I don't even remember requesting this novel for review...
It's an interesting novel, with plenty of observations about motherhood and reproduction. Intriguing technology. It's pretty well written. Worth a look.

"Our standards as a culture keep sinking to new lows. It's no longer a question of whether women can do it all. It's just assumed that we will. It's assumed that we can be great careerists and mothers and spouses and still magically keep the laundry in check. Which is not only impossible, it's mass exploitation. It's keeping women in a permanent state of fatigue and anxiety. I can't be a part of it." •
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I very much enjoyed this thought-provoking, feminist, dsytopian novel.

Mother of Invention is a fast-paced science fiction novel set in the conceivable near future. The main protagonist, Tessa, is a childless, forty-something, successful tech executive and feminist author of Pushing Through: A Handbook for Young Women in the New World. An heir with major daddy issues, Luke Zimmerman, wants to invent something groundbreaking in order to attain fame. Luke puts together a team of world-renowned doctors and staff and wants Tessa on board. He proposes his idea to Tessa, to accelerate pregnancy terms to nine weeks. Tessa is intrigued and they quickly become business partners, merging their companies and creating The Seahorse Solution. They begin their first human trial with three female volunteers. Complications arise and the plot thickens as Tessa learns there is pivotal information that Luke has been keeping from her.

The synopsis of this book immediately piqued my interest and I knew I had to read it. I devoured this thrilling page-turner in two sittings and was captivated the entire time. Tessa is a strong, complex character who is extremely career driven. She isn't very likeable and she's okay with that. Her husband, Peter, wants to have a child and offers to become a stay-at-home father so Tessa can continue her career with minimal interruptions. Tessa obliges but is unable to get pregnant and is secretly relieved. Luke is the heir and son to the founder of the popular social media company, LikeMe. After his estranged father's sudden death, Luke is convinced that he needs to do something 'radical and extraordinary'.

Tessa's main intentions for co-founding The Seahorse Solution were to empower women, grant them the joys of motherhood while also helping them quickly get back on track with their careers. Luke's only concern seemed to be self-glorification. His inspiration for The Seahorse Solution was a previous medical anomaly, The CleftKids, a group of children (now young adults) who were born as a result of accelerated gestation. Luke was infatuated with them but any remaining articles and links to their existence were quickly being erased.

One of the CleftKids, Viv, is a bright college student who is determined to figure out why she is showing premature signs of aging and why their story is being eradicated. We learn that in the aftermath of a terror attack, the US created the Internal Stability Agency, an egregious, top-secret government agency with its own agenda to prevent any type of hysteria or excessive questioning amongst citizens. Viv has become a nuisance for the ISA and they've sent one of their agents to bring her in for the foreseeable future unless she cooperates. To complicate things, the agent and Viv develop feelings for each other.

This story raised a plethora of questions about bioethics, feminism and motherhood. It was interesting to witness the power struggle between the men and women in this book. Most of the men seemed to be tainted in some way. I loved watching the friendship blossom between Tessa and the three volunteers. Tessa truthfully cared for them and opened up to them, which wasn't easy for her. Tessa appeared tough on the outside but seemed to struggle with her own internal demons. She was not happy with Peter and we watched her marriage crumble as she became more entangled with her career. It was difficult for her to admit that she did not want a child of her own and it made her feel flawed and weak. The clash between motherhood and our careers is disappointing but all too real.

The majority of the book was elaborate and eerily believable, however, the ending was too neat and tidy. It seemed rushed and left me with a lot of questions. I don't think that certain characters should have gotten off as easy as they did. If the book was a bit longer and consistent all the way through to the end, I'm sure I would have rated it 5 stars. Overall, I loved this story and thought it was extremely intriguing and thought-provoking. This book gives you a lot to ponder over and you'll be thinking about it long after you've finished reading. If you like thrilling books with a splash of science-fiction or were a fan of The Handmaid's Tale, this one is for you! Thanks so much to Amazon Publishing for my free copy in exchange for an honest review.

The idea for this book was amazing, the idea of accelerated pregnancy was interesting along with a cover up by the government. And I had really high hopes because I saw a lot of potential for it to be a great read.
However, as much as I enjoyed reading this book the ending kind of felt hallow and rushed. The last two chapters Tessa says she’s pregnant and then we jump to 30 weeks later.

I would say, if you are wanting to read this book, be prepared to not have a a fulfilling ending.

Tessa Callahan, author of Pushing Through: A Handbook for Young Women in the New World is the Sheryl Sandberg in this satirized version of Silicon Valley. Together with Luke, the son of the late Reed Zimmerman — founder of the social media medium LikeMe — she is working towards a future where women can truly have it all: pregnancy, career, happy marriages. By using bio-technical advances, Tessa and Zimmerman cut pregnancy from nine months to nine weeks. This shortened gestation period would mean women can get back to work fast, erasing the fear that starting a family would mean the end of a woman’s ambition.

But what Tessa doesn’t realize is that both Luke and the American Government have other plans for this new biotechnology. And know the truth about what happens to children who’d been the product of the natural shortened gestation period that inspired this experiment to begin with.

What Caeli Wolfson Widger creates in Mother of Invention is a book that can be enjoyed as purely a superficial, fast-paced thriller. There are elements of romance, government conspiracy, and science fiction that are all entirely believable. But what I loved about Mother of Invention was that, for me, it posed the question I’ve been grappling with for a long time: what matters more, career or family? Can I have both? Do I need to have both?

While Widger doesn’t delve into the argument of the “natural role” of women versus where many of our ambitions lead us, the question is still posed. I was left thinking, not just about whether or not a shortened gestation period for growing a child could be the “cure” for the family versus career argument. I also was left wondering if, should I choose to have a family one day, if nine weeks versus nine months was enough time to prepare myself for my role of mother versus wife, or girlfriend, or partner, or whatever.

So while other critics might not have felt Widger dove into the politics of her novel enough, I felt she left the discussion open to her readers. By leaving Tessa’s thoughts about the ethics of what she was doing, and the ripple effect it could have on society, out of the majority of the book, we are free to decide for ourselves what we’d want for our future. Women shouldn’t need a Handbook for Young Women in the New World. We should be able to consider our options and take our futures into our own hands. Societal pressures be damned.

Going into Mother of Invention, I was prepared for a dark, Handmaid’s Tale-like view of our future. Instead, I was forced to confront my own feelings about career, motherhood, and the idea of playing god with human creation.

Mother of Invention totally keeps the promise of it's fascinating premise. I compare it in intensity to a Michael Crichton thriller. Caeli Wolfson Widger writes fantastically complex, layered, clear voiced characters, and I found myself unable to step away from their story. I actually started visualizing movie scenarios as I read, and kudos to whomever is smart enough to snag the film rights. I will be recommending Mother of Invention to anyone that wants a fast paced, character driven scifi thriller. I look forward to more from Ms. Widger.

Tessa Callahan is brilliant, but she hasn't been able to conceive one thing she wants: a child. She decides to use her abilities and resources to work on a new technology known as Seahorse. Tessa will personally assist the first three women who will be pregnant for just nine weeks before giving birth. She truly believes that this technology has the potential to help women spend less time feeling sick and more time pursuing their career and mothering their children. After the trial is underway, Tessa learns the dark origins of the technology and the secrets that allow them to continue. She will have to decide whether to see these mothers through to birth or drag the truth out into the light at the expense of her dreams and the mothers she has promised to protect.

This story asks some compelling questions. Would speeding up pregnancy actually help us? Do we need those nine months to bond with our child and prepare for a new part of our lives? If this kind of technology did exist, how would we decide who received it and who had to wait out a full pregnancy? Would having this distinction become just another round of the vaginal birth vs. cesarean, breastfeeding vs. bottle, working mother vs. stay-at-home mother wars?

Tessa seems to really want to help other women, but the reader can see where her own blind spots might hurt them even if she can't. There is a lot going on in this book, but Caeli Wolfson Widger writes compassionately and compellingly. While some of the characters in this story read like thinly veiled versions of people you might read about in the news, the questions about parenthood and the ethics of technology set in the midst of edge-of-your-seat thriller make a powerful and fascinating story.

Mother of Invention
By Caeli Wolfson Widger
Little A May 2018
364 pages
Read via Netgalley

Mother of Invention has an intriguing premise but fails to do anything interesting with it. The idea of 'accelerated gestation', reducing pregnancy to just nine weeks, is great fodder for intelligent speculative fiction. Here though, it could be replaced with any run-of-the-mill pharmaceutical innovation without any impact on the story.

As a conventional thriller it seems to work okay, with somewhat cliched elements including: a career woman blinded by hubris, a tech mogul with sketchy ethics, and a government conspiracy. Other readers may enjoy but this wasn't my cup of tea.

What a fantastic book! I was completely enthralled, if fact, as I was working or walking in the city, or hanging out with friends, this book was constantly on my mind-that’s how you know you’re reading a great book! I’m always intrigued by motherhood and the choices people make whether or not to have children and this book takes that concept, and really digs into it. I also love books with a sci-fi twist, and this certainty has that as well! Overall, a fantastic book that I will be thinking about for a long time to come!

I really liked the emotional touch of Sci-Fi blended into the story, I would say this is a psychological sci-fi thriller.

The concept of reducing the pregnancy to 9 weeks was a very good idea. I wouldn't say this is one of the thrilling thrillers, a bit slow on the action side, but I was attached to the story and would love to read from the same author again.

Despite the science-fiction idea at its core (a breakthrough procedure that promises to safely accelerate human pregnancy from nine months to nine weeks), much of this book has a ripped from the headlines feel. There’s a Facebook clone called LikeMe, with its own all-too-real privacy problems. In the wake of a terror attack, the US has created the Internal Stability Agency, a (slightly?) more nefarious rendering of the Department of Homeland Security.

There’s a simplicity to the story in that all of the female characters are some shade of good and all the male characters are some shade of ... not good. But there’s quite a bit to like in this book. The book is well-paced and was a very fast read. Tessa is a fully realized, interesting character (though her similarities to Sheryl Sandburg are striking, right down to her Lean In-like book). Most of all, though, it thinks through the implications of its premise: would it change mothers and motherhood for the better to shorten pregnancy so dramatically? Recommended.

I love novels about (and IRL advances in) reproductive technology, so I was greatly anticipating MOTHER OF INVENTION by Caeli Wolfson Widger.
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What if a human pregnancy lasted nine weeks instead of nine months? The inaugural human Seahorse Solution trial will test this concept on 3 women in a state-of-the-art, high-tech Silicon Valley facility. But what corners were cut to get to this point? What technological and medicinal information has been illegally and unethically obtained? This novel is extremely timely in regards to the current Facebook privacy concerns and Wolfson Widger was able to push the boundary of near future reproductive technology in ways that were mind-bendingly believable.
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Definitely a 5 star ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️recommended read!

I loved Widger's writing style in this book, which was both literary and a thriller (if that's even possible). The characters and story were emotionally gripping.

In my opinion, this book started off a little weak, and ended a little weak. But the middle? Oh-ho, the middle was intense. I was rapt.
So for the weak parts:
I thought that the writing started off too sterile, too descriptive and overly scientific, and it didn't draw me in. I don't know if the writing changed, or I warmed up to it, but it did take me a few chapters to get into the story.
The ending was also a little weak, in my opinion, even though I LIKED how it turned out, it just seemed like a quick closing up moment.
-The 3 main characters I feel are obviously Tessa, Tracy/Wayne/whatever his name is, and Viv. Cohort One (what they call the group of women doing the first Trial of the seahorse solution) is a big part of the story, but they're not fleshed out very much unfortunately. Despite that, they're great characters though.

The things I loved:
-The women, first off. This book has some great feminist undertones and I am living for it. The camaraderie, and the sisterly love (and the honesty that comes with that) really touched me. The male characters are eh. I mean Wayne/Tracy/Henry/Whatever his name is, is great, but the real winners are the women. Dr Gupta, Viv, Cohort One, Tessa.
-This. book. fucked. me up. At one point, I had to stop reading, because the twists and turns and secrets (OH THE SECRETS) were legitimately making me queasy? But like, in a good way???
-It's interesting to really watch the evolution Tessa goes through in this book. In the beginning, I had difficulty relating with her, but by the end she was so human. Not just an executive of a huge corporation, all consumed with work. She showed so much growth, and I love that.

Overall, if you invest your time in this I think you will like (or dare I say, love) it.
Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I...don't think this book is for me. I read it all, and kept waiting for something thrilling or dangerous or even slightly upsetting to happen to any of the characters, and nothing did. What sounded like a suspenseful biomedical novel dealing with incredible changes to reproduction turned out to be nothing more than an overwrought paean to the joys of regular motherhood.

There was no real danger to anyone and everything turned out ok for all involved.

I mean, really? Viv and Henry/Wayne/Tracy both got away from the federal government with no problem? Come on.

The book falters a bit for the first section, too full of establishing the science and "as we both know" expositional dialogue. But once it gets through that, it becomes a very interesting story. I never really got a sense of the three test subjects as characters (may just have been me) but I thought Viv and Tessa were both well-drawn and well rounded characters.

A solid 4.5 stars. I was immediately intrigued by the synopsis of this book - Silicon Valley biotech genius + feminist Tessa Calahan co-founds a company which aims to accelerate pregnancy from around 40 weeks to a mere 9, a scientific breakthrough inspired by a few dozen "natural" cases of this a few decades prior. The implications of this are pretty widespread and come as a shock to Tessa and others who've been affected by past cases of AG (accelerated gestation). I don't want to give too much away here, and I'm certainly leaving out a lot with my own synopsis above, but this book didn't disappoint.

I both loved and related to Tessa, so dedicated to her work but torn on how to balance her professional achievements with a struggling marriage. She was a fantastically complex protagonist and probably my favorite thing about the book. I also loved the other women in the book, from the Cohort to Viv and even Dr. Gupta, all of whom were less sketched out but still three dimensional. This is a story about science, about the conflicting nature of womanhood in particular and humanity in general, and just a really interesting read.