"Expecting Sunshine" BY Alexis Marie Chute

After you read the book, please leave a comment below to share your thinking about it!  

​The Bereaved Optimist's Book Club was created to share book suggestions for and by families who have experienced a stillbirth.   Your unique perspective on these books is valuable! ​

Book Jacket Description: After her son, Zachary, dies in her arms at birth, visual artist and author Alexis Marie Chute disappears into her “Year of Distraction.” She cannot paint or write or tap into the heart of who she used to be, mourning not only for Zachary, but also for the future they might have had together. It is only when Chute learns she is pregnant again that she sets out to find healing and rediscover her identity―just in time, she hopes, to welcome her next child. 

In the forty weeks of her pregnancy, Chute grapples with her strained marriage, shaken faith, and medical diagnosis, with profound results. Glowing with riveting and gorgeous prose, Expecting Sunshinechronicles the anticipation and anxiety of expecting a baby while still grieving for the child that came before―enveloping readers with insightful observations on grief and healing, life and death, and the incredible power of a mother’s love.
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Book Type: Memoir of Loss & Pregnancy After 

Questions to Consider in your Comments: 
1. What feelings did this book evoke for you?
2. What was new, interesting, or surprising to you as you read?
3. Share a quote from the book.  Why did this one stand out?
4. Was anything missing or poorly done in the book?
5. Would you recommend it to other families experiencing a stillbirth?
6.  What connections did you make to your own story?
7. Does this book remind you of any others that you've read?