I am 4 months pregnant and got this book as a gift. I'm not sure if the person who bought it for me realized what it was about. As an expectant mom reading stories of the troubles people had conceiving and carrying children, it made me depressed and anxious - what if my child has Down's syndrome, what if it's stillborn, etc. So, if you have had trouble conceiving, by all means, this book is great support. I believe people need to "bond" with others who share similar trials and tribulations. But if you are not, and are easily spooked, I'd suggest picking up something more light-hearted and happy.

So often during the seven+ months that my husband and I have been actively trying to have a baby, we have felt very alone. Like the rest of the world has not a trouble in the world getting pregnant, and we're the oddballs who can't manage it with him looking at me cross-eyed.

But this book was so wonderful, if only because it reminded us that we are NOT alone. There are MANY people in the world who are in our situation, or in more dire situations than ours. Sometimes it helps just knowing that we're not the only ones.

I always find people's stories about their infertility and fertility to be very moving. Stories about children and parents are always the most heartbreaking. But in the hands accomplished writers like the 22 in this 90%-nonfiction anthology, the subject is very nearly devastating in its sadness, joy, and beauty.

I traded most of my own writing time for time with my own long-sought-after children, and reading these writers made me feel, really for the first time, the pain of what I gave up to be a father! Writing, too, can be so wonderful!

WANTING A CHILD is not a breezy read because the writing generally is complex, though always quite clear. And there are maybe two duds. But overall, it is just magnificent.

Helen Schulman's collection, her first book is out of print and this is a shame. Her collection is both daring and fun and shows the keen mind and humor that she has carried along with her into later novels. It would be my hope that those who happen upon this book on amazon take the chance and try to order it. You will find rich, provocative fiction.

Helen Schulman did a good job with this one. Her prose is witty and fun and above all, real. My roomate gave me this book saying, "I've never read something and felt like I was in someone else's head, but this is YOU." I'm glad for the comparison. That's not to say I didn't have my problems. The boyfriend similarities are tiresome at times, way too many people end up crying . . . but, with Schulman's insights into relationships -- with men, present and past, and girlfriends, and brothers -- I didn't really mind so much. I'd very much like to read another novel by the author.

Funny and smart characters. Wonderful plot. I enjoyed this book immensely and read it in a day! Highly recommended.

Helen Schulman, in her short stories and wondrous book "The Revisionist", has delt with romance ending, romance that never happened, romance that caused everlasting pain. This is the first of her works to deal with a romance that ends in death, and yet doesn't quite. There are small and troubling and lovely moments in this book. But much more.

Someone innocently asked me this morning, What is the sexiest book you've ever read? This was the easiest question I've ever been asked, perhaps even easier that my own name. "P.S." is the sexiest book I have ever read. It ranks a notch above "Lolita" and "Lady Chatterly's Lover" in the sensuous sex department because a) there is no guilt nor wheelchaired husbands around and b) an intelligent, ready-for-passion woman is in control.

This book is devilish fun! Who wouldn't want to go back to their sexy first lover and woo them all over, this time with wisdom, intellect and wit. "P.S." is a perfect novel for any season but it is especially wonderful for hot, sticky days on the beach. If this book doesn't get you in the mood for summer lovin', you need to have your battery checked.

The Revisionist is such a great concept ... re-cataloging history so it will be remembered differntly by subsequent generations who an author hopes will believe what (s)he reads. Unfortunately, too little is said about this revisionism and too much seed is scattered thinly about this and that shallow love or friendly relationship that has nothing to do with the essential one ... centered in David Hershleder's mother who gassed herself in post-generational response to her study of the gassing of Jews in the death camps. I wanted this idea to be deeply researched ... to focus on the study of LeClerc ... to center on the pain of being Jewish and hearing LeClerc say that the reason he tried to revise the holocaust was because he hated Jews. It seemed to me a great idea was wasted, and perhaps needed a few more drafts and a lot more thought to be brought to full resolution. Maybe I was looking for a great and penetrating book, not just another story about people getting in the sack.

While her initial premise--that a Holocaust survivor's son should become obsessed with a reformed Holocause denier--is interesting, Helen Schulman fails to bring her novel to life. We never really learn much about David Hershleder, our hero, and the other characters have no dimension at all. Also, Ms. Schulman's writing style is pedantic and dry, and when she said something about Hershleder's head throbbing like tired feet, I gave up.

There are elements of The Revisionist which suggest that some other genre name is needed here to classify it, because it's not a novel in the classical sense: it's an extended third-person-limited meditation, extraordinarily graceful and interesting, but not emotionally engrossing. More intellectually driven, as befits Hershleder's frozen psyche -- but the narrator falls prey to the same terminal detachment suffered by the protagonist, and so there is no leavening of Hershleder's point of view, no counterpoint or deepening. Schulman's writing is so strong, so professional (in a good way) and her insights and characters so interesting, that it almost doesn't matter. But ultimately, by the end of the book, I felt as if I'd visited a zoo of characters rather than experiencing them in their natural habitat: they were displayed somewhat artificially, as if they were meant to be looked at rather than cavorted with.