Translated from Spanish To English by Rosalind Harvey

There’s so much to say about Still Born. I loved it, for one. I’m not really a crying in my pages person but this is one of few that did make me cry 

I may write an actual review at some point but here are some thoughts for now

Two friends, Alina and Laura explore the decisions around having or not having children. They are both independent and career-driven women in their 30s, neither of whom have built their future around the prospect of a family. In the course of the story, we see women through many different lenses- non condemned and all experiences shown for their validity 

Guadalupe runs through entire sets of emotions you can feel as a mother but also as someone with no intention of being a mother- both positions we should empathise with 

Also all the different ways someone can be   maternal- it’s not always the vision we’re fed commercially. It’s not always to our own biological children 

I appreciate so much the fact that child raising as a community is crucial to this story – something that we’ve carried with us from back home outside of the UK primarily and then sometimes lost- I’m only in the past couple of years growing to realise how important this and why my mother and aunts put so much value in it 

I love that feminist units were organically included in this book- the spectrum of ideas Guadeloupe allowed to live in this story is incredible. From how relationships (cishet in this case) are impacted with the introduction of a new life, how male and female doctors handle neonatal care differently with their patients- how sometimes a professional medical perspective can just be wrong. The relationship between the nanny, the couple and Ines, I found both revealing and moving. 

I also appreciated Ines’ efforts being explained as a whole person and not just a disabled child stat. 

So much attention to detail here, even the work Laura and Ayr had to do maintain their friendship long distance and as they grew into different life decisions 

I appreciated that in all this, Aurelio was not simple written as a villain, that would have been too easy and a situation like this is so much more complicated 

I would love to read more books where a village raising children is a central theme 

The book is incredibly readable, captivating story telling. I found all of the writing so natural and elegant in a very simple way. I don’t think it was trying to be anything with the prose but it came off like someone I knew speaking to me. It is actually a difficult subject but I couldn’t stop turning pages. It made me think about what it would have taken to make this book what it is. An amazing writer, a translator who was completely in tune with the story’s essence and what the author was trying to convey. This could never have been easy

I was reading the pigeon nest thing that was pissing Laura off and just wondering when it would come full circle and it did! 

I found this story very emotionally evocative not just for baby Ines but very much for the way the women show up for each other, even learning from initial doubts about each other. It’s not neat at all which was important. A lot of this really hit home for me because I’m still learning and will likely always be learning how to be my babies’ mother