After two early term miscarriages, happily married couple Laurie and Alan seek fertility advice and agree to try Intrauterine Insemination (IUI). They are delighted, if somewhat wary, when they discover Laurie is expecting but as the pregnancy progresses past the point of their earlier losses, they allow themselves to dream of their future as a family. Until a phone call from the fertility clinic changes everything.

Told from the third person perspectives of Laurie, the expectant mother, Alan, her husband, and college student Jack, also known as Donor #296, Expecting, by Ann Hamilton, explores an unique situation where Laurie learns that the father of her baby is not her husband but instead Donor #296, thanks to the actions of a disgruntled clinic employee.

I felt for each of the protagonists in this story. As Alan struggles to accept the shocking news, Laurie has already formed a connection with the child growing within her, and feels compelled to find out more about Donor #296, leading her to contact Jack, whom she discovers is a college student of Asian Indian heritage.

For the most part I believed in the motivations and thoughts of the characters caught in such a complicated situation and I liked the way in which the author considered the issues from multiple perspectives.

I understood Laurie's refusal to consider a termination and her curiosity about the donor. I too would want to meet him, though I would probably be far more reluctant to embrace him in the way Laurie does. In several ways I think it is admirable, especially as it means 'Buddy' will be able to have a relationship with his/her biological parent and family, but Laurie doesn't really consider the impact on her husband, even though she professes too.

I was surprised at how much I sympathised with Alan's feelings of jealousy, anxiety and anger and his concerns about his ability to love a child, especially one that won't look like him, that is not his. His reaction, to distract himself with the fantasy of a relationship with his ex girlfriend, may have been inappropriate, but is somewhat understandable.

Jack is a fairly typical college student confronted by a decidedly atypical situation. Laid back and easy going he is just as indecisive about deciding what role he will play in the baby's life as he is in choosing a major, or a girlfriend.

Hamilton's tone is deceptively lighthearted, finding humour amongst the angst of the situation. The story is well paced with the shifts between perspectives, and short chapters, making it a quick and easy read.

I enjoyed Expecting, I found it to be both an entertaining and surprisingly thought provoking novel with an interesting perspective on an unusual issue. Ann Lewis Hamilton is a debut author with promise.

After suffering two miscarriages Laurie and her husband Alan are delighted to be expecting but then quickly devastated to find out the fertility clinic made a boo boo and she's pregn a no with a donors sperm, not her husband's. Things get even more tricky when Laurie insists on meeting the donor.... an immature college kid.... and forms a friendship with him. This was a very sweet read.

This is an interesting story about a couple's struggle with infertility. The book begins with Laurie and her husband Alan each telling parts as they struggle through two miscarriages. Then, they go to a fertility doctor and after she is pregnant, they learn that an irate nurse tampered with things and the child is not Alan's. As Alan struggles to deal with his wife carrying another man's child and Laurie searches for the donor they grow apart. We also hear from Jack, aka the sperm donor, a college student with money problems who saw sperm donation as an easy way to get money. The story is interesting and explores the issues of miscarriage and infertility and the effects that can have on a couple and on their marriage. There were some issues in the book that just seemed "off" to me - like I cannot imagine anyone assembling a crib when they are only 8 weeks pregnant and I am not sure why artificial insemination was chosen as a treatment since Laurie was able to get pregnant the normal way - her problem was that she could not carry a pregnancy. The book has discussion questions at the end. I received this book free to review from Netgalley.

"Expecting" is the story of Laurie and Alan. All they want is to have a baby and it does not seem like it's going to come easy. After rounds of infertility treatment, the couple has a whole other issue when they realize that Laurie was impregnated by Jack, a sort of slacker, whose sperm gets mixed up with Alan's. This book explores what it means to be a family and how you deal with the unexpected.

The book took a little while to hit its pace. It unfolds as we see everything that Laurie and Alan have been through with their struggle to become parents through flashbacks. At first I did not really connect with Laurie or Alan, which made it really hard to get into the book. Once things started happening with Laurie getting pregnant by the donor, the book really started picking up speed.

I really liked how the book focused on different characters. You get to see Laurie's feelings about finally being pregnant (even if it is not by her husband). You see Alan's struggles to understand what it means that he's not the biological father of the baby. We even get to see Jack's feelings once he gets involved with Laurie and Alan. Watching the characters confront their feelings is definitely the most interesting part of the book. Overall, this book would be a good pick for those who like to think a little bit about all of the what-if's that there are in life!

The author has managed to find a way to throw three perfectly nice people into an impossible situation and that makes for a good story.

I was very excited to have the opportunity to read and review EXPECTING by Ann Lewis Hamilton, but overall I was disappointed with the novel. It started very well, but I soon got lost in all the baby making talk. I can very much appreciate what Laurie and Alan go through, it's just not my kinda thing, as it's not something I have experience with.

I expected a somewhat light-hearted, entertaining read, but it wasn't that at all. I found the third-person, present-tense narrative jarring and the characters spent more time dreaming up scenarios than having actual scenarios play out on the pages. I also wasn't a massive fan of the quick, jarring paragraphs. The scenes in the novel should have been better presented, instead of the quick-fire rapid way which didn't really allow me to get into the scenes, as just as one scene started, it was over and we were onto the next "bit".

EXPECTING just wasn't my kind of novel. I won't be reviewing it on my blog, but I wanted to provide a little bit of feedback.