Cut, Stapled, and Mended – Gail’s Review
Dear Roanna,
I’m three-fourths way through your book. I’ve laughed out loud so many times at your brilliant descriptions of small business, family bed, nursing, alternative healing, and more.
Your descriptions of your birth journey astonishes me again and again, not in that you are concise and insightful about the trauma and challenges you went through, of course not, your intelligence and experience are immediately evident. The astonishment is that in the journey of three children the words you choose to describe the impact and the words you choose contain all the wisdom of the entire birth movement! All woven without lecture or pomp, but in an edge of the seat birth-suspense.
Your self-discovery is delivered with a surgical truth, that though cuts to the core of the mispractice of modern birth is given with the deepest compassion and universal inclusion which is so freeing, perhaps you in the writing, but also the reader to address what’s wrong without losing the hope of overcoming. Your honesty is the key for the reader’s transformation.
My only grief is that the book is so thin, that I am missing you already before I finish the book! I want to keep reading your words! Please write another book!
Last night I’d fall asleep reading and wake and read more. I was your little nursling reader not able to get enough of the milk of your story.
Its added fun because I’ve just met Veege and Laura and the midwives of Ashland at Jenn Head’s arrangement of my Spinning Babies Workshop on March 22, 2013. I can’t wait to read the rest of your book tonight.
Oh, you might think, who is this woman saying she is my nursling! I’ve been a homebirth midwife offering support to VBAC women since the 1980s. There is a special Light about the VBAC journey, maybe because the dark is so low. Its an honor to read your book, Roanna. Truly, Cut, Stapled, and Mended is the best birth autobiography I’ve read since the stories in Ina May Gaskin’s Spiritual Midwifery and Lynn Baptisti Richard’s Very Brave and Courageous. Cut, Stapled, and Mended may be the best new birth book of this century. In fact, I’m so excited about it, may I post the contents of my email to you on my blog?
Dearest Gail,
Thank you for reaching out to me and honoring my journey. CSM, as small as it is, took over 5 years to birth. When I think of writing another book, I wonder what it would be about. Will anything as incredible as birth ever happen to me again?
I do know of you and your important work. I would be delighted to find even a brief mention of CSM there. A review such as what you’ve written might make it difficult to keep my ego in check. Thats okay; I’ll manage 😉
My publisher has asked me to let people know that consumer reviews on amazon, Barnes and noble, good reads, and other sites that are positioned to reach the general public are also greatly appreciated and an important step in reaching beyond “the choir.” Finally, if you think your platform might like learning of an opportunity to receive more than $800 in gifts when they buy CSM, feel free to share this link and/or link to it in your blogpost. https://www.cutstapledandmended.com/gifts/
Much love, Roanna