Rating: 
Summary: Very compelling on several levels
Review: Although Ms. Beck is a very good though not great writer her cunning observations, apt insights, and a great story combine to make this a wonderful (though easy to read) book. While the Down Syndrome story is well-done, the paranormal experiences that Ms. Beck describes are equally compelling. And "sub-plots" about Harvard life, Utah life, etc. only add to the quality of this book. Only the most ardent of skeptics will be able to read this book and still be absolutely convinced that all there is to this life is a temporal, linear world. I would highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: LOVED IT!
Review: Thank you to Martha Beck for sharing this story of her pregnancy, her son and her experiences while pregnant with him. I took my time while reading this book and want to reread it immediately because there is so much in this book to ponder. Martha Beck is truly on to the Big Questions in life and I am grateful that this book crossed my path.
Rating:
Summary: Inspiring, The kind of book you can't put down
Review: I really don't know how anyone could perceive this book as anthing but inspiring. The only way to describe this book is to say that it is a wonderful book about a family expecting their second child. The incredible events that took place during Marthas pregnancy are too amazing to describe here. You should really buy the book and read it for yourself.
Rating: 
Summary: I expected more of Expecting Adam
Review: Currently 36 weeks into my first successful pregnancy, and facing the possibility that my baby may have down's syndrome, I read this book hoping for inspiration/advice. Instead, I found myself wondering how Beck could make a PB&J sandwich for all of the "beings" that surround her. She is an elitist whiner; she overdescribes the supernatural until you find yourself wishing a pupeteer would wallop her, and she does not have the sense to call the hospital when she is in danger of hemmorhaging. How smart/dumb can one woman be? I find it hard to believe that everyone at Harvard hated her, but if my baby does have Down's, I will undoubtably borrow her cousin Lydia's nosy stranger advice. Also, there is a whole lot of preaching about how Adam has changed her whole family, without a whole lot of specifics. This book IS perfect in places--and if you have read the perfect places, currently condensed in various parenting magazines, you've read all you need to know about Martha Beck.
Rating:
Summary: My new favorite book
Review: I've had a hard time convincing several friends that this book, about a woman who has a Down syndrome child, is not depressing. It is in fact the opposite of depressing. I've changed my tact and am now telling people that it's a book about an extremely funny woman who is changed by the incredible experiences she has while pregnant with her second child. It is an uplifting, thoughtful, hysterically funny, well-written, self aware, skeptical, moving, beautiful book. Sorry for the cliche, but I really could not put it down. I recommend it to everyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Very absorbing book that was hard to put down
Review: Overall, I found this book facinating. It captivated my interest and was hard to put down. As a mom currently trying to complete a PhD who is sometimes stressed out by life, I found that the situations she describes in her book helped put my own life in perspective and gave me plenty of laughs too. I wish I had some friends like Sibyl and Deirdre! I'm still a little amazed about some of the supernatural occurances in her life... I believe they can happen but I have a hard time accepting that they all happened to one family and that she just happened to be a writer to get them all in print. It was a quick read (finished in two days) and very absorbing. I'm definately going to pass this on one to some friends who I think will enjoy it too.
Rating: 
Summary: Too much Anne Lamott, not enough Martha
Review: I really wanted to like this book. I am also a former academic and got my PhD around the same time she and her husband got theirs. I also left academia because I wanted more time with my family, which includes a 9-year-old son with autism. There were simply too many credibility issues for me to truly enjoy this book. My experience has always been that even in the big bad ivory tower, people are more than willing to accomodate students with personal difficulties. As Beck tells it, in fact, many professors and a lot of their friends were bending over backward during her pregnancy to give them the support they needed. I wonder if the troublesome folks that she did encounter perhaps just didn't know how to react--after all, her own family didn't. In fact, the major charm of the story was that she and her husband barely knew how to react. Life doesn't give you a blueprint for dealing with these situations. But I have to agree with the reviewer who called Beck "whiny." The author certainly repeats the fact of her "three Harvard degrees" so many times that the reader can't help wondering what she's got to prove. She mentions going into therapy to deal with the legacy of her driven family, whose chief malady seems to be that they liked clutter and encouraged their children to do well in school. This is abuse, I take it? But the biggest complaint that I had with the book was that Beck has just read too much Anne Lamott. I read Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" shortly before reading this and, frankly, I'd have thought they were written by the same person. I always found Ms. Lamott sophomoric and puerile and at times, this book is nearly as bad. The same tired metaphors and what must pass for wit among Lamott's faithful is here too. It would have been much more interesting if Beck had just followed her own voice, whatever that may be. Adam seems like a great kid, and his parents are indeed lucky to have him. But having kids is not a self-improvement program, and it doesn't make the mother a great writer, either.
Rating:
Summary: Emotionally rich, haunting, and fascinating
Review: I was shocked by the review describing Martha Beck as a whiner. I read this book yesterday (yes, in one day--I was mesmerized) and can't remember any whining. It was the opposite--a description of her joy, wonderment, and surprise that life could hold what it began to hold for her when she was expecting her son, Adam. I can't get this book out of my mind; I am still processing it. Although I am not a skeptic about supernatural things, her experiences don't exactly fit into my worldview and I'm trying to figure out what they might mean. Meanwhile, however, the book changed my perceptions of what it might be like to have a child with Down Syndrome (something I've contemplated and even researched before, when a friend got suspicious test results during her pregnancy). And I thought the descriptions of her life at Harvard were equally as fascinating as anything else in the book. As the wife of a former academic, I was both amused and amazed by her encounters with people at Harvard and her own ivory tower naivete, and as a southwesterner I had a bit of a culture shock reading about people who would just step over a pregnant woman who had fainted rather than stop to help her. This book is very well written and full of incredible insights and experiences (I read many passages aloud to my husband). I think parts of the story will resonate with anyone who has been struck by the incredible, unbelievable gift of a baby, as I have been with my own son. I imagine that those who are suspicious of anything they can't see will find much to narrow their eyes at while reading this book, yet it seems to me that only those who have never known what it's like to love a child could truly dislike it.
Rating: 
Summary: Elitist whiner produced the perfect Down's Syndrome Baby
Review: The thing that becomes obvious as one reads Beck's book is that (her claims of paranormal birthing experiences aside) she had a tremendous amount of support throughout her pregnancy and that she is one of those highly fortunate people with strong, natural luck that allows her hard work to always achieve what must have become to seem to Beck like its natural reward. Poor Beck! Her husband, having completed his M.B.A. from Harvard while still working on his Ph.D., is forced to buy suits for his--obviously highly lucrative--consultancy that lasts the course of her pregnancy. Poor Beck! After some missteps, her friends discover that she is suffering during her husband's absences and they come over to buy her groceries and cook for her in the throes of her miserable pregnancy. Poor Beck! She needs a place to dump her daughter during the day while pregnant and trying to complete her own academic work. The top local day-care is oversubscribed--but, surprise, surprise, a last minute cancellation offers her a place just when she needs it. Poor Beck! Her academic work is flagging owing to her physical condition--a sympathetic professor assigns her an "A" grade instead of an "incomplete" because she trusts Beck to finish the paper under her own supervision during the summer term. Poor Beck! Her husband, having completed his nasty lucrative year of consultancy, is given six months by the consultancy company's founder to work on finishing his Ph.D. thesis--with no real other expectation from the founder other than that this will help Beck and her husband cope with the first six months of life with a Down's syndrome child. Clearly, these are people who suffered from the hard side of cut-throat Harvard and business competition! Reading this book, one begins to suspect that much of the suffering has been created (indeed nurtured) in Beck's own mind. Certainly, she runs into some nasty people who don't understand her decision to keep her Down's Syndrome baby. But one suspects that she might have come into contact with some people even outside the Harvard environment. Neither her own family nor her husband's family's reaction to the news can be described as "instantly thrilled by the prospect." So "HARVARD" just becomes a literary device for "the nasty people who don't understand me." The people at Harvard who supported Beck throughout her pregnancy must be squirming! This book may read as a comfort to some--but for others, it's a disappointment, a tale of an over-achieving whiner who just can't accept that everything in her life is meant to be perfect and special.
Rating:
Summary: good story. a little too black and white for me.
Review: everyone is either an angel or a monster. i'm not buying it, reall
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