YA novelist Freitas's stunning adult fiction debut (after her memoir Consent) spins nine alternating story lines about a husband and wife who initially didn't want children but, at various points, change their minds. Each "Take," as they're titled, begins the same way, with sociology professor Rose Napolitano confronted by her husband for neglecting to take her prenatal vitamins. Rose has been humoring Luke, who began pressuring Rose about having children after much prodding from his parents, who won't believe they don't want kids and aren't shy about letting them know it. From there, various consequences play out in each of the nine stories, which extend from the present to 2025. In one, Rose gives in and they have a baby. In others, Rose or Luke leaves for various reasons. The fact that Luke and Rose aren't right for each other remains consistent throughout, and becomes especially in evident Luke's controlling treatment of Rose while leading their effort to have a child. Certain variables manifest in different ways, such as how Rose meets her lover, Thomas--at work, at a book signing, or during her mother's chemo sessions--and how Thomas came to have a daughter. Freitas's prose is engaging and precise, and her what-if format proves ideal for elegantly unpacking the tensions of the plot. She balances tightly written scenes of confrontation with Rose's poignant reflections on how much she can compromise without losing herself completely. This isn't one to miss. Agent: Miriam Altshuler, DeFiore & Company. (Apr.)

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.

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. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.