Scan barcode
balancinghistorybooks's review
4.0
Immersive and thought-provoking, The Growing Season is markedly different to Sedgwick's debut novel. It is just as accomplished and well written, however, and despite the elements of science fiction and futurism, it remains potently human.
sarabook's review against another edition
4.0
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
It's rare that I find a book as thought provoking as this. I found it opened a lot of questions regarding so many sociological questions, and had me really examine my opinions. On reading the blurb for this, I thought it was going to be a easy dystopian type read, but I couldn't have been more wrong or surprised, but I'm so glad I was.
The Growing Season is set in a sort-of-near future reality whereby the invention of 'the pouch' has made pregnancy obsolete. Men and women can finally share the load of childbearing and equally split their time between child rearing and working. The NHS has been privatised, abortion rates are low, and neonatal deaths are non existent. Within the novel itself we follow a series of women who are somehow intrinsically linked to FullBirth, the company behind the invention of the pouch, and their investigation into a series of coverups by the company following a tragedy.
These women include Eva, an activist who's mother taught her the pitfalls of the pouch, and her determination to expose FullBirths secrets to the world. I liked Eva a lot. I found that as the novel went on she turned from a full blown activist to something more akin to a figurehead, or spokesperson for the average person. She expressed so many opinions on equality and prejudice that I could relate to myself. I especially liked the comments she makes about discrimination in the work place, and how the pouch changes the problem instead of eradicating it in the first place.
Holly, another character, is shown as a matriarchal figure, the first woman to have a 'pouch birth' and at the start of the novel expecting her first great grandchild via a pouch birth. At first she seems to be a perfect example of the success of FullBirth and the pouches, but she comes to see that her decision may have been rash. She trusts blindly in these scientists, not knowing all the facts or possible side effects that could occur in her future generations. She also comes across as very shrewd. She makes a few observations near the end of the novel that resonated with me regarding the fact that men and women aren't identical. If the sexes aren't identical, surely the strive for equality in fertility and childbearing is pointless?
I really enjoyed the overall plot for this, although I'll admit at first it took me a little while to get into it as I was very confused by the lack of world building at the beginning. There is never really an explanation with regards to how the pouches work, and how women can 'move' naturally conceived pregnancies into the pouches and I would have appreciated it. However, as the story progressed, I became so involved I these woman's stories, that this lack of information started to feel less important. Especially as it brought together such a surprising number of social issues for discussion, including women in the workplace, fertility, equality, IVF, and the risk vs benefits of an artificial birth. It was such an interesting and enlightening novel, and wholly unique within its genre.
The story is interspersed throughout with logs from the mysterious 'Freida', the inventor of the pouch. I wasn't as keen on these sections as I felt they stalled the story too much, and at times I got very confused about what was currently happening and what was 'in the past'. I clearer definitive sectioning of the past and present would have made things a lot easier.
Overall, however, these was a truly unique book that provoked a great amount of internal reflection and brought to the fore a greater understanding of social issues and equality.
It's rare that I find a book as thought provoking as this. I found it opened a lot of questions regarding so many sociological questions, and had me really examine my opinions. On reading the blurb for this, I thought it was going to be a easy dystopian type read, but I couldn't have been more wrong or surprised, but I'm so glad I was.
The Growing Season is set in a sort-of-near future reality whereby the invention of 'the pouch' has made pregnancy obsolete. Men and women can finally share the load of childbearing and equally split their time between child rearing and working. The NHS has been privatised, abortion rates are low, and neonatal deaths are non existent. Within the novel itself we follow a series of women who are somehow intrinsically linked to FullBirth, the company behind the invention of the pouch, and their investigation into a series of coverups by the company following a tragedy.
These women include Eva, an activist who's mother taught her the pitfalls of the pouch, and her determination to expose FullBirths secrets to the world. I liked Eva a lot. I found that as the novel went on she turned from a full blown activist to something more akin to a figurehead, or spokesperson for the average person. She expressed so many opinions on equality and prejudice that I could relate to myself. I especially liked the comments she makes about discrimination in the work place, and how the pouch changes the problem instead of eradicating it in the first place.
Holly, another character, is shown as a matriarchal figure, the first woman to have a 'pouch birth' and at the start of the novel expecting her first great grandchild via a pouch birth. At first she seems to be a perfect example of the success of FullBirth and the pouches, but she comes to see that her decision may have been rash. She trusts blindly in these scientists, not knowing all the facts or possible side effects that could occur in her future generations. She also comes across as very shrewd. She makes a few observations near the end of the novel that resonated with me regarding the fact that men and women aren't identical. If the sexes aren't identical, surely the strive for equality in fertility and childbearing is pointless?
I really enjoyed the overall plot for this, although I'll admit at first it took me a little while to get into it as I was very confused by the lack of world building at the beginning. There is never really an explanation with regards to how the pouches work, and how women can 'move' naturally conceived pregnancies into the pouches and I would have appreciated it. However, as the story progressed, I became so involved I these woman's stories, that this lack of information started to feel less important. Especially as it brought together such a surprising number of social issues for discussion, including women in the workplace, fertility, equality, IVF, and the risk vs benefits of an artificial birth. It was such an interesting and enlightening novel, and wholly unique within its genre.
The story is interspersed throughout with logs from the mysterious 'Freida', the inventor of the pouch. I wasn't as keen on these sections as I felt they stalled the story too much, and at times I got very confused about what was currently happening and what was 'in the past'. I clearer definitive sectioning of the past and present would have made things a lot easier.
Overall, however, these was a truly unique book that provoked a great amount of internal reflection and brought to the fore a greater understanding of social issues and equality.
girlwithherheadinabook's review
4.0
For my full review: https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/2017/10/review-the-growing-season-helen-sedgwick.html
Imagine a world where anyone can conceive a child. Anyone. In The Growing Season, Helen Sedgwick's follow-up novel to her acclaimed The Comet Seekers, we are transported to alternative reality, one that closely resembles our own except for one crucial detail. At some point in around the 1970s, science was able to create an artificial womb known as 'the pouch'. Flashing forward fifty years, natural birth is outdated, the pouch accepted and ubiquitous and the initial pioneer Holly Bhattacharya, first woman to be mother to a child born via the pouch, is now 76 years old and awaiting the birth of her first great-grandchild. Across town, Eva shuts up shop on the campaign against the pouch which she has been waging all her life, the protest she inherited from her mother - she can see now that the pouch will never be stopped, that it is what people want. But is the pouch really as perfect as it appears?
As Alderman did so successfully in The Power, so also has Sedgwick launched a fascinating feminist thought experiment. With a background as a research physicist behind her, it is hardly surprising that Sedgwick brings some of this thinking to her work. Her envisaging of a world where artificial gestation is possible feels remarkably close particularly now that surrogacy and IVF are now so mainstream. With the pouch, gay and trans couples are now able to conceive children as easily as their heterosexual counterparts and women are easily able to put off motherhood into middle age.
The narration is swapped back and forth between various interested parties. As well as Eva and Holly, there is Holly's granddaughter, the excitable mother-to-be Rosie, then Karl who is one of Rosie's fathers-in-law and also Piotr, a journalist. Most enigmatic however is Frieda, the enigmatic scientist who first developed the pouches and worked with Holly on the early human trials. Not long after the pouch was proved successful, Frieda abruptly walked away from the project, having cut all ties with FullLife, the company who now possess the monopoly over the pouch patent. Living beside a lighthouse and far away from the rest of the world, Frieda speaks her thoughts into a tape recorder and looks forward to the weekly visits of the Asda delivery driver.
The Growing Season is a restrained novel, almost reticent in how it imagines a world without pregnancy, allowing the plot to speak for itself. In her youth, Frieda is said to have worked with Rosalind Franklin, the infamously uncelebrated pioneer of DNA whose work was purloined by Watson and Crick. Holly fumed through her childhood and adolescence as her parents gave opportunities to her brother and then denied them to her, certain that the biological requirement for women to carry children is the root of female subordination. With the pouch flipping this on its side, surely utopian equality can be achieved. Right? Right?
Much has been made of the line of literary descent between The Handmaid's Tale and The Power, with Margaret Atwood having acted as mentor to Naomi Alderman. However, for all of that, The Growing Season has in many ways a more direct relationship with the issues explored in Atwood's seminal novel. I found myself thinking more than I can ever remember doing in the past about society's attitudes towards pregnancy. This year has seen a great deal of debate around reproductive health and seen a number of senior politicians come out with some highly inflammatory views on the topic. It is incredible to me that people can look at women and see their ultimate purpose as no more than a vessel but this archaic view is still prevalent in society - if this role truly was removed, what would be the consequences?
Sedgwick sketches out a world where parenting is fairly distributed, how the fact that men have had a role in gestating their child makes them feel more involved from the beginning. Women no longer need time off after the birth to recuperate meaning that if they wish they can return to work straight away. Birth injuries are over, birth defects are eradicated - the pouch is safer, easier, more fair - it's just better.
Prospective mother Rosie is barely out of her teens - she tells journalist Piotr excitedly about the meaning of the designs on her pouch cover, her young husband Kaz plugs the audio adaptor into the pouch before bed so the fetus can hear his band play. They explain how little they anticipate the baby's birth interfering with their life plans - the pouch feels like an accessory. There is something uncomfortable here, as if the verses in the Bible about childbirth is Woman's punishment for the Fall really have seeped into our collective consciousness. Every mother I know has a birth story - it is called 'labour' for a reason, it is not easy. It feels wrong-footing to imagine a world where it is easy. I was reminded of the doctor in The House of Hidden Mothers who realises to her horror that a couple have decided to hire a surrogate not due to fertility issues but to avoid the stress of childbirth, just as one might put a ready meal in a microwave rather than cooking from scratch.
I have always felt uncertain about the idea of pregnancy myself but the idea of this role being taken away gave me a sense of possessiveness.. Holly's husband Will carried the pouch for his children and delighted over being able to feel the fetus moving, an experience that has never been available to men in the real world. Karl writes an impassioned letter of gratitude to Holly for going through the pouch trials, her work having been crucial in allowing members of the gay community such as himself to experience pregnancy. Holly remembers decades later how her mother quietly told her that she had loved carrying her own children. Rather than suffering under the curse of Eve, are women perhaps blessed in having the gift of a womb?
Like ripples on a pond, the consequences of the pouch spread further. The religious right were won over when FullLife began presenting the pouch as an alternative to abortion, with women who had unwanted pregnancies having the option to transplant them into a pouch. Of course, the pouch means that adoption rates have plummeted so low that these unwanted children have to grow up in care homes. Frieda remembers the moment she realises that in commandeering pregnancy, abusive males gained even more control over their wives and children. Someone else observes how the rise of female CEOs has left men feeling threatened and how now the once accepted conservative gender role of mother is gone, the battle lines between the sexes have become drawn out only more clearly.
Pregnancy has become more commercialised in recent years. There is a whole industry around what one ought or ought not to eat while in the family way, hosts of apparently well-meaning advice which studies have shown only make pregnant women feel worse. One can have a 3D scan, or a belly cast, or 3D print an effigy of your developing child, find out what its gender is, name it, all before you ever meet them. In a world that has stripped away so many of our messy physical realities, it is truly surprising that nobody has yet found a work-around so that the unpleasant business of labour. Rosie dismisses the idea of pregnancy, of actually feeling her baby beneath her ribs, as gross. This reminded me of a class I taught once who loudly objected to a topic on the human body because they regarded their physical processes as disgusting. Given all this, Sedgwick's FullLife corporation seemed worryingly plausible.
The contrast between the pouches which the wealthy Bhattacharya family could afford and the used ones which poorer families would be reduced to was a striking depiction of a real issue. Eva watches a couple using 'the oldest pouch she had ever seen', trying to play music to their unborn child even though it does not have the audio adaptor. Earlier in her life, she had travelled to Russia with Piotr and seen pouches left with the same nutrition bag for days at a time, abandoned fetuses left to starve. Frieda had specified that the pouch had to feel natural, that people had to feel able to hug it, snuggle it close, that it should feel warm - she wanted people to feel the same attachment. Still, it all recalls the Nestle powdered milk scandal, where people were told that bottle was better than breast for babies - a real life case of a corporation literally turning people against Mother Nature, with disastrous consequences.
A less astute writer than Sedgwick would have come down hard against FullLife and the pouch but instead, The Growing Season embraces the injustice of human biology. When something goes tragically, heartbreakingly wrong, Karl is furious that a father is blamed, that it is implied that they used the pouch incorrectly, but his husband points out that in the pre-pouch days, women were commonly held responsible. We all know that this still happens. Activist Avigail, Eva's mother, claims that women's primary purpose is to create life, with her argument feeling uncomfortably similar to US politician Justin Humphrey's statement that women exist only as 'hosts' once they are 'irresponsible' enough to have sex. The children who are born from the pouch - Daphne, Rosie, Kaz - are all cherished, loved, valued. The chief of FullLife takes off her suit, dons a woolly jumper and becomes human. We gain glimpses of a different world - a male receptionist absently stroking the bump of his pouch as he goes about his work, of family friends carrying the pouch for short periods so that they feel a part of the child's tribe.
The Growing Season leaves intriguing gaps for a reader - the idea of the care homes for unaborted children intrigued me and felt under-explored given the upsurge in the personhood movement. I found Frieda's characterisation frustrating in places and I would have liked to have understood more about Avigail. Still, what really struck me was how Sedgwick managed to explore one of the few truly universal human experiences from such an original and thought-provoking angle - the ramifications of how society would change if women's bodies were for themselves alone, how our own relationships with our parents would shift if there was more parity between them from the beginning. What do we become if we transcend biological function? As technology and science move ever forward, this feels like a question worthy of discussion.
Imagine a world where anyone can conceive a child. Anyone. In The Growing Season, Helen Sedgwick's follow-up novel to her acclaimed The Comet Seekers, we are transported to alternative reality, one that closely resembles our own except for one crucial detail. At some point in around the 1970s, science was able to create an artificial womb known as 'the pouch'. Flashing forward fifty years, natural birth is outdated, the pouch accepted and ubiquitous and the initial pioneer Holly Bhattacharya, first woman to be mother to a child born via the pouch, is now 76 years old and awaiting the birth of her first great-grandchild. Across town, Eva shuts up shop on the campaign against the pouch which she has been waging all her life, the protest she inherited from her mother - she can see now that the pouch will never be stopped, that it is what people want. But is the pouch really as perfect as it appears?
As Alderman did so successfully in The Power, so also has Sedgwick launched a fascinating feminist thought experiment. With a background as a research physicist behind her, it is hardly surprising that Sedgwick brings some of this thinking to her work. Her envisaging of a world where artificial gestation is possible feels remarkably close particularly now that surrogacy and IVF are now so mainstream. With the pouch, gay and trans couples are now able to conceive children as easily as their heterosexual counterparts and women are easily able to put off motherhood into middle age.
The narration is swapped back and forth between various interested parties. As well as Eva and Holly, there is Holly's granddaughter, the excitable mother-to-be Rosie, then Karl who is one of Rosie's fathers-in-law and also Piotr, a journalist. Most enigmatic however is Frieda, the enigmatic scientist who first developed the pouches and worked with Holly on the early human trials. Not long after the pouch was proved successful, Frieda abruptly walked away from the project, having cut all ties with FullLife, the company who now possess the monopoly over the pouch patent. Living beside a lighthouse and far away from the rest of the world, Frieda speaks her thoughts into a tape recorder and looks forward to the weekly visits of the Asda delivery driver.
The Growing Season is a restrained novel, almost reticent in how it imagines a world without pregnancy, allowing the plot to speak for itself. In her youth, Frieda is said to have worked with Rosalind Franklin, the infamously uncelebrated pioneer of DNA whose work was purloined by Watson and Crick. Holly fumed through her childhood and adolescence as her parents gave opportunities to her brother and then denied them to her, certain that the biological requirement for women to carry children is the root of female subordination. With the pouch flipping this on its side, surely utopian equality can be achieved. Right? Right?
Much has been made of the line of literary descent between The Handmaid's Tale and The Power, with Margaret Atwood having acted as mentor to Naomi Alderman. However, for all of that, The Growing Season has in many ways a more direct relationship with the issues explored in Atwood's seminal novel. I found myself thinking more than I can ever remember doing in the past about society's attitudes towards pregnancy. This year has seen a great deal of debate around reproductive health and seen a number of senior politicians come out with some highly inflammatory views on the topic. It is incredible to me that people can look at women and see their ultimate purpose as no more than a vessel but this archaic view is still prevalent in society - if this role truly was removed, what would be the consequences?
Sedgwick sketches out a world where parenting is fairly distributed, how the fact that men have had a role in gestating their child makes them feel more involved from the beginning. Women no longer need time off after the birth to recuperate meaning that if they wish they can return to work straight away. Birth injuries are over, birth defects are eradicated - the pouch is safer, easier, more fair - it's just better.
Prospective mother Rosie is barely out of her teens - she tells journalist Piotr excitedly about the meaning of the designs on her pouch cover, her young husband Kaz plugs the audio adaptor into the pouch before bed so the fetus can hear his band play. They explain how little they anticipate the baby's birth interfering with their life plans - the pouch feels like an accessory. There is something uncomfortable here, as if the verses in the Bible about childbirth is Woman's punishment for the Fall really have seeped into our collective consciousness. Every mother I know has a birth story - it is called 'labour' for a reason, it is not easy. It feels wrong-footing to imagine a world where it is easy. I was reminded of the doctor in The House of Hidden Mothers who realises to her horror that a couple have decided to hire a surrogate not due to fertility issues but to avoid the stress of childbirth, just as one might put a ready meal in a microwave rather than cooking from scratch.
I have always felt uncertain about the idea of pregnancy myself but the idea of this role being taken away gave me a sense of possessiveness.. Holly's husband Will carried the pouch for his children and delighted over being able to feel the fetus moving, an experience that has never been available to men in the real world. Karl writes an impassioned letter of gratitude to Holly for going through the pouch trials, her work having been crucial in allowing members of the gay community such as himself to experience pregnancy. Holly remembers decades later how her mother quietly told her that she had loved carrying her own children. Rather than suffering under the curse of Eve, are women perhaps blessed in having the gift of a womb?
Like ripples on a pond, the consequences of the pouch spread further. The religious right were won over when FullLife began presenting the pouch as an alternative to abortion, with women who had unwanted pregnancies having the option to transplant them into a pouch. Of course, the pouch means that adoption rates have plummeted so low that these unwanted children have to grow up in care homes. Frieda remembers the moment she realises that in commandeering pregnancy, abusive males gained even more control over their wives and children. Someone else observes how the rise of female CEOs has left men feeling threatened and how now the once accepted conservative gender role of mother is gone, the battle lines between the sexes have become drawn out only more clearly.
Pregnancy has become more commercialised in recent years. There is a whole industry around what one ought or ought not to eat while in the family way, hosts of apparently well-meaning advice which studies have shown only make pregnant women feel worse. One can have a 3D scan, or a belly cast, or 3D print an effigy of your developing child, find out what its gender is, name it, all before you ever meet them. In a world that has stripped away so many of our messy physical realities, it is truly surprising that nobody has yet found a work-around so that the unpleasant business of labour. Rosie dismisses the idea of pregnancy, of actually feeling her baby beneath her ribs, as gross. This reminded me of a class I taught once who loudly objected to a topic on the human body because they regarded their physical processes as disgusting. Given all this, Sedgwick's FullLife corporation seemed worryingly plausible.
The contrast between the pouches which the wealthy Bhattacharya family could afford and the used ones which poorer families would be reduced to was a striking depiction of a real issue. Eva watches a couple using 'the oldest pouch she had ever seen', trying to play music to their unborn child even though it does not have the audio adaptor. Earlier in her life, she had travelled to Russia with Piotr and seen pouches left with the same nutrition bag for days at a time, abandoned fetuses left to starve. Frieda had specified that the pouch had to feel natural, that people had to feel able to hug it, snuggle it close, that it should feel warm - she wanted people to feel the same attachment. Still, it all recalls the Nestle powdered milk scandal, where people were told that bottle was better than breast for babies - a real life case of a corporation literally turning people against Mother Nature, with disastrous consequences.
A less astute writer than Sedgwick would have come down hard against FullLife and the pouch but instead, The Growing Season embraces the injustice of human biology. When something goes tragically, heartbreakingly wrong, Karl is furious that a father is blamed, that it is implied that they used the pouch incorrectly, but his husband points out that in the pre-pouch days, women were commonly held responsible. We all know that this still happens. Activist Avigail, Eva's mother, claims that women's primary purpose is to create life, with her argument feeling uncomfortably similar to US politician Justin Humphrey's statement that women exist only as 'hosts' once they are 'irresponsible' enough to have sex. The children who are born from the pouch - Daphne, Rosie, Kaz - are all cherished, loved, valued. The chief of FullLife takes off her suit, dons a woolly jumper and becomes human. We gain glimpses of a different world - a male receptionist absently stroking the bump of his pouch as he goes about his work, of family friends carrying the pouch for short periods so that they feel a part of the child's tribe.
The Growing Season leaves intriguing gaps for a reader - the idea of the care homes for unaborted children intrigued me and felt under-explored given the upsurge in the personhood movement. I found Frieda's characterisation frustrating in places and I would have liked to have understood more about Avigail. Still, what really struck me was how Sedgwick managed to explore one of the few truly universal human experiences from such an original and thought-provoking angle - the ramifications of how society would change if women's bodies were for themselves alone, how our own relationships with our parents would shift if there was more parity between them from the beginning. What do we become if we transcend biological function? As technology and science move ever forward, this feels like a question worthy of discussion.
helensbookshelf's review
4.0
Warm, thoughtful and kind. It presents some big issues but brings a human side to give them meaning.
The Growing Season is set in an alternate version of our world, differing from ours only in the invention of the biotech baby pouch two generations ago. The pouch is an artificial womb that allows babies to be incubated outside of the human body. FullLife own the patent for the pouch and have marketed it so successfully as an end to inequality and the dangers of childbirth that natural births are rare.
Eva is carrying on her mother's work of campaigning against the pouch. She believes that the technology has moved too fast, that as a society we did not stop to think about the issues, and now we are blind to any problems that the pouch brings along with it.
Holly had the very first pouch baby and is now a poster girl for FullLife. She is about to have her first grandchild, and she loves the pouch and the freedom and choices it brings for parents.
The book takes a very balanced view of the issues and presents both sides of the argument. It looks at the benefits of allowing both men and women to be involved in carrying the unborn child, how it allows people to be parents that otherwise wouldn't be able to, and how it protects women from the dangers of childbirth.
We are also shown the other side - how it could enable domestic abuse, how it affects society in negative ways, how we adopt technology so quickly that we don't think about the side effects, or what happens when it goes wrong. It also touches on the dangers of allowing one big company to have such a monopoly on our lives, and how it excludes those who live in poverty even further.
So it's tackling big issues and could very easily have been dry and preachy. But Sedgwick makes them accessible by giving them a human face and showing how they affect people personally. Through Eva and Holly, she tells a warm and moving story about people. Their lives and families take up a big part of the book. I never felt like she was pushing the discussion about the issues or forcing an opinion on me, the story always comes first.
I thought it would be hard to read, so much so that I almost picked up something else when I was too tired to concentrate, but I gave this a go and got drawn in straight away. The writing is beautiful, almost lyrical at times and I flew through it because I cared so much about the characters.
Highly recommend this one if you like sci-fi, women's issues, ethics in technology, or if you just like stories about people.
I received a free copy from the publisher in return for an honest review.
The Growing Season is set in an alternate version of our world, differing from ours only in the invention of the biotech baby pouch two generations ago. The pouch is an artificial womb that allows babies to be incubated outside of the human body. FullLife own the patent for the pouch and have marketed it so successfully as an end to inequality and the dangers of childbirth that natural births are rare.
Eva is carrying on her mother's work of campaigning against the pouch. She believes that the technology has moved too fast, that as a society we did not stop to think about the issues, and now we are blind to any problems that the pouch brings along with it.
Holly had the very first pouch baby and is now a poster girl for FullLife. She is about to have her first grandchild, and she loves the pouch and the freedom and choices it brings for parents.
The book takes a very balanced view of the issues and presents both sides of the argument. It looks at the benefits of allowing both men and women to be involved in carrying the unborn child, how it allows people to be parents that otherwise wouldn't be able to, and how it protects women from the dangers of childbirth.
We are also shown the other side - how it could enable domestic abuse, how it affects society in negative ways, how we adopt technology so quickly that we don't think about the side effects, or what happens when it goes wrong. It also touches on the dangers of allowing one big company to have such a monopoly on our lives, and how it excludes those who live in poverty even further.
So it's tackling big issues and could very easily have been dry and preachy. But Sedgwick makes them accessible by giving them a human face and showing how they affect people personally. Through Eva and Holly, she tells a warm and moving story about people. Their lives and families take up a big part of the book. I never felt like she was pushing the discussion about the issues or forcing an opinion on me, the story always comes first.
I thought it would be hard to read, so much so that I almost picked up something else when I was too tired to concentrate, but I gave this a go and got drawn in straight away. The writing is beautiful, almost lyrical at times and I flew through it because I cared so much about the characters.
Highly recommend this one if you like sci-fi, women's issues, ethics in technology, or if you just like stories about people.
I received a free copy from the publisher in return for an honest review.
avalinahsbooks's review
4.0
I don't think there's a book by Helen I could hate. Maybe if she wrote it backwards with her left foot, while riding on a gray mare, also backwards over muddy marshes..? Yet, still. I think I'd love it too.
There's just something about Helen's style and topics that always appeals to me. When one of my Goodreads friends told me this was up on NetGalley, I did a happy dance, clapped my hands and off I went right away to request it. Although I had doubts that maybe this topic matter is not for me – I have my own psychological reservations when it comes to babies and pregnancy, it turned out to be right up my alley. I can now self-centeredly continue feeling that Helen Sedgwick writes for me.
(if the images don’t load, try reading the post on my blog.)
Now that we've established that I'll read anything Helen writes, let me tell you more about the book – Helen invites us to a world that's roughly an alternate reality of ours. Everything is more or less the same, apart from one thing. Sometime between the 60s and the 70s, the pouch was invented. The pouch is an external womb, so to say – enabling absolutely everyone who wants it to have a baby – men included, infertile couples included, even gay couples included. The biggest difference from surrogate motherhood that this wonderful device brings is the fact that you can strap it on like a real belly and experience being 'a mother' while actually being a father or undesignated parent. Which makes the experience of motherhood accessible to everyone – equally. This is the biggest wonder, not to speak of the fact that women are suddenly men's equals and don't have to go through the ordeal of childbirth anymore. The world quite naturally moves towards the pouch replacing natural birth, as it's safer (practically no chance of a miscarriage, no health risks either.)
Is this new invention a blessing or a curse? Is it ridding women of their suffering, or is it taking away they only thing that was their privilege, making them redundant? I believe this question can be answered so many ways, I struggled with how I feel about it a lot while reading The Growing Season. I believe every feminist should read this book – it poses so many important questions that every feminist should think about.
In the end, you know there is something wrong when one company manages everyone's births, and won't even allow the option of natural birth, if you're not incredibly wealthy. But someone is bound to realize things are not quite alright when 50 years later the monopoly of the pouches starts offering natural birth plans again. And a former natural birth activist, a journalist and the first woman to have ever had an artificial birth baby are going to find out what it's about.
When I put it like that, it might sound like a mystery, or a thriller. But it's not – if you know Helen's writing, it's flowing and literary, it will weave strands of the story together slowly, but surely. Don't expect adventure or mind-blowing events. This is more of a "find yourself" kind of story. You might even feel lost at first, before she brings all the separate stories together, but for me, that's what makes the beauty of this book. If any of you have read more of her work, the themes of separation, helplessness are explored in this one as well. I also just love her writing and how it deals with emotional trauma, loss, grief. I can connect to what she writes so easily. And what's more – Helen's books are just so realistic – the problems don't end with the book. Life still goes on. We just have a glimpse, and leave the characters to solve their world shattering problems on their own.
Last, but not least – spoiler time. Please don't open the spoiler if you haven't read the book.I still don't really understand why 5 babies dying in the span of years is a tragedy? A lot and I mean A LOT more babies die through natural birth every year. How are 5 babies undermining everything that has to do with the technology..? That was the only logical lapse for me in this book, as I don't think it's any defense for natural birth – a lot more babies die naturally, mothers included. But at the very end, the book rounds this question nicely too, I suppose. What did you think?
I strongly recommend this book! It was a great reading experience. However, you should only pick it up if you are into tough, serious topics – it's not a light read. I thank Helen Sedgwick and Random House UK, Vintage Publishing for providing me with a copy in exchange for my honest review. If you're interested in the other book of Helen's that I reviewed, you can read the review here: The Comet Seekers.
Read Post On My Blog | My Bookstagram | Bookish Twitter
There's just something about Helen's style and topics that always appeals to me. When one of my Goodreads friends told me this was up on NetGalley, I did a happy dance, clapped my hands and off I went right away to request it. Although I had doubts that maybe this topic matter is not for me – I have my own psychological reservations when it comes to babies and pregnancy, it turned out to be right up my alley. I can now self-centeredly continue feeling that Helen Sedgwick writes for me.
(if the images don’t load, try reading the post on my blog.)
Now that we've established that I'll read anything Helen writes, let me tell you more about the book – Helen invites us to a world that's roughly an alternate reality of ours. Everything is more or less the same, apart from one thing. Sometime between the 60s and the 70s, the pouch was invented. The pouch is an external womb, so to say – enabling absolutely everyone who wants it to have a baby – men included, infertile couples included, even gay couples included. The biggest difference from surrogate motherhood that this wonderful device brings is the fact that you can strap it on like a real belly and experience being 'a mother' while actually being a father or undesignated parent. Which makes the experience of motherhood accessible to everyone – equally. This is the biggest wonder, not to speak of the fact that women are suddenly men's equals and don't have to go through the ordeal of childbirth anymore. The world quite naturally moves towards the pouch replacing natural birth, as it's safer (practically no chance of a miscarriage, no health risks either.)
Is this new invention a blessing or a curse? Is it ridding women of their suffering, or is it taking away they only thing that was their privilege, making them redundant? I believe this question can be answered so many ways, I struggled with how I feel about it a lot while reading The Growing Season. I believe every feminist should read this book – it poses so many important questions that every feminist should think about.
In the end, you know there is something wrong when one company manages everyone's births, and won't even allow the option of natural birth, if you're not incredibly wealthy. But someone is bound to realize things are not quite alright when 50 years later the monopoly of the pouches starts offering natural birth plans again. And a former natural birth activist, a journalist and the first woman to have ever had an artificial birth baby are going to find out what it's about.
When I put it like that, it might sound like a mystery, or a thriller. But it's not – if you know Helen's writing, it's flowing and literary, it will weave strands of the story together slowly, but surely. Don't expect adventure or mind-blowing events. This is more of a "find yourself" kind of story. You might even feel lost at first, before she brings all the separate stories together, but for me, that's what makes the beauty of this book. If any of you have read more of her work, the themes of separation, helplessness are explored in this one as well. I also just love her writing and how it deals with emotional trauma, loss, grief. I can connect to what she writes so easily. And what's more – Helen's books are just so realistic – the problems don't end with the book. Life still goes on. We just have a glimpse, and leave the characters to solve their world shattering problems on their own.
Last, but not least – spoiler time. Please don't open the spoiler if you haven't read the book.
I strongly recommend this book! It was a great reading experience. However, you should only pick it up if you are into tough, serious topics – it's not a light read. I thank Helen Sedgwick and Random House UK, Vintage Publishing for providing me with a copy in exchange for my honest review. If you're interested in the other book of Helen's that I reviewed, you can read the review here: The Comet Seekers.
Read Post On My Blog | My Bookstagram | Bookish Twitter
cathbarton's review
5.0
An interesting premise, that external pouches can be used for the gestation of babies, and that these can be carried by both men and women, and burden neither overnight. For in this near-future story the pouch business is just that - a private business, with all the questions about accountability that that raises. The story of The Growing Season is told from the perspectives of people in two inter-connected families, as well as, in part, from the point of view of a disillusioned scientist - shades of David Kelly here.
For me, Helen Sedgwick interweaves the personal, the political and the scientific aspects of her story with skill and nuance. As she did in The Comet Seekers, she draws on her own scientific background; the science is convincing and the level of detail well-judged.
This is a story which tackles serious ethical issues about childbirth without ever becoming sententious. Highly recommended.
For me, Helen Sedgwick interweaves the personal, the political and the scientific aspects of her story with skill and nuance. As she did in The Comet Seekers, she draws on her own scientific background; the science is convincing and the level of detail well-judged.
This is a story which tackles serious ethical issues about childbirth without ever becoming sententious. Highly recommended.
More...