The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano

Starred review from February 1, 2021
Reminiscent of Kate Atkinson's Life After Life or the movie Sliding Doors, Freitas' novel explores nine (but certainly not all) possible outcomes when a woman who has never wanted children marries a man who gradually decides he does. Each of the nine "takes" begins with the same 2006 argument: Luke, a photographer, discovers Rose, a sociologist, is not taking the prenatal vitamins she'd agreed to. How the couple's argument progresses--to have a baby or not--resolves differently with each telling. In carefully interwoven segments, which multiply as one choice leads to others, events sometimes diverge, sometimes overlap. In some versions Rose has a baby, in others she doesn't. In some cases Luke behaves badly, in some Rose does. Friends and relatives maintain their underlying roles whether they are Rose's or Luke's parents, lovers for whom Rose or Luke may or may not leave the marriage, a child named Addie who may or may not be born. Luke always has one side of the argument, but the novel belongs to Rose, a feminist academic, and is told from her viewpoint. Although the plotlines continue until 2025, her perspective has a decidedly pre-2020 feel. Rose's world is full of White professionally and educationally privileged millennial women who talk in philosophical terms about feminism and their battle to maintain control over their lives yet are unapologetically oblivious to real-world politics and suffering. Read today, following the maze of numbered takes becomes an addictive game, highly literate escapism, like watching The Queen's Gambit. Which is not to say the novel shies away from difficult issues surrounding the position of motherhood in women's lives. Rose complains she is "damned if she didn't become a mother and damned if she does become one, too." In one of her lives she realizes that while she doesn't like motherhood, she loves her child. And in every version, Rose and her own mother's relationship rings lovingly, if painfully, true. Highly readable and provocative.

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March 1, 2021
Rose Napolitano knew she didn't want to have children. At least, that version of Rose was sure. Novelist and nonfiction author Freitas (Consent, 2019) outlines nine versions of Rose's adult years, all starting with the character's confrontation with her husband over a full bottle of prenatal vitamins and diverging wildly from there. Some versions of Rose's life include Addie, Rose's daughter, while others highlight the challenges of abortion, marital infidelity, illness, and divorce. Instead of weighing the value of one timeline against the other, Freitas weaves difficult circumstances in with the good, setting the freedom of childless life against the monotony of infant caretaking, the heartbreak of divorce against the thrill of a new lover, the all-encompassing love for a newborn against the resentment for a partner unwilling to do their share. As the novel continues, some versions of Rose's lives come to an end, while others begin anew. Thoughtfully introducing one version at a time while keeping Rose's lives numbered, Freitas walks readers through the fullest picture of one woman's life-changing decisions. Fans of Kate Atkinson's Life after Life (2013), Liane Moriarty's What Alice Forgot (2011), and the film Sliding Doors will find themselves happily lost in this charming, heartfelt, thought-provoking novel.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from April 16, 2021

After several young adult and nonfiction books (including Consent: A Memoir of Unwanted Attention), Freitas debuts an extraordinary, multifaceted novel for adults. Rose Napolitano is a young woman on the precipice of a life-changing decision: whether to have a child. A staunch feminist professor of sociology, Rose has never wanted children. She was explicit about that while dating her husband, Luke, and he proclaimed that he was of the same mind. But a few years into their seemingly happy marriage, his parents start exerting their influence in hopes of getting a grandchild. Luke caves, and eventually Rose agrees to start taking prenatal vitamins; this is where our story starts. And starts again. Because this is no ordinary tale of a young couple verging on parenthood; instead it's a glimpse into all the different lives Rose could have. There are nine different lives here, some more fully realized than others. Starting one morning in 2006, Rose and Luke fight over the prenatal vitamins, and the outcome of that fight changes depending on the life Rose chooses (for instance, she can choose whether to have a baby, whether to have an extramarital affair, and whether to break up her marriage), until the story's end in 2025. VERDICT This is a serious yet fantastical look at relationships, family, and feminism, told in a singular voice; book groups should take note. The closest read-alikes are Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson, and Replay, by Ken Grimwood.--Stacy Alesi, Eugene M. & Christine E. Lynn Lib., Lynn Univ., Boca Raton, FL

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