Conception
by Kalisha Buckhanon
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 76)
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Read in May, 2008
recommends it for:
Anyone who wants to explore teenage pregnancy
Conception by Kalisha Buckhanon, the author's second novel, opens with a first person narrative of the spirit that wants to enter the soul of fifteen-year-old Shivana Montgomery’s unborn child. It’s intriguing. It’s a device that will keep you reading if only for the clarity that Buckhanon shelves out with captivating language. “When the months crept on and I grew older inside Shivana than with any others in the past,” says the Spirit who narrates stories of the bodies it has inhabited...more
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I would have given this book a better rating if it had a better ending. The writing was really good but the ending was horrible. Having the unborn baby tell parts of the story was a really original concept & I liked the baby's personality. I didnt like Shivana's personality though. She's a nasty person who has a lot of problems in her life. At the beginning she gets pregnant at 15 by a married 36-year-old drug dealer. I found myself getting angry about the people's problems in this book, bot...more
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Read in August, 2008
Sad. Beautiful. Sad. Reminds me of my 5 years in Chicago, though unlike Shivana, the protagonist, I was on the white side of town-- noting the oft denied but clearly present segregation of the city for the first time when I got on the El on the wrong side of the track due to my lack of internal compass, only realizing I had done so when the last white person on the train was myself and I was being peered at by those who knew exactly where they were headed, wondering why I was still there. Ms...more
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Read in May, 2008
The book offers a glimpse into the life of a character whose life may seem strange to most, whose perspective is both raw and young. Living in the city with her mother in a small apartment, she is struggling to understand life, love, and self-worth while living in a hostile environment.
I'm reminded of "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", as this is also a personal account of what it is like to grow up in an unforgiving city. The honesty and personality of the characters make this book very ...more
I'm reminded of "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", as this is also a personal account of what it is like to grow up in an unforgiving city. The honesty and personality of the characters make this book very ...more
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I liked it, but it took me a while to figure out that I liked it. It didn't immediately endear me like Buckhanon's first novel, "Upstate," did.
The main character in this one, Shivana, is really unlikeable. Once I got beyond that, though, I grudgingly invested in her struggles and her future... only to have something totally unexpected happen to her in the end. This twist is really the triumph of the story.
There's also the disembodied voice of an unborn child/fetus intercut bet...more
The main character in this one, Shivana, is really unlikeable. Once I got beyond that, though, I grudgingly invested in her struggles and her future... only to have something totally unexpected happen to her in the end. This twist is really the triumph of the story.
There's also the disembodied voice of an unborn child/fetus intercut bet...more
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I really wanted to like this book more but the ending was so horrible and abrupt...it kind of ruined it for me. I didn't like the baby's voice throughout the story - it was actually annoying. But there were a lot of parts where I enjoyed reading the book b/c the writing was so good. It was hard to relate to Shivana because seriously, she made so many poor choices. Granted, she is 15 years old and grew up in the semi-projects or whatever she calls it. At first i emphathized w/ her but then I was ...more
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Read in August, 2008
recommends it for:
people who love urban fiction, especially if they feel "guilty" about its literary quality
In 1992 Chicage, 15-year old Shivana gets pregnant by the married man upstairs. Then she meets 19-year old Rasul and it seems life might change for the better for both of them.
This is street lit meets literary fiction and both halves are successful. The chapters in which the unborn fetus talks about its previous conceptions might seem pretentious, but darned if it doesn't work to really build on African American history.
And the Ending! OMG the Ending!
I loved this book!
This is street lit meets literary fiction and both halves are successful. The chapters in which the unborn fetus talks about its previous conceptions might seem pretentious, but darned if it doesn't work to really build on African American history.
And the Ending! OMG the Ending!
I loved this book!
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3 comments
Read in February, 2008
Recently, everyone ahs been up in arms about pro-pregnancy books. This one is as well, albeit in an entirely different format where the soul of the baby gets to speak and recount the mothers he/she has passed through. In this iteration, she is inside Shivana, a fifteen year old black girl who lives in harsh circumstances on the South Side of Chicago. Shivana has a great voice, a very serious voice and her interactions with her mother make her a teenager. But overall she doesn't feel like a t...more
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Read in April, 2008
A precocious fetus narrates her reincarnated history from within the womb while on the other side of the uterus, her potential teenage mother debates whether or not to have an abortion in 1992 Chicago. Interesting premise, but ultimately didn't work for me. The two voices were on opposite ends of the narrative spectrum and therefore jarring instead of complementary. I would have preferred more of the teen mom's day-in-the-life story than the fetus's esoteric prose.
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Read in February, 2008
Not as beautiful or transcendent as Upstate, but the author's insight into emotions, hopes and dreams are still right on the mark. Shivana's voice was uneven-she'd slip into a world weary sage then pop back into south side teen, so that bugged me a bit. And I thought the baby's narrative was a cool idea at first, but then it became a bit of a distraction.
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1 comments
This is a very well written book that gives voice to a fetus who has yet to be born. The fetus has been conceived at least three times and it hopes that this final time will allow it to be born. The fetus' last hope is a young girl who wants to keep her child and is willing to run away to do so. Finally, the fetus has a chance but will the baby make it?
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Read in April, 2008
recommends it for:
Teenage young girls
Story of 15 year old Shivana who finds her self accidentally pregnant. She shares her stress, fears and hardship of her new experience while seeking a resolution to this adult issue. It was a pretty insightful story with an unexpected ending
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3 comments
Read in July, 2008
I enjoyed this book and its glimpse into a culture I live so close to and have so little knowledge of, but it loses major points for having one of the lamest endings I have ever read.
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Read in May, 2008
I had a hard time getting into this book, which is really disappointing because I really liked Upstate. Maybe in another time and place, I'll give it another try.
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Read in August, 2008
Took a little while for me to really get into it, but overall it wasn't too bad..but I wouldn't recommend it.
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Read in November, 2007
Fantastic. A must read for urban teens everywhere.
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