Friday, July 11, 2014

Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth

Based on Jennifer Worth's bestselling memoirs, Call the Midwife is the true story behind the beloved PBS series. Viewers everywhere have fallen in love with this candid look at post-war London. In the 1950s, twenty-two-year-old Jenny Lee leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in London's East End slums. While delivering babies all over the city, Jenny encounters a colorful cast of women—from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lives, to the woman with twenty-four children who can't speak English, to the prostitutes of the city's seedier side.

My Take:   I enjoy the TV series so I wanted to read the book.  The book was interesting but I think I enjoy the midwife characters in the BBC series more than those described in the book. They are more colorful and upbeat.  Likewise, I preferred the TV version of the patients more because they were less gruesome.  I'm sure the book depicts a more realistic portrait of her time spent in this profession but sometimes I'm not seeking reality.  I didn't initially realize that it is the first book in a trilogy and I have only read the first one, but I would recommend it to anyone who likes the show.  I didn't like it well enough to seek out book 2 and 3 though.

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