I usually like Barbara Delinsky, and I did read this book to the end, but I thought it was pretty flat. The characters were underdeveloped and not real. Maybe my problem is that I just can't understand how teen-aged girls could enter into a pregnancy pact in the first place, but I also didn't buy the way the girls and their mothers reacted to it.

The premice for this story was intriguing (though highly unlikely). Four 17-yr-old girls from good families make a pact to all become pregnant at the same time. (This isn't a "spoiler comment," because it occurs in the first few chapters). They don't want husbands, just babies. For no apparent reason. Which is what makes the girls unsympathetic protagonists. How can we feel sorry for those self-destructive immature idiots? Of course, they can't support themselves, so they expect to live with the...

What constitutes a good mother? How much responsibility must a mother take for her daughter's poor choices?These are the issues at the root of "Not My Daughter." Susan Tate is a single mom to her seventeen-year-old daughter Lily. She had her own daughter at seventeen, her parents threw her out, and she has had to struggle alone for all these years. She has made something of her life and stubbornly clings to the hard-won control over her life. She is the principal at her daughter's school. At age...

I have a confession: I feel mean writing the review I'm about to write.I have a feeling that Delinsky is one of those bestselling authors who is bound by contract to produce a book every year (or at least every other year). The books sell because the fans are loyal, but the quality of the writing suffers.The premise is compelling. Three teenage girls, best friends since childhood, have become pregnant. They have taken a pact to get pregnant and raise their children themselves, sans the fathers.

I read "Not My Daughter" by Barbara Delinsky as the book for this month for my new book club. I expected soap opera type drama and not much to think about...was I pleasantly surprised to find a compelling story with interesting characters. The premise is taken somewhat from newspaper headlines of an actual case that occurred several years ago. A group of girls, high achievers, happy, bright, well-adjusted from "good families" make a pact to get pregnant their senior year in high school. As I cou...

Wow! I just love books that have realistic characters. I was really able to relate to the characters because they were just so authentic.

Not my usual choice of literature, this book is definitely chick-lit. The reason I was interested is that it was inspired by a 2008 report of a pregnancy pact in Gloucester, Mass. In this story, 3 supposedly bright, college-bound Seniors make a pact to get pregnant at 17 because. . . . .and here's where the story gets fuzzy. Understanding that the girls were best friends and thought it would be cool for their kids to be best friends too, and that the girls loved babies, I still couldn't buy the

This book is awful.There. I said it. It's painfully, horribly, disgustingly awful.The biggest problem with this book is that you have ZERO sympathy for any of the main characters. The premise is that a group of girls enters into this pregnancy pact so they can have babies together. What the book is actually about is how one of the mothers deals with it. And deals with it. And deals with it. For hundreds of pages.The author makes it impossible to feel sympathy or commiseration with the girls in t...

"Well, I know if I were in that situation I'd..." How many times do we say that to ourselves, especially when it comes to the problems, struggles, and trials of others? "Not My Daughter" provides plenty of opportunities for reflection upon what we would do in a host of situations both large and small.Susan is the mother of a 17 year-old who gets pregnant on purpose. As an unmarried woman who had her daughter at 18, she finds herself thrown into a situation she never anticipated. The problem is c...

"Ripped from the headlines," but with no depth. The characters were all very superficial and rather unbelievable. The perspective shifts between so many people that there's no time to develop enough of a backstory to make you feel like you knew any of them. The extent to which Susan's job was imperiled by the pregnancy pact was not believable. Why didn't she fight back sooner? And THEN after focusing on the job angle for the whole book, that whole storyline just gets dropped at the end, with bar...

Three bright, college bound teens make a pact to become pregnant and have babies. News of the pact is quickly leaked by one of the friends. The community's anger and disappointment is soon turned on one of the mothers......also the principal of the highschool. The mother having been pregnant herself at seventeen but still making a successful life.The story drew me in when I wondered, 'What the heck were they thinking?" And then......pft, what they were thinking was never really explained. The gi...

Interesting story - four 17 year old girls decide it would be 'fun' to all get pregnant and have babies together. They don't want to involve the fathers at all, and don't really understand why their families think planning a pregnancy at 17 is a bad idea. There are so many characters and the story jumps around so much, that I got confused and had to keep thinking about what character was involved. That was distracting from the story. For some reason, the entire "fault" for the girls' pregnancies...

I really enjoyed this book. I felt as though it was well written and well developed. Although the novel featured several characters, it was clear and not confusing. Each character clearly had their own thoughts and feelings. The plot was an interesting one and I enjoyed the novel the whole way through. The book was well rounded up, which is something that I prefer when reading a novel. Definitely an author that I'd Iike to read more from.

I found this book to be exhausting and very frustrating. The insipid behavior of the girls in this book was just ridiculous. It is a baby, not a puppy or a stuffed animal. Then....the whole pact issue....It's a pact. No, it's not a pack. Yes, it is a pact. Well, maybe it is a pack behavior. At one point, who cares! The only part that made sense to me was Abby's reasoning for starting the "pact"...I could understand her thought process....but as for the rest of them...they should have gotten a pu...

A fictionalized version of the real-life “Pregnancy Pact,” that took place in 2008, in Gloucester, Massachusetts with 17 high school girls expecting babies. This story takes place in the fabricated, small town of Zaganack, near the coast of Maine and only has three pregnant teenagers. One is Lily. Her mother Susan, is the principal of the high school. Lily and Susan are best friends with mother-duo’s of Kate and Mary Kate, Jessica and Sunny, and Pam and Abby. The books strongest point, is how th...

I read the news stories and saw the Lifetime original movie about the real-life pregnancy pact teen girls. Now I've read the book, and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Ms. Delinsky has a wonderful writing style that evokes emotion from the reader without going overboard to maudlin or saccharine. I will admit that the ending was somewhat predictable and a little fairy-tale-ish, but it wasn't overdone. The book is really great in the last third, where people's true reactions to the pregnanc...

Although I have heard good things about Barbara Delinsky, I wasn't thoroughly impressed with her writing and I probably won't read more from her. I feel like I didn't gain a thing out of this book. The premise was appealing to me (pregnancy pact) but the book was really about what defines a 'good' mother. Which, as a mother myself, is also an appealing topic, but I just wasn't feeling this book. It went on and on about the same thing for countless pages. Even the epilogue was too drawn out! The

First let me say that I always seem to enjoy a Barbara Delinsky book. Not just because she is a New England author, but because her stories most always about real life situations. This particular novel is about a subject that would make most mothers of teenage girls cringe: A Pregnancy Pact.In a nutshell Lily, Mary Kate and Jess are three teenage girls, lifelong friends, who decide it would be a great idea to get pregnant at the same time, so that their babies too could be friends. The girls are...

Not My Daughter tackles a topic that gets a whiff of media attention every now and then - pacts. In this book a group of 17 year old seniors all end up pregnant within weeks of each other and it comes out that they made a pact to all get and be pregnant together and then raise their babies together. Seemed so easy and cut and dry to them. Never mind the boys who fathered, unknowingly, the babies. Never mind their siblings who would have to endure teasing and scorn. Never mind their parents who h...

A quick read that asks and explores what it means to be a good mother. Are we responsible for everything our kids do? Why do mothers get scrutinized so my more and fathers don't? What does it mean to be a good mother? I liked it and was surprised that it took on such deep questions in a good way. This could have very easily just stuck to the main plot line but it went deeper into the consequences of the pact made by the teen girls. She nailed the short-sighted nature of teens who are unable to s...