[Synopsis]

With her fortieth birthday approaching, Lucy Carpenter dares to hope that she finally has it all: a wonderful new husband, Jonah, a successful career and the chance of a precious baby of her own. Life couldn’t be more perfect.
But the reality of becoming parents proves much harder than Lucy and Jonah imagined. Jonah’s love and support is unquestioning, but as Lucy struggles with work and her own failing dreams, the strain on their marriage increases. Suddenly it feels like Lucy is close to losing everything…
Heart-wrenching and poignant, this latest work by bestselling author Amanda Prowse asks the question: what does it mean to be a mother in today’s hectic world? And what if it’s asking too much to want it all?

[My Review]

The Idea of You is an emotional, touching story of a woman’s struggle, not to conceive but to keep her unborn child from miscarrying. In doing this she simultaneously has to deal with tricky family situations which really test her and an awful incident in the past that keeps coming back to haunt her.
The characters in this novel are easy to identify with and likeable, making you actually care about what happens to them. The protagonist, Lucy, seems really great and I warmed to her instantly; she’s not always perfect in the way she handles things but she seems real, like someone you’d know and probably like. I really felt for her as things just seemed to get harder and harder, and sometimes the situations that were thrown at her with her ‘new’ step-daughter Camille were so difficult – I won’t give away any key plotlines but it just felt like things got more and more difficult for her with Camille’s behaviour and insensitive  – although well-meaning – comments from family and work colleagues.
Her partner, Jonah, is also really likable, even though I didn’t always agree with how he acted, and at times he really messed up. However,  when reading The Idea of You I felt it was really important to remember that no one knows how they’d feel in this situation until it actually happens to them (and hopefully it never will).
The issues in this novel are dealt with really sensitively, and without any undue ‘drama’ to make it more impactful – it didn’t need that as it was so moving anyway. It felt like any of this could happen to someone you know – and indeed it probably is, sadly – but the story line didn’t feel hammed up or over-exaggerated; it just portrayed the heightened, upsetting emotions which show in some limited way how going through this feels – and, as we see at the end of the book, Amanda herself has experienced miscarriages too, which therefore must be so difficult to write about.
There are plenty of different examples of mothers in this novel, which I felt was great as it demonstrates that motherhood comes in many forms – and not always as actually giving birth yourself. I felt for Lucy strongly and to say I ‘enjoyed’ reading it is probably the wrong word, but it made for an absorbing and heart-wrenching story.
Full of raw emotion and honesty, The Idea Of You is a touching novel that really highlights an issue that isn’t always discussed as openly and in as much detail.

[Rating: 4/5]

Many thanks to Amanda Prowse for providing a copy of this novel on which I chose to write an honest and unbiased review.

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