Culture

Book Review: ‘Firstborn,’ by Lauren Christensen

Published

12 months ago

March 18, 2025

Book Review: ‘Firstborn,’ by Lauren Christensen

FIRSTBORN: A Memoir, by Lauren Christensen

There are two fierce, fragile fighters in “Firstborn,” Lauren Christensen’s touching memoir about the life and death of her tiny daughter, Simone, who was stillborn 22 weeks into Christensen’s pregnancy. The great accomplishment of this book is that I feel I have gotten to know and care for both tenacious people — perhaps Simone a little more than her mother, through her mother’s book.

Christensen’s journey starts in her 30s with a series of unforeseeable events, all told with dry, offhand charm. These begin when Christensen surprises herself by loving a novel with a taxi-yellow cover that crosses her desk at The New York Times Book Review, where she works as an editor. Smitten, she finishes it in one sitting and, when she runs into a colleague, surprises herself further — while maybe a little bit high on “tiny edibles” — by praising the book to the skies yet struggling to recall its title. (In what is either a running gag or an act of assiduous restraint, she never names it in her memoir, but there are enough clues for a reader to identify it as Gabriel Bump’s 2020 novel “Everywhere You Don’t Belong.”) After the review runs, the author follows her on Twitter and she follows him back; one thing leads to another until finally — after much video chatting during Covid lockdowns — they fall madly, unstoppably in love and buy a house together.

Christensen’s narrative style underlines interesting particulars while sliding over much that we are left to guess at. What we don’t know, we may not need to know. (To paraphrase Henry James, there are some conversations we are not meant to overhear.) One of my favorite passages in the book concerns the way Christensen both did and did not want a child. Astutely, she notices every waver, every “maybe, but.” According to her, “A life with Gabe alone seemed to me as full as a life could possibly be.” According to her sensible therapist, to whom Christensen gives full credit, “if I was neither menopausal nor using any form of birth control, she said, then I was trying to become pregnant.” And so she does.

Yet in the kind of foreshadowing that life offers, the pregnancy is touched from the start by mortality. As Christensen undergoes routine ultrasounds and meets her midwife, her family is simultaneously grieving and supporting her beloved grandfather Gong Gong, who is suffering from Parkinson’s and memory failure at the end of his long life. Christensen asserts his right — and hers, and ours — to be something other than dignified, to be “miraculous and embarrassing, fundamentally ungovernable” in our bodies. “Despite our delusions,” she writes, “none of us ever had much control over our lives, or our deaths, at all.”

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Culture

Try This Quiz on Thrilling Books That Became Popular Movies

Published

4 days ago

February 23, 2026

Press Room

Try This Quiz on Thrilling Books That Became Popular Movies

Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about printed works that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions and more. This week’s challenge highlights thrillers first published as novels (or graphic novels) that were adapted into popular films. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the books and their screen versions.

Culture

Test Your Knowledge of the Authors and Events That Helped Shape the United States

Published

2 weeks ago

February 16, 2026

Press Room

Test Your Knowledge of the Authors and Events That Helped Shape the United States

Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. In honor of Gen. George Washington’s birthday on Feb. 22, this week’s super-size challenge is focused on the literature and history related to the American Revolution. In the 10 multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to exhibits, books and other materials related to this intense chapter in the country’s story, including an award-winning biography of the general and first U.S. president.

Culture

Video: How Much Do You Know About Romance Books?

Published

2 weeks ago

February 13, 2026

Press Room

Video: How Much Do You Know About Romance Books?

Let’s play romance roulette. No genre has dominated the books world in the last few years. Like romance, it accounts for the biggest percentage of book sales, their avid fan bases. Everyone has been talking about romance as a Book Review editor and as a fan of the genre myself, I put together a to z glossary of 101 terms that you should know if you want to understand the world of romance are cinnamon roll. You may think a cinnamon roll is a delicious breakfast treat, but in a romance novel, this refers to a typically male character who is so sweet and tender and precious that you just want to protect him and his beautiful heart from the world. Ooh, a rake. This is basically the Playboy of historical romance. He defies societal rules. He drinks, he gambles. He’s out on the town all night and is a very prolific lover with a bit of a reputation as a ladies’ man. FEI these are super strong, super sexy, super powerful, immortal, fairy like creatures. One of my favorite discoveries in terms that I learned was stern brunch daddy. A lot of daddy’s usually a male love interest who seems very intimidating and alpha, but then turns out to be a total softie who just wants to make his love interest brunch. I think there’s a misconception that because these books can follow these typical patterns, that they can be predictable and boring. But I think what makes a really great romance novel is the way that these writers use the tropes in interesting ways, or subvert them. If you can think of it, there’s probably a romance novel about it. Oops, there’s only one bed. This is one of my personal favorite tropes is a twist on forced proximity. Characters find themselves in very close quarters, where inevitably sparks start to fly. Why choose is the porkulus dose of the romance world. Sometimes the best way to resolve a love triangle is by turning it into a circle, where everyone is invited to play. Oops, we lost one spice level. There’s a really wide spectrum. You can range from really low heat or no spice, what might also be called kisses. Only then you start to get into what we call closed door or fade to Black. These books go right up to the moment of intimacy, and then you get into what we call open door, which is more explicit. And sometimes these can get very high heat or spicy and even start verging into kink. There’s one thing that almost every romance novel has in common. It’s that no matter what the characters get up to in the end, it ends with a happily ever after. I say almost every romance novel. Sometimes you’re just happy for now.