I really enjoyed the writing style of this - it's beautiful - but I found the plot a bit slow to start and didn't totally feel convinced by some of the twists and turns when it did.

It was pretty clear from early on that something supernatural was going on in this book. THere isn't a lot of basis for the supernatural, no hints of magic or exploration of mythology. Part of the problem is that Quinn inventing this story to cover a trauma doesn't really work either. She doesn't come across as traumatized or delusional. I think there are two things that would have made this book work better for me. 1) More uncertainty. If I had ever really questioned Quinn's version of events, considered her unreliable. A little more back and forth. 2)If there had been more basis for the mythology, a clearer sense of the creatures involved.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to read this. An intriguing idea. Sometimes the most obvious solutions provide the answers to our questions, but not in this case. When sixteen year old virgin Quinn discovers she is pregnant there's all sorts of rumours circulating. She sticks to her story, and we eventually come to be told about a mysterious connection she has to The Deeps, spirits of the ocean. Mystical, more than a little unusual and strangely entertaining.

Marianna Baer’s THE INCONCEIVABLE LIFE OF QUINN is a unique and unusual story of a girl who discovers she is pregnant, but has no recollection of how, when, or with whom it might have happened. Mainly told from her point of view, but with a number of brief chapters from several others in Quinn’s life, she attempts to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Her search for answers takes her down strange, disturbing, disquieting paths, but also those that are beautiful and magical and filled with wonder. All of which make for a different and haunting and thoroughly engaging read.

The daughter of a politician that turns up pregnant is enough to make headlines. But when it’s uncovered that she claims to be a virgin, the story explodes. Some believe she’s a liar. Some assume she’s covering up a traumatic event. And some believe she’s carrying the next messiah.

Having no memory of the conception, Quinn doesn’t know what to believe. Could she have forgotten a romantic night with her boyfriend Jesse? Could she have blocked out a violent attack from a stranger or someone she knows? Could she have been drugged? Could she be going crazy? Could there have been magical, mystical, or supernatural forces at work? Or could a higher power have bestowed her with a gift?

Her friends think she’s keeping secrets. Her family thinks she’s either lying, deluded, or unhinged. Her therapist wants Quinn to discover the truth by herself. The media loves having a juicy bit of gossip. The religious fanatics just want a piece of her.

And until she can solve the mystery, anything is possible.

Marianna Baer has created a story that has both elements of reality and of myth. She touches upon several real-life issues from unplanned teen pregnancy and the choices that follow, to dysfunctional families, to faith, religion, and zealotry, to mental health and wellness, to sexual assault, to the destructive influence of the media. And she balances this with the possibility of something elemental, spiritual, mythical, otherworldly.

THE INCONCEIVABLE LIFE OF QUINN gives you a lot to think about and invites you to come to your own conclusion. It is a curious, compelling, and rather marvelous tale of a girl whose life is most definitely inconceivable.

I'm not sure how to start this. I'm going to just keep this short. I knew it was magical realism from the get so I did not mind that. I happen to like the genre. Something about this just wasn't for me. 

Quinn was a bit annoying if i'm honest with myself. Her friends were gossiping always and showed very little support for her. I know teens are crappy to each other a lot but it seemed a bit much. 
I didn't feel like we got much of a resolution in the end of this. 
We never truly know about the supernatural aspect of it. It is also introduced late into the game as well so I never had time to get into that aspect of it. 

I think that some people will for sure like this books. It was written well and the POV jumping made it interesting. This book just wasn't for me! I hope you all get out and give it try. Hopefully you like it better than me.

THE INCONCEIVABLE LIFE OF QUINN was a fascinating, readable story. Quinn finds herself unexpectedly pregnant at age sixteen. She has never had sex with her boyfriend Jesse. In fact, she doesn't remember ever having sex at all. As she tries to solve the mystery of how she became pregnant, things around her change. Her father is running for Congress in a district where he should be a shoe-in until Quinn's pregnancy raises questions about the family. She finds herself distanced from her friends because she can't tell them that she has no idea how she became pregnant.

Quinn's insistence to her doctor that she's never had sex and is a virgin is spread to the internet by someone in the lab at her doctor's which leads religious fanatics of all kinds to gather outside her home and trash her reputation on social media. In order to protect her, her parents take away all her access to her friends and social media which just leaves her feeling even more isolated.

Quinn dwells on the two weeks in May that she spent in Maine at a home once owned by the grandmother her father hates for abandoning him and who committed suicide by walking into the sea. Quinn remembers some strange things from her childhood from the time she nearly drowned to times when the sea seemed to welcome her. She remembers bits and pieces of an old children's story about the Deeps who live in the ocean. 

A big theme in this one is the role that social media plays in our lives. The social media storm about Quinn's pregnancy causes her father to end his campaign for Congress. Rumors of sexual abuse spread rapidly but without any evidence. The role of social media in spreading rumors about Quinn makes her an internet sensation and destroys any sense of privacy. It doesn't help that Quinn is herself struggling to put together what really happened in May. 

This was an engaging and thought-provoking story told from a variety of viewpoints - Quinn's, her boyfriend Jesse's, a woman who believes that Quinn might be carrying the new messiah, and others.

I really enjoyed this book and thought that the preimise was very interesting and unique. I have never read a book that dealt with an issue where someone is pregnant but they could not possibly be since they never had sex. 

The first half of the book we see Quinn trying to figure out how she got pregnant and seeing how her pregnancy affects her family, especially her dad’s campaign. I did like Quinn but there were times where she was very annoying but to be fair if I was in her situation I would probably act the way she did. She knows she has not had sex, she does have a long term boyfriend but they never had gone that far. Her parents were very frustrating and did not help her situation at all. I knew that there was going to be a religious aspect to the book since the synopsis hinted to Quinn’s baby perhaps being the next messiah. That part was interesting and it was written really well. Media played a big part in this book; Baer did a great job showing how the media twists everything and do not care if they have correct sources, or any sources at all, and who they harm in the process.

I do recommend this book to others and think that it is a good book that deals with hard issues

This book was was thrilling, evocative, and very memorable. Even though it was not perfect, I would recommend it to anyone looking for a meaningful YA book.

I'd rate it 3.5. This lacked that shine of a true 4-star. On the other hand, this is in no way an ordinary YA.

Quinn is your everyday teenager, who has finally turned the crush on Jesse her best friend into a full-on relationship, and now is afraid to lose him. She has no idea how she got pregnant when the two still haven't gone far. Could it have been a suppressed trauma? Or are the fanatics right and her virgin pregnancy really doesn't have a natural cause? By the way, this isn't a religious story.

The book is mainly from Quinn's point of view, with occasional minichapters featuring other characters. And I enjoyed the resource, especially when they were one of the followers. The biggest waste about this story was not going crazy enough when they had such a plot but during those few chapters the author dared more, making the plot more unique. Unfortunately, the author didn't always seem as comfortable to run free. Although the overall result is still something different, she always kept a calm approach, which made you wonder until almost the ending if the answer to Quinn's predicament is supernatural or psychological.

Even so carefully written, the book wasn't free of plot holes. The one that bothered me the most was her doctor not checking whether she was really a virgin. Considering how fundamental that question was, couldn't they have done it? Of course, tests like that aren't definite but at least they would have tried.

Now character-wise, we have many here. I confess I wasn't too into them in the beginning but they really grew as I kept going. my favorite is still her little sister, Lydia. I wish she had participated even more—any chance of a spin-off? Quinn is very confused, of course, but I liked the way she thought. Poor girl...

It seems her father was the most polemical and I kept wondering how far he would go but was he really that bad? He did everything to protect her in some irrational, exaggerated manner, but I couldn't hate him in the end. For one, had she followed his instructions nothing would have happened, and also he did show regret for his bad choices. Moreover, all he had suffered with his mother allowed me to understand his frantic ways. I wish the whole family had reacted better but it wasn't that bad. To be honest, it felt realistic.

Now Jesse, her boyfriend, made me feel iffy about him to the end. Still, while I wouldn't say he's the ideal book boyfriend, he did have his moments. I loved how he'd agree to helping Quinn at all times. I wish I had felt more attracted to him but he fared better than I was sure he would considering how his own girlfriend ended up inexplicably pregnant.

Overall, this book needed to have gone beyond. Despite preferring to take itself too seriously, the story was sweet. You have a family with problems, magical creatures, myths, secrets... Also, there were scenes so well described I could feel them in me. This is a book I won't forget anytime soon, and it came with a great lesson on believing.

I enjoyed this book! An interesting concept and a surprising ending!

Dnf.
It was just too weird of a concept and too unbelievable. Couldn't get into it.

I got through this book really quickly and I really enjoyed it. I read it in long blocks and never got bored of it. I would've read it all in one night but I've been sick and I needed to go to sleep. I found Quinn really compelling and I also enjoyed how the narrative drops into other characters' points of view while still being focused on Quinn. The synopsis mentions that the supernatural comes into play, but for me it didn't seem to be a big part until the latter third or fourth of the book. I was really invested in the narrative, but at the end, there were big questions left unanswered. It would be too easy to have a neat ending where everything is clear, but I still feel like I'm left wondering about a few too many things. I look forward to reading future novels by Marianna Baer.

I've been reading a lot of books lately that have this thing where they decide not to give you a solution to their plot line, even though they have potentially good elements. Add this to the list of potentially good books that let me down for just such a reason, as well as disappointing writing.

I thought that the premise sounded good, but that the writing left a lot to be desired. I found myself skimming large portions of it because the writing was very dull. I wanted to rip my hair out from how slow things were going. The fact that I could skim these bits and still follow the story line proved to me how superfluous they really were. The multiple points of view did not help with this problem. They felt really extraneous because there were so many of them: Quinn, her father, her boyfriend, a potential hookup, one or two of the believers that flock to her doorstep, etc. It's unusual to have so many points of view that work successfully; I can only think of one instance (Sandy Hall's A Little Something Different - 15 different points of view and it was fun!). In The Inconceivable Life of Quinn, they all felt like too many voices pulling at what little plot there was and stretching it even thinner.

The book also felt like it was conflicted as to it's identity. Primarily written as a novel that takes place in a strictly realistic setting, there were magical realism elements that didn't get introduced in-depth until too late. Was this intentional or was it an unconscious switch? It felt like a roller coaster jerk in storytelling styles in a somewhat unpleasant manner.

The mythology of the Deeps sounded like it could have been really neat if it had been developed as an actual real thing, rather than something that might or might not have been real and that 95% of the characters thought was just a children's story.

The ending was murky, as we never get a solution to the primary questions of the novel, something that has been infuriating me lately with novels. There are huge setups and no payoffs in the end? That amped up the feeling of frustration I was experiencing through the book. I don't think I'll be trying any more of this author's work because, while her idea might have sounded appealing, the execution of it was not to my liking and would push something potentially more worthy further down or completely off my TBR list.

I did not finish this book as I did not engage with this story at all.

How can you be pregnant without remembering having sex? 17 year old Quinn Cutler finds herself in this predicament which send her life and the lives of her family members and close friends into a state of chaos. This is far from good as Gabe Cutler, Quinn's father, is running for Congress. This is the story of how this moderately dysfunctional family deals with this crisis, guarding, protecting, blaming. Quinn is caught wrestling with the present while trying to sort through memories from the past that she feels must hold some of the answers for today. Marianna Baer's The Inconceivable Life of Quinn is told from varied perspectives including those of strangers who connect with the Cutler family. I definitely didn't see the ending coming even with all the dreams that the author wove through the story to point to the answer.

I wasn't as captured with the story as I thought that I might be. The writing is clear and easy to engage with. The answer that Quinn finds is certainly unique though the characters are very "ordinary" - real-to-life - identifiable - but perhaps her reality is so different from mine that I never was captured by this book.

Quinn has two problems - 1) she's pregnant at sixteen and 2) uhhh, she's never had sex. Like, ever. Reality ensues. 

I really loved how this book took a realistic look at what would happen if the teenage daughter of a congressional candidate became pregnant but maintained that she was a virgin. All the possibilities are explored - was she raped and she's just blocking out the memory? Was she drugged? Is she the victim of long-term sexual abuse or could it be...well, something divine? Or magical? This book doesn't shy away from exploring the implication of all possible options (at one point she even begins to wonder if the father is a relative - appropriate horror ensues). The book veers into magical realism, with an emphasis on the realism, and it does so brilliantly. It drags in the middle, however, it takes forever to get some answers and then afterwards the ending feels pretty rushed. A good book overall, though.

Looking through the goodreads ratings I feel like I'm the only person who wasn't thrilled with this. Which is seriously disappointing, I was really excited for it. I love it when books have names in the title for some reason. I was also really interested by the concept of teen pregnancy.

Let me tell you a few things, teen pregnancy scares me a lot. I'm so scared of falling pregnant for a million and one reasons but mostly because I think your teen years is in most cases not the right time for anyone. But, I am really interested in what goes through a pregnant teens mind and how they feel and how everything effects them. I imagine it's incredible difficult but I feel like I didn't get a huge amount of that from Quinn. She didn't talk a lot about how the pregnancy felt and what was going through her head in regards to it.

The whole virgin pregnancy was also incredibly interesting to me for obvious reasons. But, I don't know if I like the way that played out. It was strange to me and the whole virgin Mary thing got out of hand unbelievably quickly and I don't know how believable that was..

I was very confused about the whole ocean thing and I just wasn't sure how to feel about that. It was definitely interesting but I'm just a bit confused about it. It almost seemed random. It definitely isn't where I expected that whole thing to go and I'm not sure if I'm confused because it was unexpected or because it was just confusing and I can't work out if it's offensive or not. 

I think the story revolved very much around trying to figure how the pregnancy happened which, I mean, obviously but that was almost all that happened and Quinn constantly kept going back to the ocean memory. To be fair, it was freaking dodgy and a huge part of the books but I don't know. I thought it was too much and too heavy on it. I would've liked some other stuff chucked in the mix.

I'm struggling to put together words about why I didn't like this book. It was just disappointing and I didn't get it. It wasn't what I expected and I'm kind of bummed about it. Something about it rubbed me the wrong way. I hope you have a much better experience with it should you decide to read it.

When sixteen year old Quinn finds herself astonishingly a pregnant virgin, it shakes up her family's world.
Her father a candidate for congress and so the limelight becomes heavier surrounding the family throughout her pregnancy.

Her boyfriend, Jesse and her friends all stand by her and support her through the media onslaught and people insisting she's the 'new Mary' from the Bible.

The book also deals with the situation of believing you have experienced trauma for example rape very well. Quinn goes through a period of time trying to dig up memories which she can't complete, a classic sign of trauma normally.

However, this book has an underlying myth/fable fantasy storyline interwoven. Quinn's Grandma who is now dead, previously believed in 'The Deeps' as does Quinn but her father believes his mother was seriously depressed and made it up.

It was certainly a very different story to any other and in no way a straightforward storyline. But that's what made it more interesting, it wasn't predicable and caused me to go down many roots of thinking to try and figure out who could've got Quinn pregnant and the ending sure made it all come together perfectly!

Thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book!

Feelings: I thought this story was really captivating! I was SO into what was going on and living every second with Quinn. I had some theories and was really putting my Law & Order: SVU-honed skills to use. I thought the political element was an interesting touch, making Quinn's story carry more weight in the public eye.

Issues: It took me a while to enjoy the minor character POV chapters. The first few times, it seemed disconnected and like it didn't necessarily ADD anything to the plot. Some of the later chapters did, though.

I also didn't care for the way the story jumped around at times. This may be because my copy of the book wasn't totally finished and still had some errors. But if that's not the case, there were a few jerky jumps that broke up the flow of the story.

There's a small part of me that likes how the author left the whole mystery kind of open and uncertain...but it's a really small part. The majority of me is annoyed by it. I'm all for magical realism, but this book was 99% real world with a little dose of mythology thrown in, making the pregnancy disjointed. No spoilers, but it just seemed unfinished.

The side-story of Quinn's baby being a holy, Messiah character felt like too much. I think that part could have been left out, or at least eased up, and the story would have still been gritty and mysterious. However, it made me feel confused and uncertain about the baby, itself.

Characters: I like Quinn. I thought she was spunky and had a lot of heart. I appreciated how she stuck to her guns and defended herself against...everyone. I can't imagine going through something like what she endured, but I think her reactions made sense and were well balanced.

Quinn's parents kind of surprised me. I really thought they would have somehow done more to figure out how Quinn got pregnant and by whom. They seemed resigned to the fact that they may never know. I did respect how they supported her decisions and didn't force her into anything. It was difficult, for sure, which is realistic, but they didn't pressure her. They were flawed parents and made some bad calls, but that's relatable!

Final thoughts: Interesting story that fell a little flat for me. I did enjoy it! I just was so sucked in and invested that the ending left me disappointed. Great writing style and cool overall tone.