Brooke Shields Book:

Down Came the Rain: A Mother's Story of Depression and Recovery Reviews:
fine experience
2009-09-17 - I bought this for a gift. It arrived in a timely fashion, and in good condition.

A book to warm your heart
2009-09-04 - Most of us think celebrities are perfect and live in an ideal world. This makes an average person fell good to know that everyone out there, no matter who you are, has some obstacles to deal with in their life. A great book to read over and over.

Referred to us as a good book for PPD and now referring it to others
2009-08-22 - I did not read the book as I bought it for my daughter. But evaluating my order. The book came in record time. Wayyyy before the estimated arrival time I was given. It was on the doorstep in just a couple days from my order date. That is definatly a PLUS.

This book should have been left out in the rain!
2009-08-12 - I purchased this book at the dollar store and am so glad I did. Not because I liked the book, but because it was not worth any more than one dollar! Down Came the Rain was more like a diary of Brooke Shield's life. Diaries are personal and should be kept to themselves. And that is exactly what she should have done with this book. Kept it to herself. This book is all about Brooke. Her problems, her thoughts, her feelings, her this, her that. She never cares about anyone but herself. The whole time reading the book I kept thinking to myself how sorry I felt for her children and her husband.

Brooke is depressed. Who hasn't been depressed at one time or another? You deal with it and go on. But because she dwells on the fact her entire life, she has sucked herself right into a pity party and wrote a book to invite everyone to come join her. Her book makes everyone with a tad bit of depression excuse themselves for feeling that way. There are no excuses! Pull yourself out of it and get on with your life!

A few things she wrote I thought were odd: She used fertility treatments to conceive. Doesn't fertility treatments alter your hormones and cause depression and irrational behavior? So of course she is going to go through these emotions, we don't need to write a book about it. She then takes a job in LA where she would fly to from New York. She says "It didn't seem worth it to bring Rowan on a long plane ride, so I decided to go alone." Since when is it not "worth it" to bring your baby with you?! Was it that much of an inconvenience for Brooke to take her child along? This is her selfish attitude through the entire book! All about Brooke, what Brooke wants, what Brooke feels, what Brooke needs. YUCK!

The moment of complete disappointment in having read this book did not come until the VERY end~ page 218 out of 222! Had it come right in the beginning I would have never read the book! Brooke writes about "accidentally" giving her child "a hickey". Brooke had "smothered" Rowan with kisses only to realize later that there was a "reddish mark with tiny black and blue spots" on her neck. Saying... "the odd thing is that I have never even given Chris a hickey like that!" HELLLLO! You have to "suck" to leave a hickey! This is not love, that is child abuse! Sexual child abuse! That isn't even a kiss! A child's kiss would NEVER include a sucking motion! UGH I cannot even think about it! To a CHILD she did this!

She then goes on to describe "chewing bits of food in my own mouth before giving them to her to eat". I have never heard of anyone "chewing" food before giving it to a child. Sure you split a grape, or take a bite off a cantaloupe to give to a child. But chewing it first? That is disgusting. How about when she "kissed her bloody lip, and the metallic taste of blood made me weak in the knees". Why would you kiss a bloody lip? Wouldn't you wipe it off, clean it up and asses the situation of the lip first?

It seems to me that Brooke is trying too hard to be what she thinks a mother should be. Trying to convince herself that these are things she needs to do to show everyone around her that she is a good mother. As this book reveals, she hasn't got a clue.

This book is useless to those who are actually dealing with depression. If you are dealing with true depression and not just feeling sorry for yourself, please do your research, find a better book and someone to talk to. Get help, but don't get this book.

I cannot recommend Down Came the Rain at all! This book was poorly written and I would not recommend buying or reading this book unless you can find it for [...]

Loved this book!
2009-08-02 - I went though a phase where this really helped me. Her story was very reasurring. I will give this book in the future to mommy friends who may go though Post partam depression.