is and maybe trying to leave her past behind. She seemed, in my opinion, to be the sanest of the trio.
The major issue I had with the book was all the rambling on about the Peace Corp and the time Peter spent in Morocco. I feel the author spent way too much time describing in great detail this subject. It seemed to me she researched this topic at one time and felt the need to publish her research in this book. It also seemed to be "filler" to get to the required number of pages. I would have rather read more about Elise and Peter's issues.
Don't know if I would read this book again but all in all it was an ok read. I don't feel like I wasted my time reading this book.
Elise and Peter, a married couple, are trying to have a baby. However Elise is unable to get pregnant so instead of adopting they search for an egg donor. Elise runs an ad in the college papers and Celia, a college student, answers the ad. The story goes from there with time spent with each character and their own lives as well as their lives together through the egg donation process.
Elise and Peter are not the perfect couple. They each have their regrets and are battling their own demons. I liked the fact the author didn't make them a perfect couple except for their infertility. Their flaws is in part what made the book good to read.
Celia isn't quite battling any demons but is trying to discover who she is and maybe trying to leave her past behind. She seemed, in my opinion, to be the sanest of the trio.
The major issue I had with the book was all the rambling on about the Peace Corp and the time Peter spent in Morocco. I feel the author spent way too much time describing in great detail this subject. It seemed to me she researched this topic at one time and felt the need to publish her research in this book. It also seemed to be "filler" to get to the required number of pages. I would have rather read more about Elise and Peter's issues.
Don't know if I would read this book again but all in all it was an ok read. I don't feel like I wasted my time reading this book.
April 11, 2014
I loved this book, loved the dreamy tone, loved the pace, loved the tension between the three main characters: college student Celia and married couple Elise and Peter who, unable to conceive, contract Celia as an egg donor.
I'm the type of reader who reads for voice as much as content and "The Gift" didn't disappoint. The writing is superb; it's evident that Newcomb cares about the rhythm of her words, cares about the cadence and the way words sound and feel inside the reader's mouth.
She doesn't skimp on the story, either, which is rich with conflict and introspection, rich with looks and nuances and small, almost brilliant touches that transform the story into a full and nourishing read.
As far as the ending, well, after watching Celia and Elise struggle for the majority of the book (Peter struggles too, of course, but somehow his struggle doesn't feel as urgent or intimate), the ending feels vaguely unsettling, in the way real life often leaves us feeling vaguely unsettled because, face it, choices aren't easy and realistic and true-to-the-bone fiction, can cut down into the psyche and force one to ask uncomfortable questions.
I read "The Gift" in two days; I literally couldn't put it down.
I highly recommend for readers of literary and women's fiction.
I'm the type of reader who reads for voice as much as content and "The Gift" didn't disappoint. The writing is superb; it's evident that Newcomb cares about the rhythm of her words, cares about the cadence and the way words sound and feel inside the reader's mouth.
She doesn't skimp on the story, either, which is rich with conflict and introspection, rich with looks and nuances and small, almost brilliant touches that transform the story into a full and nourishing read.
As far as the ending, well, after watching Celia and Elise struggle for the majority of the book (Peter struggles too, of course, but somehow his struggle doesn't feel as urgent or intimate), the ending feels vaguely unsettling, in the way real life often leaves us feeling vaguely unsettled because, face it, choices aren't easy and realistic and true-to-the-bone fiction, can cut down into the psyche and force one to ask uncomfortable questions.
I read "The Gift" in two days; I literally couldn't put it down.
I highly recommend for readers of literary and women's fiction.
August 14, 2013
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The Gift is primarily a story about infertility and the process of egg donation from both sides, the giver and the one who receives. It is also a story about growing up, at whatever age you are, and learning to find your way in life. Cecilia answers an ad placed by Elise looking for an egg donor. Cecilia is at Princeton on a full scholarship and looking for work. Elise is married to Peter, a graduate student working on his dissertation. Elise has decided that what is missing in her life and marriage is a child, and rather than adopting, wants the experience of carrying a child on her own.
I felt all of the characters were very believable, with hopes, dreams and flaws of their own. I would recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys stories about relationships.
The Gift is primarily a story about infertility and the process of egg donation from both sides, the giver and the one who receives. It is also a story about growing up, at whatever age you are, and learning to find your way in life. Cecilia answers an ad placed by Elise looking for an egg donor. Cecilia is at Princeton on a full scholarship and looking for work. Elise is married to Peter, a graduate student working on his dissertation. Elise has decided that what is missing in her life and marriage is a child, and rather than adopting, wants the experience of carrying a child on her own.
I felt all of the characters were very believable, with hopes, dreams and flaws of their own. I would recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys stories about relationships.
September 27, 2013
Celia, an ivy-league scholarship student with a sense of entitlement and lack of appreciation for the opportunity she has been given decides to sell her eggs to an infertile couple, Peter who is writing the most boring dissertation and his wife Elise.
Newcomb has a pleasing style, but wrote a lot of backstory with Peter's time in the Peace Corps and his dissertation, which didn't hold my interest. I found myself skimming these paragraphs as well as those about Celia's hometown.
Ultimately, THE GIFT, is about much more than infertility, or a marriage that's not as ideal as it first seems. It's about the relationship between the three main characters, with each other and with themselves. Some reviewers found the ending unsettling, though I did not.
I'd have rated this higher if there were less backstory and more about Elise and Peter's marriage.
Newcomb has a pleasing style, but wrote a lot of backstory with Peter's time in the Peace Corps and his dissertation, which didn't hold my interest. I found myself skimming these paragraphs as well as those about Celia's hometown.
Ultimately, THE GIFT, is about much more than infertility, or a marriage that's not as ideal as it first seems. It's about the relationship between the three main characters, with each other and with themselves. Some reviewers found the ending unsettling, though I did not.
I'd have rated this higher if there were less backstory and more about Elise and Peter's marriage.
September 22, 2013
I don't think Goodreads wants to allow me to post my review of this book. This is at least my fourth try!
Despite the appealing theme and story, I found the execution of this story far short of my expectations for a well written novel. I enjoyed the characters, the setting, and the plot enough that it was actually sort of an end-of-summer "quick read." But, only one other time do I recall completing a novel which I had so liberally marked regarding lapses in word choice, word order, logic, grammar, transitions, strange repetitions of clever similes, .... In all of that, character depictions became murky.
This novel was offered as a free download one day in August, for which I thank the author and her distributors. I am only sorry my honest reaction cannot be more positive.
Despite the appealing theme and story, I found the execution of this story far short of my expectations for a well written novel. I enjoyed the characters, the setting, and the plot enough that it was actually sort of an end-of-summer "quick read." But, only one other time do I recall completing a novel which I had so liberally marked regarding lapses in word choice, word order, logic, grammar, transitions, strange repetitions of clever similes, .... In all of that, character depictions became murky.
This novel was offered as a free download one day in August, for which I thank the author and her distributors. I am only sorry my honest reaction cannot be more positive.
November 24, 2013
This wasn't the worst book I've ever read but certainly parts of it were very slow moving, especially the bits about the anthropology of Morocco and the guy's dissertation. The plot had enough conflict that it held the promise of getting better, so I kept reading. I loved the Celia character and the part about her father losing his income/status was also great. The best scene was the party, which had the potential to create all kinds of conflict - but again it fell flat. The premise of egg donation was interesting to me so I continued to read, but overall it was a bit of a disappointment because certain plot points did not feel resolved at the end of the book.
October 21, 2013
Huge disappointment. The premise is enticing, and I really looked forward to reading The Gift, but the characters are annoying and not very likeable, especially the husband, who is whiny and self-centered. His forever-in-progress dissertation seems to be the real topic of this book, not the issues of infertility and donor eggs. Boring, boring, boring. Then, after plowing through the entire book, waiting for something to happen, nothing does. At all. As I write this, I'm thinking I should change my rating to one star! What a let-down.
September 27, 2013
I have mixed feelings about this book. I found myself not really liking any of the people - frustrated with their lack of communication with each other- but that formed the entire premise for the book. What mixed up lives people have. I would say to put "The Gift" on your list to read. Interesting and although you can figure out the ending, it's a little quirky!
February 14, 2014
Great novel. I loved all the pieces and was startled how quickly everything moved at the end. My good wife, an OB/GYN, has remarked that the fertility issues and egg donor scenes were portrayed with high accuracy. I thoroughly enjoyed this.
October 9, 2013
This was an interesting read... I didn't develop an affection for any of the characters and thought it rambled on in some chapters, but something about it kept me involved enough that I really wanted to finish it and see what happened.. There definitely wasn't a happily ever after finish!
February 8, 2014
I debated about marking this 3 or 4 stars. I enjoyed it, it was well written, I liked the three main characters, Celia - the egg donor and Elise and Peter the married couple, but it just didn't wow me.
April 30, 2014
A good plot idea, but it felt amateur. A lot of telling instead of showing, with long overstated explanations of the characters' emotions and backstories, and in the end everyone feels a little flat.
October 10, 2013
It started off very well, but lost its steam.
August 27, 2013
I was disappointed in this book. I found myself towards, the end, not liking any of the characters and not really caring what happened to them. Hated the ending, too.
September 30, 2013
I thought this was very slow moving.
September 29, 2013
This book had a good concept and potential but I found the characters so unlikable I had a hard time caring what happened to them.
December 23, 2013
Interesting infertility story of three people involved in egg donation, with a surprise ending. An easy read.. I enjoyed PETER'S graduate research
July 23, 2016
I enjoyed the first half then it got bogged down with unrelated info and seemed to carry on with repetitive info.
May 17, 2014
Boring! I try to finish all books I start, but this was painful.
May 22, 2016
The gift
Much detail about Arabic studies and culture along with imagination go into this tale only to have an unexpected complete twist at the end.
Much detail about Arabic studies and culture along with imagination go into this tale only to have an unexpected complete twist at the end.
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