About book Exploiting My Baby: Because It's Exploiting Me (2011)
I really enjoyed this book because I identified with Strasser's sense of humor and her constant anxiety and need for information. (Yes! I'm not alone in these feelings!) Her writing comes across with such an openness, that it really does feel like you are listening to a close friend talk about her pregnancy. I also appreciated the parts of certain chapters when she warns things like: If you've never had a c-section, you might want to skip this part. Trust her! Among the jokes are real tips for any mom, and I appreciated the casual way Strasser discussed them. This was a great read for the early stages of my pregnancy--before I delve into the more instructional books. this is one of the better pregnancy memoirs i have read, for sure. & i have read quite a few, because they have been my favorite thing to read for the last few years as i come to terms with my baby rabies. strasser won me over right off the bat with an intelligent, darkly humorous writing style, & her very first chapter was about how she convinced herself (for no real reason other than being 38 years old) that she would be incapable of conceiving. she got pregnant pretty quickly anyway--within two or three months. (lucky duck...i've been trying for right months & i'm only 32.) she writes a lot about how people are always cautioning women who want to conceive not to think negative thoughts lest they make themselves barren. seriously, this happens SO MUCH & she punctures this myth & takes no prisoners in doing so. she is also refreshingly straightforward & honest about having an STI & how that informed her conceptions of her own fertility & reproductive health. the rest of the book carries on in a similar vein. so many "mommy memoirs" out there are really goofy & bouncy & make a lot of references to wine (because wine is what people drink when they don't want anyone to think they may have alcoholic tendencies). they can be fun to read, but strasser writes like a girlfriend giving you the straight talk on how sometimes things suck. sometimes things really, really suck. but i didn't feel that she ever really devolved into self-pity or the kind of narcissistic complaining that can be very off-putting in a pregnancy memoir when the person reading the memoir is not, but desperately wants to be, pregnant. as the book progresses, strasser worked more & more entries from her blog into the story, which was disappointing, but i understand the impulse. you're working toward a deadline, you are pregnant &/or have a baby eating up all your time & energy, you already have some topical writing that you can just drop into the manuscript to boost the page count, who's it hurting? luckily her blog posts are still pretty good. not quite as interesting & nuanced as the other stuff, but okay. the only one that bothered me was about how strasser wants to punch pregnant women who don't want people touching their bellies. her argument is that a pregnant belly is just irresistible to people--it signifies the very mystery of life & people shouldn't be expected to keep their hands off. i could not possibly disagree more. but that was one quibble over the course of 300+ pages, so...well done.
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Way better than Jenny McKarthy's book. This one is the real deal.
—Stacy
Great, funny read...I wish Teresa and I could hang
—Silllllll
