October Baby // Book Review

October Baby

Eric Wilson

* * * * * {five of five}

Not long after Hannah, a college student, experiences increasing anxiety and a sudden collapse, all signs point to the surprising circumstances of her birth. Hannah soon learns from her parents that she was adopted and is the survivor of a failed abortion attempt.

     Bewildered, angry and confused, she turns to her oldest friend, Jason, for support. Encouraged by his adventurous spirit, Hannah joins his friends on a road trip, embarking on a journey to discover her hidden past and find hope for the unknown future.

     Along the way, Hannah finds that every life is beautiful, and that life itself can be so much more than what we might have planned.

     Based on the popular move of the same name, October Baby brings to life powerful themes of hope, love, forgiveness and redemption.

     This is one of my "to be read when I’m sick or sad” books. It’s an easy read, I love the formatting and the way the pages are laid out. (That’s one of my bookish pet peeves: When the type is too large or too small and the words are stacked like sardines, with no paragraph spacing or breaks in the lines. And especially when there is no break between “times,” I.e. the preceding sentence says something about Mr. Whoever, and then the next sentence says three years later they did something… but there is not break between the sentences. THAT’S JUST WRONG! there, I'm done ranting now.)

     The story of Hannah Lawson is filled with controversy. Abortion is a touchy subject, and painful to everyone, whether they've had one themselves, or know somebody who did. But I felt that the creators of the movie, and the authors of this book, did a really tasteful job with approaching the subject. (The subject of abortion brings to mind Dr. Seuss' line, from Horton Hears a Who, “A Person is a person, no matter how small.” That message is pounded in throughout the movie, one of the major reasons we like it.)

     Hannah is sweet, caring and super conservative. Her passion is acting and she’s good. But she collapses on the night of the opening of her play, and subsequently finds out that she was adopted 19 years earlier, after her birth mother tried to abort her. She is understandably extremely confused and angry, and leaves in an attempt to sort everything out, on a quest to find her real mother.

     I love Hannah, not only does she share my bestie’s first name, ( :) !!!!) but because she is dreamer, an idealist, she isn’t perfect and she messes up, (she is human, but to be human is to beautifully flawed, as Sergeant Dodd’s wife said.) but she picks herself back up and moves on. 

     Through the book we watch Hannah go from a confused, bewildered angry girl to a beautiful, confident woman, capable and stronger from the confusion and sorrow she has experienced.

I highly recommend October Baby to those in search of a sweet, easy read about a journey from confusion to confidence, of searching for something and finding the answer was forgiveness and Jesus all along.