"You're The Only One I've Told" Midpoint Review

About a week ago I wrote a blog about the books I got from the library to read this month. I started with You're The Only One I've Told by Dr Meera Shah, and it's been. Interesting?

It hasn't been what I expected, and to be honest it's a little disappointing.

From the book's description and the part of the intro I read before I checked it out, I was expecting it to be a book that focused on the experiences of a wide range of people who, for various reasons and under various circumstances, chose to have an abortion. Those are definitely present, but not nearly as present as Shah's constant commentary on the American political system's interference in abortion healthcare. It's good commentary, but the way it's done is incredibly bad, bordering on disrespectful to the people who shared very personal stories only to have them cut up into short pieces and spread out by the author's personal interjections.

I get why she wrote like this, abortion care has been her entire career so she knows things about how it works that most people do not, but it seems like every 2-3 paragraphs of someone's story is then cut off by a page of Shah's own commentary. If I wanted to read a book about the political landscape of abortion politics in 2019, I would have checked out a book described that way, not one promising a close look at the person effects abortion care and US culture have had on the lives of people in wildly different circumstances.

It isn't a bad book by any means, it's actually very well written and I think Dr Shah's perspective is extremely valuable and important to hear. It's just not the book that was advertised on the cover. If I had bought it, I think I might be returning it.

I give it a 7.5 out of 10 so far. It's well written, she cites her sources well, and it's extremely informative. It's just not what she said it would be in the description and intro, and I am extremely disappointed.