Well, I did that recently - not on clothes, but on a "fluff" novel that had a 20% discount. Having had a taste of romantic novels recently and liked it, I decided to venture out into Danielle Steel land. She's possibly the most successful romantic novelist of our time. Steel has written like a zillion best sellers and I didn't know where to start. So this book that was displayed at the front of the book store caught my eye-especially its bright 20% discount sticker!
"Beneath the charm, there lurked the dangers of possessive love..." it said. Hmmm, sounds interesting. To sum it up, it's about a woman who falls irresistably in love with a magnetic, charming man and is whisked away to his palatial Irish estate. But then lies, jealousy and secrets begin to surface. Is she paranoid, or is the man she loves hiding something worse?... And with that brief tantalizer, I was sold.
I took it home, and then I stumbled upon a one-paragraph page at the beginning of the book. Steel wrote in her own ominous words, the definition of a sociopath.
Oh! Crap! What have I bought? That doesn't sound like a fluffy love story! It's a forewarning- it's going to be a scary story about a psycho who destroys a woman! I was going to save this for my 2WW but this was way too scary and intense for a time when I'm supposed to be relaxed and happy for my hormones to be in good shape! So I started reading it, to have it out of the way by my next 2WW.
WTF????----
(Warning: Spoiler...)
After a month-long whirlwind romance, the man decides that he wants to make a baby with her. She was 44 years old and she wasn't ready to start a family at her age with a man she hardly knew. He tricks her into visiting a fertility clinic where she winds up doing a full-on fertility work-up. That very visit, they discover that, at age 44 I stress, her eggs were wonderful and that she was ovulating. His SA revealed that he had superb sperm count, at age 46. The doctor immediately recommends artificial insemination there right away (IUI I'm guessing, surely not IVF!) but she declines. They leave the clinic and they find out later that her "FSH levels is as low as a twenty-year-old's and her estrogen level is terrific!"
WTF??? I was so upset at this point. A 44 year-old has great eggs and terrific FSH and estrogen? And the guy's perfect too fertility-wise? Aw, c'mon!
Then, that night, they get drunk on champagne, have wild, passionate sex and forget about using contraception. And you can guess what happens next- Let's say it together now:
SHE GETS PREGNANT!
WTF? WTF? WTF???
She POAS and sees a very faint second line. She looks at it at every angle and keeps seeing two lines! The words "Two Lines" appear 4 bloody times on that page. OK! We get it already!
They set up house and she actively takes part in the restoration of the property, which the man objected to because she was pregnant. She miscarries at 3 months and he blames her-"You killed our baby!....You fucked it all up!... It was a shitty thing to do, to the baby, and to me. You killed a healthy baby..."
WT Bloody F???
And now the miscarriage is her fault, and a murder?
Come ON! I know it's fiction but, really? I got so damned annoyed and angry I stopped reading at that point! I mean, we infertiles all know how ridiculous this whole super-fertile-at-40-something-and-getting-knocked-up-at-first-try saga is!
And I can't believe my luck! Can you imagine-
Out of all the guzillions of books in the store, I had to pick a book out like this one. That had to be about fertility, pregnancy and miscarriage. The very topics that I'd wanted to get away from for just a few of hours of my life. And I paid for this torture too!
This is a book that every infertile she never, ever, EVER have on her list! So be warned, if you're having problems getting pregnant or staying pregnant-Stay away from Danielle Steel's "Matters of The Heart".
Even if they were giving it away for free!
