Our 2010 Favorites: Not My Daughter

To celebrate the close of this year and the beginning of the next, we’ve decided to take a look back at our reading family’s personal favorites of 2010. Enjoy!

A girl in high school making the decision to get pregnant can be shocking enough, so a novel about multiple girls deciding to get pregnant all at once immediately had my attention. What would possess a teenager to make that decision? How does that affect her future, and the future of her own family? How does a pregnancy “pact” affect the small Maine community in which they live? In Not My Daughter, Barbara Delinsky tackles each of these conflicts through characters that feel all too real to each of us: a mother frustrated and forced to cope with her daughter’s decision, a community and school board too shocked to know how to respond, and the teenage soon-to-be fathers struggling with plans for the future.

I finished reading Not My Daughter the night before a book swap with my book club. I brought it with me because I knew that it would not only appeal to the group, but it would also make for a great discussion in a future meeting. While reading, I found myself infuriated by the selfishness of some characters, and inspired by the compassion of others, and for each of my feelings someone in my book club disagreed and felt differently. The premise alone provides enough discussion to last an entire meeting, but it is the way in which Barbara Delinsky tells this story that will have you thinking about Not My Daughter long after you’ve finished it.

–Jocelyn M., Office of the Publisher

– Click here for a Reading Group Guide.
– Click here to read an excerpt.
– Click here to buy the book.

Was there a particular book that you or your reading group couldn’t stop discussing this year? Let us know in the comments!