Reconstructing Natalie

Title: RECONSTRUCTING NATALIE
Author: Laura Jensen Walker
Publisher: WestBow
September 2006
ISBN: 1-5955-4067-9
Genre: Inspirational/women’s fiction

Natalie Moore thought everything was pretty well perfect—until she discovers a mystery lump in her breast during a routine breast exam. When she visits her doctor, she learns it’s the dreaded C word. Natalie is crushed, and her boyfriend doesn’t want anything to do with her when he learns she has breast cancer. Even one of Natalie’s best friends starts staying away, like breast cancer might be contagious.

Now, Natalie is obsessed with breasts. Her mother’s, her friends’, her co-workers. It doesn’t matter. Especially when she learns that her type of cancer is more aggressive than the doctor originally suspected and Natalie has both breasts removed. Natalie fears that her love life is over before it ever began. What man will ever want to marry her now?

Recovery is more painful than Natalie thought and her parents are coddling her. Not to mention her divorced neighbor Paul who seems to think its his job to babysit her when her parents aren’t around. Will Natalie discover that there are men out there who might still love her anyway?

RECONSTRUCTING NATALIE is a wink and a smile approach to the more serious subject of breast cancer. Laura Jensen Walker is a breast cancer survivor and she approaches this book with almost gut-wrenching honesty, and in parts almost TMI. However, the book is inspiring and entertaining and I learned a lot about what some women with breast cancer experience.

I loved Natalie and her friends, but the character that I really warmed up to was the sixty-year-old Grandma in Natalie’s support group who flashed the gathered crowd with her newly constructed breasts. I totally admired her free-spirit, and her embarrassment when she realized that there was a stranger in the room was so realistic. RECONSTRUCTING NATALIE is a book you won’t want to miss. I also recommend this book for anyone you know who is diagnosed with breast cancer. I read it over the second time when I was diagnosed. $14.99. 320 pages.