I’m in the process of reading five different pregnancy books right now. With the exception of The Hip Mama Survival Guide, they’re all pretty informative. I’ll talk about the Survival Guide later. The other four books: Your Pregnancy Week by Week, The Joy of Pregnancy, What to Expect When You’re Expecting (of course), and The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth. The first three are strictly about pregnancy. What to eat, what to wear, what can go wrong, how to talk to a doctor, and on and on. The fourth one I haven’t really dug into yet. I didn’t understand when I purchased it that it was about birth plans and that sort of thing. For those of you who are equally as lost as I was: the book is about various methods of delivery (ie. in a hospital, in your home, in a bathtub, etc.) and all the details those things involve. It also talks about the birth process, which is something I prefer not to think about for at least a couple more months. I honestly find it both disgusting and terrifying.

The three pregnancy-only books are the real reason I’m writing this post. All of them got great reviews. Your Pregnancy Week by Week and The Joy of Pregnancy are both written by people in the medical field. What to Expect When You’re Expecting is very obviously not. All three of them are written in a voice that allows even the non-reading book hater to learn about her pregnancy, which is very nice…for them. I’m trying very hard not to sound like a total jerk here. Some pregnant folks do read. Some of us even read a whole lot and have a fairly decent vocabulary to boot. I get easily annoyed with things like Cosmopolitan Magazine articles that seem to speak to me as though I don’t understand the very language in which I speak, write, and read. These pregnancy books tread a thin line there.

While it must be difficult to write about complicated medical issues in layman’s terms, it certainly is not difficult to not spend an entire page spitting trite remarks about a various subject all over the place. In What to Expect When You’re Expecting I read half a page, about eight paragraphs, essentially asking whether I feel tired and telling me that it’s because I’m pregnant. The first three lines are the same question, “Are you tired?” repeated three different, annoying ways. Each way is a vaguely referencing a different time of day, but really. We are not having a conversation here. I am reading a book. I want facts. Also, soon enough I’ll be able to enjoy reading very simple books with my child. That will likely be one of the most fulfilling experiences I ever have. In the meantime, I’d like the books I read to be a little less Golden Books and a little more grown up.

Rant time over.The Hip Mama Survival Guide is more about being a mom than being pregnant, which in itself is a nice change of pace from my current reading list. It was written in the 90s by a single mom who was tattooed and apparently hilarious. She moved to a judgmental suburban neighborhood and so her book begins. As someone who was in high school in the mid to late 90s I particularly enjoyed the clothing and band references in this book. It is dated and some of the writing ensures that it will remain dated, but overall it’s a great book for any non-traditional mom out there. Author Ariel Gore has a great blog. From my understanding, the book came from the Hip Mama ‘zine that Gore started with a friend. Hip Mama the parenting zine can be found online and in print. There’s also so pretty cool Hip Mama t-shirts available.

Overall, I think the pregnancy books meet all necessary expectations. They are full of good advice and great information that would have otherwise taken a load of time to cull from various websites and friends. That said, the tone is just killing me. I can’t wait to be done reading them and pass them on to another new momma never to have to read them again. =)