Critical Praise

"This is another dark perfect gem from Irene Vilar. Impossible Motherhood is like a journey into a harrowing underworld but guided by Vilar's gifts and her light we emerge in the end transformed, enlightened and oh so alive."

—Junot Diaz, Pulitzer-prize winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

"I have never read a book like Impossible Motherhood ... No one of her gender has ever summoned the brutally raw, transcendent courage to write such a book --- and yes, confess to such a troubling story... I can think of no better word to describe the impact of Impossible Motherhood than a blessing, the blessing of a profound and eloquent intelligence forcing itself to mend a shattered self, reminding us that the battle over abortion floats atop the suffering, transgressions, and aching indelible pain of real people, struggling individuals who embody both futility and hope, moral confusion and moral clarity, misshapen love and spiritual metamorphosis."

—Bob Shacochis, author of Easy in the Islands

"Impossible Motherhood tells why [Irene Vilar] had 15 abortions in 16 years…How is that humanly possible in either sense of the word --- the moral or the physical? In the telling, however, it seems as inevitable as sunrise...Vilar, who eventually escaped this horrid cycle to have two children, writes not to excuse, but to explain herself."

—Elle Magazine

"Irene Vilar is an author who is able to take a scalpel to her soul, and, wielding it as capably as the best of surgeons, cut away delusion and artifice to reveal her dark and disturbing coming of age story…. That [Vilar] has been able to bloom in her own way as a writer of brutal honesty and profound intelligence reveals the strong, courageous spirit of a survivor."

—ForeWord Magazine