Book Review - Handle With Care

Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a time for this book to come into my life; during the moments when I am questioning our choice to adopt our children and trying to decide if we will - if we even can - proceed. A year or two ago, this book would have resonated very differently with me.

A year or so ago, for example, I would have been of the harshly-judging-Charlotte crowd. Even the idea of questioning the gift of a child, for someone like me who had wished for and struggles for motherhood only to lose her baby... Well, it was unthinkable. Unconscionable.

Now, though, I found someone I completely understood in Charlotte. I understood being misled about a child by someone you trusted, and how deeply and ferociously that can burrow into you. It doesn't matter how smooth your ready smile is, how easily the words "I can handle it" roll off your tongue. There is a great and all consuming sea boiling beneath.

I understood how broken a family can become. How broken friendships can become. I understood how it can stretch and strain and nearly destroy your marriage. I understood how you can wind up devastatingly alone. Ashamed.

I felt like I was reading about me. And it broke my heart. But it was beautifully done.

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