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Sep 25, 2008

Leslie rated it:

I can't remember the last time I cried at a book (and I mean real tears, not just a sentimental tingle in the back of my nose -- maybe "The Diary of Anne Frank" in junior high? "Where the Red Fern Grows"?)

Why this one? Now? (My sister just called and said, "Jesus, is everything okay?" All I could burble was: "Pudding.")

Perhaps it's because I've crossed paths with Elizabeth and Edward, and can see them both so clearly in mind, smo More...

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Sep 26, 2008

Edan rated it:

I read the excerpt of this in Oprah Magazine and it moved me more than anything I've read in a long, long time.

***

Okay, so yesterday when I was sick with a weird, spacey cold, I lay in bed and read this book. It's beautiful, and incredibly sad, and what happened to Elizabeth and Edward is terrible. This book is so honest...

I'm having a hard time writing this review, perhaps because the events in the book, both the awful and wonderful ones, feel too big to su More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 22, 2008

Christy rated it:

A thin, beautiful, sad - but defiant - book about the loss of a baby. It begins with the flat warning: "Someone dies in this book. A baby." McCracken married her British husband in her late thirties and was thrilled to be living together in Bordeaux and pregnant with their first child (nicknamed Pudding.) Amidst the knocking on wood, the name games, and the well-wishes of friends and strangers, something goes very wrong and Pudding dies before birth. The book is written with a son fina More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2009

Nicole rated it:

Sitting here I'm finding it very difficult to review this book. The subject (the death and mourning of a stillborn baby) was obviously a tough one to get through, but I did find it very interesting. I found myself having such a connection with her experiences - not with exactly what she went through but even just in pregnancy and the expectations of having a baby alone. This book also gave me such insight on how a person in this situation (or others who have lost loved ones) feels and that ho More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 10, 2009

Beverly rated it:

I read this book on a recommendation of a friend who is familiar with the fact that I have gone through a similar experience in my own life. I, too, have delivered a stillborn son. What is ironic is that I had ordered this book off of Amazon, and it was delivered (and I started reading it) the day before the anniversary of my son's birth/death. I think the author did a wonderful job of putting her grief into words. I related to so many things that she said, felt, and did. My heart was breaking More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Apr 04, 2009

Arryn rated it:

This book was a heartbreaking memoir about loss and life. There are no surprises here--McCracken tells you right up front that "a child dies in this book: a baby. A baby is stillborn," and then adds that a healthy baby is born in this book, too. I was riveted by the story, told in bits and pieces, moving backward and forward fairly fluidly, leaving holes that weren't filled until the end. The writing is stark and honest, yet poetic in its simplicity. It reminded me in so many ways More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 25, 2009

Shelah rated it:

In An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, Elizabeth McCracken writes, sometimes in excruciating detail, about her experience giving birth to her first child, who was stillborn. It's both a hard book to read and a hard book to put down, and much more gripping than McCracken's fiction. It's not a book I'd give to a grieving mother who has just gone through the same experience, but maybe one I'd give to someone a few months later. She writes beautifully about the pregnancy, the birth, the More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 30, 2008

Katie rated it:

A hard book to comment on, but I will say that I read it in one night/morning, as I suspect most people do who pick it up. Also: I would like to take all my lessons in how to handle maternal grief and anxiety (when/if I experience it) from a three-headed oracle of Rachel Zucker, Joan Didion, and Elizabeth McCracken. The three of them should replace Hallmark permanently.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 20, 2009

Missmmking rated it:

Grim & painful retelling of a still birth experienced by a couple of contemp. authors (American and British) while living in France.
I started w/ out knowing anything about it as I liked the title. Finished it in a day. Odd that they named the unborn child Pudding and even craved that onto it's grave stone. I felt as though I was reading a "Writer's" diary. It only made me think of those sadder losses - parents' loss of their children that they have had a real, living relations

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 11, 2008

Esme Pie rated it:

Hard to take the story of a still born child and make it anything but a devestating read. But somehow Elizabeth McCracken is able to do this. I actually laughed out loud several times. This reminded me a lot of 'The Year of Magical Thinking.' McCracken is a cool customer too. I thought it was very interesting. It's a memoir of a child who never existed except as a hope and as a thought for the future. How do you mourn that AND continue to go forward into a future you no longer trust. Ver More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 17, 2011

Katherine rated it:

This is an amazing book about loss, and a funny one at that (I heard an interview w/McCracken rebroadcast on NPR, locate that as you read the book). Rush out and buy/borrow a copy as it will make you think about life, the universe and everything.

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 30, 2011

Jenn rated it:

Heartbreaking yet hopeful little memoir about a stillborn baby.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 20, 2008

Kyla rated it:

If you are one of those people who say "I'd read it but the subject matter is so DEPRESSING" well then move on, dear reader, I do not suffer your disease. Sometimes I worry that I find material on mourning and grief and loss so compelling. but this is the rawest of raw materials and it is usually authentic and that is what I appreciate.
This book has the added bonus of being beautifully, impeccably, stark.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 10, 2009

Elevate Difference rated it:

In a time when many readers are wary of memoirs, Elizabeth McCracken's effort is at once refreshing, harrowing, brave and emotionally exhausting. An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination addresses every parent-to-be's worst fear: losing a baby. This is one of the most honest and courageous books I've read in years. Without sentiment or hyperbole, McCracken describes the journey in one crystal clear sentence: "This is the happiest story in the world with the saddest ending."
More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 03, 2012

Nancy rated it:

This account of the author's experience of giving birth to a stillborn child is tragic; the pain of it takes your breath away. But the author's personality is not erased by the tragedy. Her powers of observation and her wry sense of humor enliven this tale that could otherwise be unbearable to read, as it must have been unbearable for her to experience.

To talk about humor in regards to a stillbirth sounds utterly wrong. Even to Ms. McCracken, a woman's suggestion that she write about More...

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Aug 09, 2011

Sueg rated it:

I haven't been a very voracious reader lately. I have tried to read about current events, I have tried to read dystopian YA novels, I have tried to read about Queen Elizabeth's ties to piracy, I have tried to read two different cooking-themed mysteries, but I keep putting everything down. Yesterday I picked this up at the library, brought it home and read it in a single past-my-bedtime sitting. I realized as soon as I cracked the cover that Elizabeth McCracken is the author of another book I rea More...

0 comments like

Jun 09, 2011

Jeruen rated it:

This is once again, a book that I read since one of my friends recommended it. And what can I say? It has been a lukewarm book for me.

So what is this about?

This is actually non-fiction. This is the memoir of the author, Elizabeth McCracken, and her experience in delivering a still-born baby. Yes, it is a memoir about a still-born baby. The book talks about her experience, her pregnancy in France, and the whole process of finding out that the baby inside her is dead, and so fo More...

0 comments like

Jun 29, 2010

Megan rated it:

I was surprised to see AN EXACT REPLICA... compared by a reviewer to THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING by Joan Didion: I can't think of two books which approach the same subject matter (the death of a loved one) more differently. Where Didion is most essentially writing about her own death--at least, the end of her family and context and relevance and time--McCracken is talking about trauma, a personal shame. Death is a whole different matter for old people than it is for young people.

Wh More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 29, 2009

Mitzi rated it:

McCracken re-lives her pregnancy and stillborn birth of her first child and the pregnancy and birth of her second. It is elegantly and beautifully written, even if the subject matter is heartbreaking at times. It is an amazingly self-aware memoir--she describes her feelings as best as she can remember, trying not to color her memories with hindsight; and then she tries to explain why she felt that way. I always find people who write memoirs brave, for while they document their struggles and l More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 07, 2011

Dragondreamer rated it:

My feelings about this book are quite complicate. While I have never gone through a stillbirth/late term loss, I have lost many pregnancies myself and have been through a stillbirth with a dear friend. McCracken is an extremely talented writer and it makes this book about a tough subject quite easy to read. She also explains the complexities of the feelings that surround a loss in a way that anyone can understand. She also manages to inject a fair amount of humor into a generally humorless subje More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 06, 2011

King rated it:

Last semester, I took a group dynamics class. You basically sit around in a circle and the professor asks you to share stuff about yourself. It was a fun class, some days less than others. We had two students there who had endured complications in pregnancy, resulting in the loss of possibilities. When they shared this with the class, I didn't really know how to feel. But that is not quite right. All of us have an idea of what to feel, as the empathy modules in our brains activate. To be more pr More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 25, 2011

Charles rated it:

I am not a curmudgeon. I have several living children. As a man, anatomical constraints have established that none has been carried in my womb or delivered through my loins. I have never lost a child; I hope that I never do.

That being stated, writing about a devastatingly sad subject in a lyrical, emotionally honest, heartfelt, warm, sad, funny manner may make a great subject, and may elicit sympathy and empathy (those not being bad things at all), but does not necessarily make a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 08, 2011

Amy rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 12, 2011

Deanna rated it:

When I first picked this book up in 2008, I put it down again within a few pages. I was upset.

I too had lost a baby, three, in fact, and when McCracken called my wish for pictures a "fetish" and seemed to suggest I was wrong or strange for wanting footprints and memory boxes and any sort of artifact, I just couldn't read on.

But here, three years later, a new friend suggested I try it again. I'm glad I did, as once I was past that hurt, I could see McCracken had More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2010

kaity rated it:

I just read this book in one sitting.

I'm feeling like I have just been through a horrific ordeal, completely out of sympathy. I hadn't read Elizabeth McCracken before but I developed real affection for her, through moments of dark humor and profound tenderness alike. I share much of her superstitiousness and caution, having always felt both mystified and a bit creeped out by people who name their future children in the fourth week of pregnancy and go public with the news so early More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 08, 2010

nicole rated it:

do not read this book on the path train, do not read this book in the break room, do not read this book anywhere you don't want someone to see you cry. i love mccracken's writing, have since the first time i read the giant's house. i swear it's not just because she's a once-librarian. while reading this heartbreaking memoir of her first child's stillborn birth, you want to call her, you want to say the right thing, you want to marvel aloud how she found the right words to always say what she nee More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 03, 2009

Mike rated it:

As some of my friends noted about this book, its one of those deals that passes by quickly but leaves leaves a definite mark. I agree: I polished this thing off in two long bus rides to NYC, and I'm still trying to figure out how it works. As far as memoirs go, there are TON of what memoir "experts" and critics would call no-no's: it's self-referential, ironic, begs for sympathy, loads of self-pity, several loose ends, etc.

But I think what EM has on her side in "Exact More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 14, 2011

Joie rated it:

I wish I could give half stars on Goodreads--I'd easily give four-and-a-half.

Elizabeth McCracken's An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination is both devastating and funny; it's quirky, poignant, and a whole host of other adjectives that you might or might not expect to accurately describe a memoir about the experience of having had a stillborn child. I read about it recently in a glowing review from NPR, downloaded it immediately, and pretty much wolfed it down in a matter of ho More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 01, 2010

Julie rated it:

This is a memoir about the stillbirth of the author's first child. So you might be put off by that! I actually read this at 31 weeks pregnant because I had heard so many good things about it. I felt like that was maybe a odd until I thought about reading About Alice and The Year of Magical Thinking despite knowing absolutely that I would be a complete wreck without my husband. I'm sure plenty of happily married people read those books anyway, and they are both deeply sad in their way. But i More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 26, 2010

Franziska rated it:

I have to say, I do find it very hard to rate a memoir. How can you put a rating on someone´s experience? So, I am not sure what I gave the stars for. I think on a literary note (like the writing style), I thought this was fairly well written, while at times I liked and hated her raw style at the same time. I did love this book though because so much of the feelings she expressed, are the very things I have just felt and thought. I think she probably does an excellent job at honestly portraying More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

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