Waiting for Daisy
Excerpt
Reviews & Press

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Reviews & Press

for Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Fertility Doctors, An Oscar, An Atomic Bomb, A Romantic Night, and One Woman’s Quest to Become a Mother

Reviews

“Waiting for Daisy is riveting… It’s no small feat to write a page turner that gives away the ending on the dust jacket, but Waiting for Daisy is more than just the Perils of Peggy. Orenstein has written a memoir, a confession, a polemic and a love story all at once, describing the most frantic and confusing period of her life with clarity and candor.”
— Janice P. Nimura, Los Angeles Times, February 9, 2007 (read the full text)

“Peggy Orenstein’s journey [is] suspenseful [and] … unsparing.… It’s to Orenstein’s considerable credit that even when she’s naked from the waist down, she never really takes her reporter’s hat off, applying the same measured scrutiny to a -junior-high-school boyfriend with a brood of 15 or the plight of women left barren and disfigured by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima as she does to her own ultimately happily resolved situation.… Orenstein’s interrogation of her own profiteering pregnancy retinue comes across as a welcome, even necessary exposé.”
— Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times Book Review, March 18, 2007 (read the full text)

“This may be the most honest book written about the tsunami of emotion that hits women when what should come most naturally — reproduction — becomes instead one vast, expensive science experiment.… Daisy is a fine meditation on what it means to live a fulfilled life.”
— 4 Stars, “Critics Choice” People magazine, February 12, 2007
(read the full text)

“She treats her efforts to become a mother with intelligent skepticism and a brazen sense of humor… One of the best things about this book is that when she succeeds in her quest Orenstein refuses to take refuge in the smug pieties so prevalent in fertility discussions. When a friend tells her that everything happens for a reason, Orenstein bristles (bless her!). As Daisy moves on through life, and her mother and father move with her through the parenting maze, it would be interesting to hear Orenstein’s intelligent, skeptical voice ruminate on the next stages. For if any writer has the verve and tenacity to supersede the typecasting of Mommy Lit, it’s Orenstein.”
— Ann Glusker, The Washington Post “Book World,” March 11, 2007
(read the full text)

“Inspiration and solace come in copious quantities in Peggy Orenstein’s dazzling new memoir, a heart-rending account of her six-year quest to conceive a child. [Orenstein] recounts an Olympian odyssey to motherhood that includes daunting obstacles while also racing along with the pulse-pounding tenseness of a thriller. So remarkable is Orenstein’s account that it seems likely to become the platinum standard for memoirs regarding couples struggling to become parents … the greatest strength of her memoir is her resounding ability to surmount the far greater writing challenge — capturing the rocky emotional landscape she and her husband traversed… Waiting for Daisy accomplishes many valuable things in just 226 pages. But one of the most valuable is fostering profound respect and empathy for couples who endure great struggles trying to become parents.”
— John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 8, 2007
(read the full text)

“Intimate, funny/sad and remarkably self-revealing.”
— Starred review, Kirkus, November 15, 2006 (read the full text)

“The Rocky of infertility memoirs.”
— ”The Approval Matrix,” New York Magazine, February 19, 2007
(read the full text)

“Orenstein’s nakedly honest account of her decision at age 35 to have a baby and her ensuing struggle to do so reads like a detective thriller. Each new attempt brings hope and inevitable disappointment. In her search for a solution, she visits fertility doctors and alternative practitioners, considers adoption, and almost destroys her marriage. She does not spare herself from criticism, acknowledging how monomaniacal she became in her quest and pondering how her increasingly desperate race against her biological clock squares with her strong feminist politics.”
— ELLE magazine, Winner “The Elle’s Lettres” Readers’ Prize, February 2007

“…a raw, funny and poignant memoir … she writes keenly and with humor about the difficult road her quest takes. By the time I reached the end of the book, I was crying into my latte. Orenstein’s memoir is not just hers; it is the story of a generation of women who dared to wait for motherhood, took risks to achieve it and were brave enough to question their decisions every step of the way.”
— Ann Hood, More magazine, February 2007

“What sets this book apart is the way Orenstein uses her reporting skills. When she visits an ex-boyfriend who’s now an Orthodox Jew, she provides a detailed portrait of his life with his wife and their 15 children. When she travels to Japan we get an investigation into the way that culture ritualizes miscarriage. Best of all, she brings her erudition and intelligence to bear on her own experience.”
— Claire Dederer, San Francisco magazine, February 2007
(read the full text)

“Must-read for moms: The story of author Peggy Orenstein’s struggle with infertility is riveting, but what really makes her new memoir, Waiting for Daisy, such a compelling read is her refreshing honesty about the complicated emotions many women face on the path to motherhood.”
— Charlotte Latvala, Parenting magazine, February 2007

“Orenstein deftly wipes the Vaseline coating off the lens of modern motherhood and exposes it for the messy business it is….”
— Laura Billings, Minneapolis Star/Tribune, February 16, 2007
(read the full text)

“Funny, self-knowing and sometimes wise.”
— Ellen Emry Heltzel, Chicago Tribune, May 6, 2007 (read the full text)

Selected Press

“Baby Chronicles: A Writer’s Remarkably Honest Account of the Journey to Motherhood”
— Bookpage, February 2007 (read the full text)

“The Fertility Dilemma: A Roller-Coaster Ride to Motherhood”
— Heidi Benson, San Francisco Chronicle, February 25, 2007
(read the full text)

“Arduous Path to Motherhood: No Holds Barred in Author’s Heart-Wrenching, Personal Account”
— Ann Tatko-Peterson, Contra Costa Times, February 13, 2007
(read the full text)

Interview with Peggy Orenstein
— ”Forum with Michael Krasny,” KQED-FM, San Francisco, February 12, 2007 (listen)

Interview with Peggy Orenstein
— ”Midmorning with Kerri Miller,” Minnesota Public Radio, March 3, 2007 (listen)