30 Day Book Challenge: Day Four

A Book That Makes You Cry
Ha! I cry at everything, I really am lame. I can’t even blame post-pregnancy hormones because I have always been pathetic and got far too attached to characters etc. The list of books that make me cry is almost as long as the list of books I’ve read!

One that stands out though is Dear Nobody by Berlie Doherty – just thinking about bits of this book is enough to make me start filling up. It is beautiful, heart-breaking, down to earth and just so so real – you feel every single emotion with the characters and share each and every up and down with them. It batters you but in a good way. I always finish reading it exhausted but exhilerated.

I love it!

Summary (taken from the NYU Literature, Arts & Medicine Database):

Helen and Chris are seventeen, living in Sheffield, England, and preparing for their exams in English and music. Both look forward to university and to careers they love. They also love each other. When Helen finds she’s pregnant, she keeps it a secret for awhile.

She and Chris visit with Chris’s tough but sympathetic aunt, who had an abortion years ago. When Helen’s mother finds out, she urges Helen to have an abortion, makes an appointment, signs her in at the hospital, but Helen leaves. Her mother forbids Chris to see her unless he plans to marry her.

Helen begins a series of letters to her unborn baby, chronicling the lonely and also strangely exciting months of pregnancy, decision-making, altered relationship with family and with Chris.  Helen addresses her letters to “Dear Nobody,” since so many around her who urge abortion want to convince her that what’s in her body isn’t a person.