Words We Cannot Say - Sita Romero - ★★★

AUTHOR: Sita Romero

GENRE: Women's Fiction, Contemporary Drama.

RATING: 3 stars.

In a Nutshell: Started off nicely but I started drifting off midway as it started going wilder. Explores many themes, but also has many strong triggers. Not a bad book, but not memorable as well.

Story Synopsis:

Penelope, an expert obstetrical nurse, is pregnant with the baby of her ex-boyfriend, who broke up with her after confessing that he wanted to save his marriage. Penelope doesn’t want this baby, but can she opt for abortion, knowing what she does about foetuses?

Nia, an ex-model and first-generation American, is happily married to Edward. The only blip in her happiness is that they don’t have children even after many years of fertility treatments. With increasing pressure from her mother, Nia has to take a call on whether IVF is the only way to go, or if Edward and she can opt for other modes of becoming parents.

Lotus is, in many ways, as unconventional as her name, being in a poly-amorous marriage with Rob, running her own yoga supplies business, and allowing her toddler to nurse at will. Lotus is sure that she wants a homebirth for the baby she’s carrying. However, when her bisexual husband’s ex-lover comes over for a brief stay, her peace of mind is disturbed.

This book tells us the story of these three distinct women, whose only common point is that they are all navigating the journey towards motherhood, albeit through different paths.

The story comes to us in the third person limited perspective of the three main characters.

Bookish Yays:

✔ I liked how the three protagonists were crafted with a distinct identity. Each of them comes from a different background in terms of financial status, job status, family background, and marital status. Even in the present, though they all are on the mothering path, their ways couldn’t be more different from each other’s. The individuality of their situations allows no confusion to creep in while reading their storylines.

✔ Penelope’s and Nia’s arcs seem mostly realistic. Nia isn’t written as a clichéd supermodel. I loved her relationship with Edward as it seemed mature, and based on mutual love and understanding. Penelope’s introductory scenes that showed her capability as an obstetrical nurse were excellent. Penelope’s arc was most interesting to me, even though she was too wavering in her decisions for my liking.

✔ Both Penelope and Nia seem self-made and independent. This also means that they always look for perfection. As the story progresses, they realise that asking for help doesn’t compromise their independence. Their characters arcs show good growth.

✔ As a debut work, the book does have the ‘kitchen sink syndrome’, with a whole load of pregnancy-related themes within the plot. We get abortion, adoption, difficult pregnancy, single pregnancy, miscarriage, stillbirth, IVF, fertility issues, weaning-related issues, labour-related problems… Surprisingly though, none of the themes felt forced in, and each topic fit into the natural progression of the women’s lives. I am still surprised at how the author managed to pull this off so well.

✔ The relationship across the women is positive. Penelope and Lotus are distantly related, and Nia knows Penelope as her husband Edward and Penelope once worked together. So their friendship across the trio isnt by choice but grows with time. They are mostly supportive and not vocally judgemental, and there are no unnecessary fights to add to the drama.

✔ I liked the short, quick chapters. Though the perspective also changes quickly, it doesn’t get confusing. The number of secondary characters is limited to the essential.

Bookish Nays:

❌ While the book starts off excellently, it delves into clichés after the midway mark. The content also becomes slightly farfetched as we reach the finish, with many exaggerations and coincidences popping in. With every OTT element, I drifted further and further away.

❌ Lotus’s lifestyle was too bohemian for conventional old me. Initially, I appreciated her approach towards living life on her own terms, but soon, it was clear that her terms weren’t based on common sense. I found it tough to connect to her as a character. The overly hippie lifestyle, the open marriage, the parenting decisions she took for her toddler, her situation with her husband Rob, her indecisiveness – all were points that stopped her from being relatable to me.

❌ The content jumps many important decision-impacting scenes, which we learn about only retrospectively through the characters’ conversations. This affects the on-page experience. At the same time, the two scenes related to childbirth are needlessly extended and in one case, even has traumatic content.

❌ The epilogue went a step too far for my liking. ‘Eight years later’ is not a justified time jump for this plot. It felt like a forced way of ensuring satisfying endings for the three characters. The story was an emotional one, so there was no need to give them all HEAs by hopping so far ahead in the future. A hopeful ending would have worked better.

❌ Though the chapters go by quickly, the story doesn’t. There were many chapters where I felt like nothing was happening. The middle section of the book drags much.

❌ This wasn’t strictly a Nay for me, but boy, is the book full of triggers! The blurb should have mentioned at least some of the content warnings because the going isn’t easy. Just as we have every possible pregnancy-related theme in the content, we also have many pregnancy-related triggers such as miscarriage, stillbirth, and infertility. Furthermore, there’s also infidelity and drug abuse. This isn’t a book to relax with.

All in all, I did love the core idea of the plot. But I began to zone out in the second half, most probably because the plot became needlessly convoluted and farfetched.

Regardless, this ought to work as a good enough option for women’s fiction readers, even though it might not be more than a one-time read. Do take heed of the triggers though.

My thanks to Red Adept Publishing, LLC and NetGalley for the DRC of “Words We Cannot Say”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.