Knocked Down: A High-Risk Memoir by Aileen Weintraub – 316 pages
Finished copy from Get Red PR and University of Nebraska Press for an honest review
Book Blurb:
Knocked Down: A High-Risk Memoir by Aileen Weintraub: Aileen Weintraub has been running away from commitment her entire life, hopping from one job and one relationship to the next. When her father suddenly dies, she flees her Jewish Brooklyn community for the wilds of the country, where she unexpectedly falls in love with a man who knows a lot about produce, tractors, and how to take a person down in one jiu-jitsu move. Within months of saying “I do” she’s pregnant, life is on track, and then wham! Her doctor slaps a high-risk label on her uterus and sends her to bed for five months. As her husband’s bucolic (and possibly haunted) farmhouse begins to collapse and her marriage starts to do the same, Weintraub finally confronts her grief for her father while fighting for the survival of her unborn baby. In her precarious situation, will she stay or will she once again run away from it all?
My Review: 4 stars
Knocked Down: A High-Risk Memoir by Aileen Weintraub is a relatable laugh out loud memoir that reads as if it’s your best friend telling her story. She’s got a deft eye for detail and is able to get down and dirty honest as she suffers from both pre and post-partum depression.
Her story of a big city Jewish girl meets small town boy from the country could probably be a plot within itself. It was her sudden pregnancy and high-level five-month bedrest that left her feeling alone, scared and sad so she did what she does best; she wrote. During this alone time, she conversed with her recently deceased dad, which gave her a sense of company and closure. She jotted notes down to stay in touch with herself and her sanity. Little did she know that many years later, they’d be put in her memoir.
This is a quick read and one that most women will enjoy immensely.
Quotes I liked:
There’s something more final than forever. It’s never. Never is infinite.”
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