Irene Vilar was just a pliant young college undergraduate in thrall to her professor when they embarked on a relationship that led to marriage&mdas...
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Feb 20, 2010
Glenda
rated it: 
Impossible Motherhood
By Irene Vilar
Other Press
ISBN: 9781590513200
222 Pages
Somewhere shortly after I began to read Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict by Irene Vilar, I turned to the back to see if there was an author picture. Such a beautiful woman, but with large sad eyes, even in this photo. As I read about her marriage, I wanted to alternatively "shake" her for allowing her husband to treat her so, and then " More...
By Irene Vilar
Other Press
ISBN: 9781590513200
222 Pages
Somewhere shortly after I began to read Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict by Irene Vilar, I turned to the back to see if there was an author picture. Such a beautiful woman, but with large sad eyes, even in this photo. As I read about her marriage, I wanted to alternatively "shake" her for allowing her husband to treat her so, and then " More...
Jan 22, 2010
Anina
rated it:
The title is kind of sensational. The book is a memoir of her early marriage to a much older and controlling man, with whom she did have most of her 15 abortions. But it's really about being so anxiety-ridden that she liked being controlled. And a relationship that relied on drama, the abortions were part of that.
It makes me think of the quote "happy marriages are all the same, but unhappy ones are each different". This was definitely a story only one person is ever going t More...
It makes me think of the quote "happy marriages are all the same, but unhappy ones are each different". This was definitely a story only one person is ever going t More...
Oct 15, 2009
Angela
rated it: 
I'm not sure what to say about this book.
I got it because I was curious, and I thought I would learn some kind of important truth about human nature by reading it. I thought there had to be something dark and mysterious that would make someone live like that.
I should have known better.
The thing that strikes me most about the story is how banal it is. It's utterly believable. You can see it happening.
Was she using abortion as a form of birth control? That's the crit More...
I got it because I was curious, and I thought I would learn some kind of important truth about human nature by reading it. I thought there had to be something dark and mysterious that would make someone live like that.
I should have known better.
The thing that strikes me most about the story is how banal it is. It's utterly believable. You can see it happening.
Was she using abortion as a form of birth control? That's the crit More...
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Jun 08, 2010
Geeta
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I found this book incredibly tedious, though for some reason, I kept plowing through. I've realized I simply don't like memoirs that avoid retrospection until the very end. At a very young age, Vilar becomes involved with a much older man--a professor--and the course of her relationship with him has twelve or thirteen abortions. I lost count because time is not very clear in this book. The transitions between events are murky; there are very few actual scenes and a lot of exposition but very l
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Mar 04, 2010
Caitlin
rated it: 
It's interesting that so much of the discussion surrounding this book focused on her abortions, when really, the abortions were almost incidental to the story. This could have been a book about an eating disorder or alcoholism or cutting, because the point wasn't so much that Vilar had all these abortions as much as it was that she was an addict, just like nearly everyone else in her family (including an older brother who ODed on heroin).
Her issues were no doubt helped along by her More...
Her issues were no doubt helped along by her More...
Dec 26, 2009
Andrea
rated it: 
The beautiful writing wasn't enough for me. I wanted more: more honesty, more detail, and most of all, more analysis of the distinct abortions, the battles lost and less often won against depression, the surges in confidence and plunges into self-doubt. Vilar gives us lyric writing that seems pregnant (pardon the pun) with more insight than it delivers. She gives, at the end, a summary explanatory essay that made me feel like the preceding 200 pages were merely an accounting of 35 years of memor
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Aug 31, 2009
Diane
rated it:
This is a powerful, painful book about an abortion addict, not something I agree with by any means (especially knowing how many women have suffered from infertility & being almost 17 weeks pregnant myself; I am pro-choice for others, pro-life for myself, but 15 abortions in 15 years is excessive). Irene had a tough upbringing, losing her mother to suicide when Irene was only 8, having 2 drug addicted brothers, growing up with an emotionally unavailable father, several suicide attempts of her ow
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Nov 17, 2009
Veronica
rated it:
The book is traumatic with a capital, bold T. At one part about 1/3 of the way thru, I threw the book down in disgust and decided I was done. You are warned.
Impossible Motherhood by Irene Vilar has received a lot of press and been a topic of debate on many a listserv due to the subtitle "Testimony of an Abortion Addict." When I first found out about this book my first thought was "Oh shit." Many people, including Vilar, believe that this book will be used by anti- More...
Impossible Motherhood by Irene Vilar has received a lot of press and been a topic of debate on many a listserv due to the subtitle "Testimony of an Abortion Addict." When I first found out about this book my first thought was "Oh shit." Many people, including Vilar, believe that this book will be used by anti- More...
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Jan 20, 2011
Cheryl
rated it:
I read this on the heels of A Million Little Pieces, and I found it as opposite as a memoir can be (which, if you've read my review of A Million Little Pieces, you know is a good thing). It's deeply reflective and quietly poetic. It's slightly nonlinear, and I did find myself having to retrace my steps to get the who-what-when at times, but I appreciated Vilar's ability to approach her subject matter from different angles. Her story is brutal on its face--15 abortions in 15 years--and both more
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Jan 26, 2010
Cinnamon
rated it:
This was a hard book to read. I kept wanting to hug the author, take her away from her husband, help her see the value in herself. Not only is her story heart-wrenching, but her writing style is just beautiful which intensifies the emotional pain of seeing her suffer as an outsider. I was conflicted and wondered how much healing she had done, could have done, at the end of the book. But the last chapter set my heart at ease. I still feel for the little girl who was taken advantage of by her teac
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Jan 22, 2010
Julene
rated it:
Vilar possesses a brilliant intellect and a breathtaking and original grasp of her own psychology. As painful and exasperating as it was to read her testimony as the abortions piled up, it was also thrilling to be taken to such penetrating depths into another woman’s motivations, and to see reflected there some of the impulses that drove me and other women I knew when I was younger. The most amazing feat of all: she articulates her situation so well that we not only understand and forgive, but a
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May 27, 2011
I cannot rate this book. It is an incredibly sad portrait of a young woman trapped in personal and historical circumstances almost too great to survive. Having read Vilar's earlier memoir, A Message of God from the Atomic Age, it was astonishing to see Impossible Motherhood, another memoir, written from a different lens altogether. Both books are stories of depression, suicide, death, abortion and the long journey toward finding a reason to live. Impossible Motherhood is a courageous and con
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Nov 01, 2011
Sarah
rated it:
While Vilar boldly confesses from the cover of her latest book that she was an abortion addict, nothing comes easily in this emotionally challenging, but very rewarding follow-up to her 1999 memoir The Ladies Gallery. This time she explains that an important part of her story was left out and she's now trying to remedy that.
Most of the book follows her decade-long relationship with her much older professor, the relationship during which she had 12 of her 15 abortions. And while much is More...
Most of the book follows her decade-long relationship with her much older professor, the relationship during which she had 12 of her 15 abortions. And while much is More...
Jun 16, 2010
Angela
rated it:
I'm not sure why the author titled the book this way and I'm not sure why she spent so much time focusing on her abortions (perhaps just because they are so attention-drawing?), but this book is not about her many abortions (15 total, if I remember correctly) but about the abusive relationship that she was in at the time that many of them took place and the way this relationship hurt her self-esteem and made her feel as if she had to conform to her husband's beliefs about important decisions, li
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Jan 25, 2010
Laura
rated it:
I am not pro abortion, NOR pro choice NOR on the fence. For me abortion is horrendous but for others i think its thier own choice. When i first began reading this book i found the author so relaxed with the fact she had had 15 abortions disgusting! But as i read on i was still horrified but also coming to see her reasoning behind these abortions....
Im still not sure if i dislike to author or not for her choices in life; but her style of writing is certainly easy to read and does capt More...
Im still not sure if i dislike to author or not for her choices in life; but her style of writing is certainly easy to read and does capt More...
Aug 25, 2010
Teri
rated it:
This is one I need to read again. At the end I realized I needed to be paying more attention to the conversation the author was having with me. I'm still not sure how I feel about the author. I teetered between sympathy and anger. It was a good and somewhat disturbing story. Its really not about the abortion debate, but you may be outraged at her choices. It's more about how she gave her very young self up to someone elses idea of the perfect life. We've all done that, just not to this extreme.
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Apr 21, 2010
Ariah
rated it:
This is an intense book. It's a memoir, it's not a political manifesto or a propaganda tool for or against the issues of abortion. It's simply one women's story told in a way that centers around her relationships, pregnancies and abortions.
I don't think you come out of it feeling one way or the other about abortion, I certainly didn't. But you hear about the complexity of a woman's story.
It's an intense book, but if your into memoirs, it's worth a read.
I don't think you come out of it feeling one way or the other about abortion, I certainly didn't. But you hear about the complexity of a woman's story.
It's an intense book, but if your into memoirs, it's worth a read.
Sep 10, 2009
Jen
rated it:
Irene Vilar speaks bluntly about the sorrows of her life and her family in a way that made me ache and marvel at a family so full of suffering. She breaks free by finding her voice, which offers meaning and context to the maddening repetition of trauma. Despite the extreme circumstances of Vilar's story, Impossible Motherhood inspires me to claim life with greater vigor and responsibility.
Apr 11, 2010
Destiny
rated it:
My first criticism of this book is that the story is meandering and by the time she gets off a tangent to get to the point she was trying to make, I no longer cared. I was very frustrated with the author. I wanted to shake her out of her funk and show her she needed to make actual decisions in life and not just let life happen to her then have to pick up the pieces.
Dec 15, 2009
Noel
rated it:
Don't know what to say--long winded, jumped around a little. I just wanted to say, "Why do you keep getting pregnant?!?!?!?! Take your damn pill". If this book was carthartic for her, then I say Bravo. But, for me the book was just OK. I don't regret reading it, I just wanted to jump to the ending the whole time.
Mar 14, 2011
Sasha
rated it:
This book did not elicit the kind of emotional response that I normally look for from titles such as these. I felt a bit detached from the story the whole way through, perhaps mirroring the way Vilar seemed detached from her life and her choices--at least in the telling.
Mar 22, 2011
Geraldine
rated it:
I have to respect Vilar for writing this book, but I found her voice incredibly staged and almost manipulative, as if she was enjoying the drama a little too much. The subtitle ("Abortion Addict" was clearly dreamed up by an overeager editor hoping to get her author invited on lots of cable shows), the introduction by Robin Morgan, and the neat little conclusion whereby everything works about because the author brings pregnancies to term and become a mother--it was all a little too mu
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Jul 25, 2011
Arielle
rated it:
This was a beautifully written account however stuffed with psychological analyses and packed with (arrogant) intellectual and philosophical quotations. While I tried to understand her justifications I'm still not sure of I was completely convinced by the end. Her epilogue using journal entries to describe motherhood is an unlikely account of contemporary motherhood (not the amount of love but the complete availability). I really couldn't understand any level of attractiveness in her husband (of
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Apr 13, 2010
Lori
rated it:
DEfinitely not a promoter of abortion, especially considering my career!! But this book shows another side of why one woman did choose abortion as many times as she did. The more I can learn about women, the better a miwife I'll be!
Jul 24, 2009
evelyn
rated it:
not sure how to talk about it. the writing is lovely and the topic is fascinating. you need to read through the end to pass any judgment on what you might take away from the book, as she wraps up a lot of issues in the last 40 pages.
Dec 27, 2010
does not mean to advocate on either side of the abortion debate; ranging far beyond the politics of abortion, her book is a controversial and intense tale of generational and national trauma
Dec 11, 2010
Jason
rated it:
Vilar takes a bold chance here writing about a topic that is profoundly difficult to comprehend and certain to alienate her from every one with a political agenda. Being honest has a way of doing that. Politicians and political movements don't want honesty. They want power and control. What Vilar offers in this book is her honest attempt to talk about a part of her life filled with pain and suffering. There is no political reading of this book. A political reading will miss the book. This
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Oct 30, 2011
Marianne
rated it:
A very distressing subject-a woman who underwent 15 abortions, it was quite extraordinary. I consider myself pro-choice but not pro-abortion if that makes sense. There was just something in this story that gave me a lot of insights into my own life. If you can overcome the overarching theme of the book, there are a lot of wonderful, sad and also hopeful moments in this book.
Mar 28, 2010
Cate
rated it:
Vilar was addicted to pregnancy. She was also addicted to her controlling lover who would not be tied down by family. Vilar eventually finds her niche and her voice.
