Rating: 
Summary: Not quite what I was expecting
Review: I am pregnant, and I was curious to read this book to get a better idea of what it might be like to have a child with Down's Syndrome. Although I enjoyed reading "Expecting Adam", it wasn't at all what I was expecting.Martha Beck's story is intensely personal. She talks about how her life and her husband's life were transformed by the experience of her carrying and giving birth to Adam, a baby with Down's Syndrome. Throughout her pregnancy they both experienced a number of spiritual experiences and miracles. Subsequent to his birth, Adam has brought much joy and wonder into their lives, completely rearranging their priorities and attitudes to life. However Martha makes it clear that she doesn't view this as being because Adam has Down's Syndrome. At one stage she consults a psychic who refers to Adam as being an "angel", but who also stresses that his disability is merely a coincidence rather than a factor contributing to his angelic status. Martha makes it clear that she doesn't necessarily view all children with Down's as being as special as Adam. This presents an interesting question about what makes Adam so special and about whether the fact that he has Down's is even relevant to Martha's story. So rather than being a book about what it is like to carry and give birth to a baby with Down's Syndrome, this book is about what it is like to be transformed from being an ambitious and driven academic to a more spiritual person, by the experience of carrying a child who appears to have spiritual powers. At times I felt that I was reading a memoir written by Mary about being pregnant with the baby Jesus. Because Martha writes well and her story is told with some humor, I enjoyed reading the book. However I got increasingly frustrated as I went on by how extraordinary she felt her experience to be, and how little I could take from it that was relevant to me or anyone that I knew.
Rating:
Summary: Cruel, dishonest, and self-centered
Review: This book is hilarious, sharply written, engrossing, ultimately rather cruel, and completely one-sided. By the time I was done (and I read it cover to cover, ignoring other responsibilities in the process, a bit like reading a good Harlequin), I felt besmirched. I had laughed at the people Beck shreds to pieces with her incisive pen, and I had enjoyed feeling morally superior to them. If you want a good laugh at another's expense, read the book, but don't look to it for moral guidance. It's fine to read a farce but only if the author admits both to herself and her readers that it's a farce. I was stunned when, in Beck's acknowledgements at the end of the book, she thanked her parents and her in-laws for being such loving, supportive people. Was she being sarcastic, perhaps taking one last dig at them? Had my daughter or daughter-in-law described me the way she describes them, I would have determined that my relationship with her was a complete failure and that it might be time to cease all contact, particularly since she might use any additional foibles as further ammunition against me. Beck goes to great lengths to prove her credentials, her objectivity, and her honesty, but she is ultimately very dishonest, and she exaggerates horribly. She pans Harvard, except to the extent that Harvard is a useful credential. I have lived in Cambridge for a number of years and belong to a women's book club (the context in which I read this book), of which a number of the members are either graduate students at Harvard or married to graduate students, many with children. Harvard is many things, extremely competitive and brutally challenging among them. However, various members of the group described instances in which both the institution and the people comprising the institution had been very supportive of them and their life choices, even when those choices didn't conform to institutional norms. I am profoundly skeptical that Beck's portrayal of Harvard reflects any kind of reality except that which exists in her twisted mind. I am also profoundly disturbed by Beck's insistence on Adam's uniqueness. Is he Christ reincarnated, another Buddha, the next Dalai Lama? I don't get it. Each human is unique. Each (even Beck's supposedly neurotic and self-obsessed parents and in-laws) has something to offer. I have an autistic son. I was devastated by his diagnosis, cried for two weeks, mourned the loss of his normal life, but time passes. He is a great kid, he has a contribution to make, he is learning and growing, and I accept him on his own terms. I didn't need supposed visits from Bunraku puppets to tell me this. I just needed some shred of innate human kindness and decency, qualities in which Beck (at least as an author) is seriously lacking. (I hold out hope that she is nicer in person than in print.) My son also has angels attending him. They are the medical practitioners, preschool teachers, extended family, friends and neighbors, and fellow members of my congregation who love, accept, and teach him. Beck goes to great length to distance herself from "new agey" spiritualism, but the experiences she relates and the conclusions she draws are nothing if not New Age. (By New Age, I mean a spiritualism that is personal, mystical, arational, and divorced from a set theology, creed, or religious tradition.) I am traditional in my spirituality, but I feel no need to pan New Age spiritualism. If it helps people live moral and enriched lives, then it's a good thing. It's not clear to me why Beck determines that her experiences are credible but that other New Ageists are kooks and charlatans. I see absolutely no difference between the two. Bunraku puppets? Come on, admit it, it's New Age. I remain completely agnostic with regard to Beck's supposed spiritual experiences. Because I believe in spiritual realms of human existence, I believe they could have happened. Because I find her so dishonest and distasteful (again, as a writer, as I know little about her personally), I give her stories zero credibility. They are just stories, highly entertaining, even fascinating, but with nothing to teach me about loving my ordinary, fallen, unremarkable, even handicapped neighbor. If you want entertainment or a good laugh, by all means read this book. If you seek greater spiritual enlightenment, give it a pass.
Rating: 
Summary: I can't stop recommending this book!
Review: Expecting Adam is a brilliant book. Although I'm not sure I agree with the author's views on angels, I was inspired by her journey to find what is really important in life. Beck found that while her Harvard education placed a high value on perfection and control, true happiness comes with accepting human frailty. Funny and poignant, I thought this was an inspired memoir.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I read this book for our book club. It was fascinating to find that half of the book club members absolutely loved it and half absolutely hated it. There was no in-between. While I found the writing style engaging, I found the author to be an obnoxious, self-centered, arrogant whiner (not to mention mean-spirited). I grew weary of the perfect "Marth" and her equally perfect husband. The puppeteers were "cute" at first, but after the 8000th mention, I was ready to scream. Don't get me wrong, when I started the book I was ready to love it for Adam's sake. But this wasn't a book about Adam; this was a book about the wonderful Martha Beck and her condescending greatness in dealing with an imperfect child.
Rating:
Summary: Sad That This Book is One of the Few Available on This Topic
Review: This book is about one mother's obsession with having the "perfect" child. While it purports to examine the larger issue of disability in our culture, this book really just provides an exhausting accounting of the tiresome complaints of an author who wants so badly to be accepted by her upper middle class academic peers that she hates the disabled child she's bearing. Finally, the author makes peace with the idea of raising disabled child by imbuing him with "magical" abilities. If you are looking for a book to answer questions about raising a Downs Syndrome child, this is not it. If you like to read bizarre memoirs of people with convoluted and unresolved mental issues who need lots of therapy, this book is for you.
Rating:
Summary: Hope lives
Review: I read this book for book club in September 2001. It quite simply brought me comfort - and laughter - and tears. Maybe it sounds corny, but I felt peace at the thoughts this book inspired. That maybe there are angels, higher powers and unknown communciations. That maybe miricales still happen. The story of Martha & her apartment fire gave me hope and made me think perhaps others experienced the miricales of surviving . I can't explain it better than that. It was also funny to read about the marriage, blending the families. My family was the "idea" & my husband's the "things." they say "Coincidence is a small miricle where God remains anonymous." It was rnominated by our member & friend who's Down's son was finally healing and becoming part of his family after a difficult 1st several months. He is now 3 and learning well. I am glad this book came into my life.
Rating:
Summary: Meaning, Meaning Everywhere
Review: Martha Beck became one of my literary heroes with this book. She tells a wonderful story wonderfully. I'm so pleased that she was compelled to tell this story. If you don't LOVE this story, there is a possibility that you have turned off your sense of wonder.
Rating:
Summary: This is a must read, very inspirational book!!
Review: I was completely blown away by this book. Every page taught me a lesson. This is a true story of two Harvard educated parents who find out that their son will be born with Down Syndrome and how they deal with that news during the pregnancy as well as after Adam's birth. It truly is a magical story and as the reader, I found myself swept up in the often humorous, very well told story. This book will stay with me for a long long time!!
Rating:
Summary: Emotional roller-coaster, rich, and thought-provoking
Review: Expecting Adam is more than the sum of its parts.
On the surface, it's the beautifully-written story of a woman facing a difficult choice - and choosing the opposite of what professionals in the academic and intellectual mileu of Harvard advise her to do. She chooses not to abort her Downs Syndrome child, Adam.
Beck comes from a Mormon upbringing, which may have influenced her choice, although she has broken from the practice of the faith of her childhood (without breaking from her family). But more than being just a book about choice, it's a book about spirituality of the New Age variety, a transforming process that leaves the author herself confounded by and almost disbelieving of the metaphysical and 'New Age crystal kissing' woo-woo 'stuff' that happens to her during the process of her pregnancy, birth, and her son's babyhood.
Adam becomes her teacher, her conduit into a deep and mysterious world that she, herself, barely believes in.
I found myself suspending disbelief and just going with the flow of this lovely book. It transcends and defies classification.
Read it and judge for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: I'm torn....
Review: I'm torn with this review, because I did find the book very easy to read and engaging. However, as I continued through it, I was left with a bad feeling, and when I struggled for the word, all I could come up with was "offensive." I struggled with how I could put into words why I was so bothered by much of what the author had to say, and in reading through the prior reviews, I found that someone had done a perfect job of doing so. I've lifted that portion of his/her review here: "Why couldn't he be just an ordinary boy with Down's Syndrome who probably won't be going to Harvard? Why? Because his parents are gifted members of an elite community, so Adam must be too. Surely God wouldn't taunt them so much as to give them an unremarkable kid? I wish she had let Adam's true self, the miracle that is every seemingly ordinary child, shine through instead of giving him supernatural powers." In the book, the author tries to be honest and forthcoming and slightly belittling about herself, but these claims are constantly contextualized (and we're constantly reminded) according to her family's particular situation: young, extremely smart, priviledged. Even the incident with the car accident: I wasn't sure if she was suggesting the accident caused the Downs Syndrome, but it was almost like she was implying that perfect she and her perfect husband could not otherwise have conceived an imperfect child. Not to mention that the exagerations of life at Harvard are not believable and only seem to foster the author's sense of self-worth and superiority while she lambasts it.
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