Bed Rest

Quinn Boothroyd, expat Brit married to American lawyer Tom and currently pregnant with their first child, discovers a major glitch in the pregnancy (besides the fact that her and Tom's high-stress life is going to be impossible once the baby arrives): low amniotic fluid. If the baby is to survive, Q has to stay lying down on her left side for the next thirteen weeks.

As a woman once diagnosed with placenta previa during her first pregnancy (I recall the doctor talking about blood "literally pouring off the table" if things went wrong) and also sentenced to bed rest, I empathized with Q's bed-rest trials: the very phrase, "bed rest" begins to seem Orwellian as your mental health goes south, your intense boredom creates massive stress, show more and your social life becomes non-existent. Bilston manages to make all this quite amusing, while guiding Q through resolution of her less-than-sisterly feelings for her sisters, her deteriorating relationship with Tom, and the legal case of the downstairs tenants which Q takes on to while away her hours. I was a bit surprised by how dark things got before the dawn, but I did enjoy it - the problem of Brianna and her married lover was actually awfully funny. How about a sequel, Sarah Bilston? This is the right kind of book for a sequel. show less

Oh, this was so marvellous to read. A novel about a career woman and her first pregnancy, it's quite hilarious once the protagonist has to step away from normal worklife and stay, mostly, on a couch due to medical complications.

There's a maternal neighbor, a mother who flies in from jolly old England, and then there's the husband, who is driven as crazy as the pregnant one. I was laughing throughout most of the book, and that's a very good sign.

Book Season = Year Round

I wish I could give this book no stars at all. I had a pretty good sense that I would not finish the book, right from the start, but I try to go at least 50 pages in before I set a novel aside. I don't think I made it past 30 (sorry, I'm reading on a Kindle and don't know what page I was on when I finally hit the wall). The author has a sophomoric, smug voice, terribly unlikeable and mean. What finally did it for me was when Q (the protagonist) describes a scene taking place in the building across the way from hers (basically, she's peeping into other people's apartments). She describes her neighbors as elderly and frail and tells us how she watched an elderly man try and change a lightbulb. He teetered on his step-stool, lost hold of show more the lightbulb which smashed to the ground and had to start all over. Q's assessment of the situation was that it was highly entertaining? Seriously? Watching an old person come near to doing himself harm is entertaining? Both Ms Bilston and her editor need to do a self-check. show less

A young English lawyer, married to an American and living in New York, goes for a routine scan, finds her amniotic fluid dangerously low and is confined to bed for the duration of her pregnancy. But life doesn't end there: whilst lying on her sofa she finds herself the confidante for a colleague embroiled in an affair with a married man, forced to reassess her relationships with her mother and sisters and even with her late father, and acting as legal adviser for a group of elderly tenants faced with forced eviction from their rent-controlled housing – a battle in which her husband, also a lawyer, finds himself on the other side. An easy read, with some surprising hints of depth

Bed Rest by Sarah Bilston is the story of Q, an expectant mother who is put on bed rest after it is discovered the baby doesn't have enough fluid. The book is written from the point of view of Q writing in her diary about all her visitors (or lack there of), marital stress caused by her husband working too much, family and friend drama, and her worry about her baby. Despite the rather serious subject matter, Q is an endearing narrator and her story is funny, light and interesting. I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick read and I identified well with Q. I am looking forward to reading the sequel, Sleepless Nights. This was a very good book and I recommend it to anyone who has ever been pregnant. 5 stars.

I read this while I was pregnant at 24 weeks. The story is heart-warming and funny, I really enjoyed it a lot. It also reminded me of how difficult pregnancy is and how things can go wrong, which made me more cautious and more aware of my own body and baby. Pregnant women aren't really the monsters they're portrayed to be! :D

Quinn is a young lawyer, born in Britain but now married to an ambitious American attorney and living in New York City. They are expecting a child, but their lives are turned upside down when Quinn is told that she must stay on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy to delay a possible pre-term delivery as long as possible. During her bed rest, Quinn occupies herself by making to-do lists, seeing family and friends, and getting ready for the birth of her child.

Quote: “Crack open Sylvia Plath’s “Ariel” when life seems hard to bear. It’s always good to discover that someone else has been closer to the screaming edge than you are.”

This is one of those books that is written as if it is the diary of the main character- show more although I did not find it to be as big on flow-of-consciousness as some works with a similar premise, such as “Bridget Jones’ Diary.” The problem with this work is that, although it is entertaining, I found Quinn and those around her much less endearing than would be necessary to make this book really work. There was a nearly complete lack of sympathetic or appealing characters portrayed (which may be because it was written from Quinn’s perspective and the bed rest has made her touchy), but everyone in her life is completely annoying, which made it really difficult to care whether all the individual story lines worked out okay. show less