What an impressive book! From the publisher's blurb, I was prepared for a miserable and/or sentimental read, but that wasn't the case at all. In various other books, you read an account from time to time of a birth, or there is a death scene, but in this book the birth and the death occupy a good proportion of the book. They are described compellingly; you feel that you are there, and it is like one of those hyperrealistic paintings that are sharper than a photograph.
The book also has other interesting elements. Two of the characters are deaf and the issue of cochlear implants (CIs) is explored. A few years ago, I helped supervise a PhD student who was working on software to measure the quality of communication of children with a CI, and in the course of the project there were some presentations by deaf people who saw CI as a threat to their language and culture, as well as by people with CI who were in favour of the technology. It is a difficult issue for people who are not part of that community to get their heads around, and good that this book aired the issue.
This book is powerfully emotional, without a drop of sentimentality. A compelling read!