Briefly- Rebecca Eckler

Last winter I read Knocked Up by Rebecca Eckler and was unimpressed. (Review here.) I thought she was incredibly focused on the weight she gained while pregnant. I had received the book through paperbackswap though, and because I was so sure I'd love it, I'd also requested her followup Wiped! Life with a Pint-size dictator. I didn't read Knocked Up until I had both.

I pulled Wiped! out of the TBR as a potentially quick and easy read for the July Book Blowout (SO not gonna meet my goal of 8!) It turns out that she's just as annoying as a mother as she was pregnant. She's just certain that having a baby won't change her life, she'll immediately go back to her fabulous lifestyle. AND, she's just as annoying about the weight. Here's a little sample from the preface:

I was not good at being pregnant. By the end of my third trimester, I had gained forty-seven pounds (almost half my body weight), walked like a penguin, had wrist fat, couldn't see my cheekbones, and was wearing red slippers in public and asking the Fiance, "Is my ass fat?" three times a day. (Okay, three times an hour.)

That pretty much sums up Knocked Up. No mention of morning sickness, of aches and pains, of depression, or worry about being a good mom, or anything. Just HOW FAT AM I?? A brief scan of Wiped indicates the same story, now with a baby! Burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice... I have too many books waiting to be read, and I can't see myself missing this one. Off to paperbackswap it goes.

NEXT!


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Knocked Up by Rebecca Eckler

Knocked Up: Confessions of a Hip Mother-to-be by Rebecca Eckler is a memoir of sorts. It was recommended to me by a fellow blogger and I thought that since I am pregnant again it would be perfect reading. Eckler is a journalist for the society pages when she finds out she is pregnant by her rich fiance, who lives in another town. This is completely unexpected and not necessarily good news. She professes to know NOTHING about pregnancy or her cycle, not even how often she should get her period. Her biggest concern is how fat she'll get and if the new intern will get her job because of how fat she gets. She doesn't really consider the baby at all except in terms of how it will inconvenience her.

Honestly, I wasn't impressed. (Sorry, Haley.) I thought she was awfully shallow. It seemed like she wanted to make a chick lit book out of her life, so she grossly exaggerated what she knew (or didn't know) or how she felt. I wouldn't have believed it in fiction, no way I can believe it in a memoir. The book was really fast to read, so I give it some credit for that. Overall, I'd say skip it.

Eckler did sue Universal Pictures over the movie Knocked Up, saying it was a rip-off of her book. I have not seen the movie, but the similarities seem to begin and end with the title, and an unexpected pregnancy.