XX exists in a world where ovum-to-ovum technology exists, which allows two cis women to have a biological child together. This is a concept that feels like it's both science fiction yet something that we're currently on the cusp of.

XX follows Jules and Rosie, a long-term couple who are chosen to take part in a study . Once it comes to light that they're one of only two couples who get pregnant, they are hounded by friends, family and the media throughout the pregnancy which takes a toll on their relationship.

So much is explored in this book including children, the impact they can have on a relationship, tenuous connections with family, and how invasive the British media can be. The fact that it felt so realistic just added to the heightened tension throughout. I was rooting for Jules and Rosie and just waiting for the other shoe to drop at the same time.

This was a really interesting commentary on equal rights and the applications of science. I loved that it was both rooted in reality but also a dystopia and I would definitely read another book by Angela Chadwick if it explored similar themes or moral and ethical dilemmas.

This is a thought-provoking title! Angela delves into a lot of really interesting and provocative ideas, but still tells a fantastically gripping story whilst doing so. So many of the issues that she touched on are so relevant that I'm almost surprised ovum-to-ovum isn't something we've come across in this country yet. At first I was surprised by how harshly opposed she painted most of the characters, but upon further reflection it probably would be an accurate response from press and a certain loud category of people today. Definitely made me think!!

Unfortunately this book was not for me, it was a bit slower than I would like and it just didn't hold my attention. I am sure other people will love it!

I found this a very disturbing read, dealing with political ethical subject matters that I found to be uncomfortable reading, particularly in the current climate, for this reason I did not finish the book.

did not like this at all. found it bland and boring, didnt like any of the characters and overall found it to be a bit TERFy, not a fan

Love the concept of this book. It is very scary to think as to how this could so easily happen in real life.

There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

Read July 20

This was a really interesting concept and the book was written extremely well. Everything was well-researched, the science, the way media works, the pro and con voices. I really enjoyed the way it examined upbringing and how that can affect your opinions and how you react to things. I loved the relationship between Jules and Rosie, it was so real and genuine and sweet, I loved that it wasn’t all good all the time. Perfection is over-rated. I do feel that Rosie took a little too long to come around after their argument. She didn’t seem to want to listen at all. It was great that they eventually reunited. I also loved the prologue and the snippet into their life now.

Unfortunately I didn’t love this one as much as I was hoping to. I liked the idea behind it and the storyline, but it fell flat for me. I can see why some people love this one, but it just wasn’t for me.

Unfortunately I was unable to get in to this story and had to put it down, however, I'm sure it is a highly loved book and appreciated by the right readers.

XX is good, but I was expecting much more from it. I feel like it focuses too narrowly on the negative media attention around the event and Jules' mental health, when there would be so much more to consider in such a momentous trial. I was disappointed that Rosie got pregnant so easily. I thought it would take much longer and there would be much more drama around the getting pregnant bit. I would've liked to have seen a lot more of Rosie's perspective and a bit more on the daughter's life as well. This one should've been right up my street, so it's a shame that I didn't love it!

Thank you for the opportunity to review this title. Unfortunately I due to technical difficulties I was unable to download the book so cannot post a review.

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this title but the premise seemed intriguing. It is sci-fi in theme but it focuses on the human impact of scientific advances and it does so in a convincing and engaging manner. The scenario of ovum to ovum fertilisation seems so probable and not at all far-fetched that the issues it creates are ones that seem real and deeply relevant. I really enjoyed the growth and emotional journeys of the 2 main characters but really related to the non-pregnant partner. Her doubts, regrets at the loss of her old pre-baby life and, as a motherless mother myself, her sense of lacking certain knowledge imparted by mothers necessary to becoming a mother really hit home. The writing stalled a little in places but I found the subject matter carried it. Really nice, if a little cheesy, feel good ending.

I read this book with ease in a day. This was a brilliant read and one that I would describe as 'feminist contemporary dystopian fiction'. It features a wide range of topics each one relevant and also incredibly thought-provoking. The characters were wonderfully fleshed out and believable. This is a great read for fans of The Handmaids Tale and Red Clocks.

Did not enjoy this book - found it reminded to much of Handmaids Tale. Not so much the setting, more the style - seemed to jump on a bandwagon of novels and this just wasn't for me.

DNF at 34%.

I went into this with high hopes but it's so boring and heavy. I got to just over a third of the way through, and the characters aren't likeable. They're so bland and there's nothing about them that makes me want to continue reading. Jules is passive, Rosie is frustrating, Anthony is annoying, Rosie's parents are bland and I did actually kind of appreciate Jules's dad for being the only character in this book to actually have an opinion. The major downside to this book is that it feels longer than it is, and nothing really actually happens.

Also, there are plenty of women who would benefit from a development like this, not just lesbians.

XX proposes the idea of ovum-to-ovum fertilisation, of a world where two women can create life together without any male assistance.  At its centre are lesbian couple Juliet and Rosie who gain a place in the first human clinical trial after the government vote to permit the technique.  While the pair try to remain anonymous, their names leak and a media storm builds.  XX is another in a long line of novels exploring feminist ideas in fictional form, with recent examples such as Joanne Ramos' The Farm and Helen Sedgwick's The Growing Season.  Still, XX takes a gentler tone, concentrating on the impact of o-o fertilisation on the micro rather than macro level.  In their simple search for a family, can Juliet and Rosie survive the maelstrom that the o-o fertilisation has unleashed?

Chadwick makes Juliet her narrator, an interesting choice since Rosie is the one who becomes pregnant.  Juliet has always been ambivalent about motherhood, content in the pattern of her life with Rosie.  She agrees to children as an act of love towards her partner.  Initially they plan to use donor sperm but when the clinical trial is green-lit, the couple are excited by the possibility of a child who they would both be related to.  Any other route to parenthood would, they feel, be second best.

O-o fertilisation is described as functioning in a similar fashion (and with a comparable success rate) to IVF.  Ten couples are accepted for the trial and of these, two women conceive.  Rosie is one of these.  Predictably, there is a strong conservative backlash against the technique with politician Richard Prior, a recognisable proto-Nigel Farage figure, campaigning for it to be abolished.  With the method using two ova, the resultant fetus will only ever be XX and never XY, so protestors claim that men will become an endangered species.  And there are the more familiar nay-sayers who claim that all children need a mother and a father, that any variation from the nuclear family is unnatural, that the whole set-up is an abomination.

Having hoped to keep their participation within the trial private, conflict arises when Rosie and Juliet discover their names have been leaked to the press.  The couple find themselves at odds over who might have betrayed them.  Since Juliet is herself a journalist, pressure mounts for her to report on the story and her steadfast refusal to comment leads to a toxic atmosphere in the newsroom.  XX manages a very successful commentary on the dog-eat-dog world of tabloid culture, side-stepping reporting on the science to instead cater towards the very lowest common denominator.  In vain may the researchers behind the trial proclaim their academic credentials and explain all the work that has gone in, if Barry from Basingstoke says he thinks it sounds a bit iffy, then his opinion holds equal weight.

Chadwick manages to make o-o fertilisation seem highly plausible, this alternate world where it exists is otherwise identical to our own.   On a personal level, the premise of the book did gave me pause as I remember having a conversation around fifteen years ago with a girl who insisted excitedly that this technology was not far way.  She was thrilled at the possibility of having a baby with her then-girlfriend.  Science has not arrived there yet but she died by her own hand nearly five years ago - we were never close friends but her passing haunted me nonetheless.  I wish she could have read this book.


XX poses some thought-provoking questions on how two-mother babies might change the way our world works.  The scientists suggest that it would have potential to help with endangered species, if two-ovum fertilisation could boost areas of low breeding stock.  Heterosexual couples where the man is infertile could use a second egg from a female relative, akin to sperm donation.  But then there is the undercurrent of concern.  If women had a choice, would we not all wish to be guaranteed to produce a daughter?  And with expectations of mothers so much higher than those of fathers, would even heterosexual women perhaps prefer to reproduce with a close friend rather than a feckless male who expects a round of applause every time he changes a nappy?

However, Chadwick only makes these points in passing.  In contrast to The Growing Season, which implies that its imagined 'pouch' completely changes how humans reproduce, XX makes a case for how little things would change.  It is a biological instinct to wish to reproduce with the one you love; I remember realising myself that I no longer simply wanted 'a' baby, but rather to have my partner's baby.  I fell in love with a whole new version of him when I saw him with our child.  O-o fertilisation would never be able to undo that.  I did wish that Chadwick had pressed home on the point about baby boys.  I remember feeling very uncomfortable in an all female prenatal class as various women expressed disappointment at discovering they were having a son.  There is something so very unsavoury about that rising expectation that all women must long for daughters, that a male child must be a disappointment.  Not only does it feel like the worst ingratitude for a healthy baby, but there is something incredibly special about baby boys.  If I were ever to have a daughter, I have no doubt that I would cherish her too but when my son was put in my arms, I would not have changed him for a kingdom.

However, I did find Chadwick's depiction of Juliet's maternal ambivalence to be deeply intriguing.  In the heteronormative model of parenting, we are used to men being outsiders to the physical process of pregnancy.  But in this imagined version, Juliet is a mother who is not pregnant.  She never even felt very maternal in the first place.  She is proclaimed as the first female 'dad' and between the natural upheaval that pregnancy brings and then the mounting stress of press persecution, Juliet's well-being starts to buckle.  By far the most rounded character in XX, Chadwick evokes vividly Juliet's awkwardness and low self-esteem.  She seems so vulnerable, trying to preserve her family unit and her dignity as the tide rises round her - I just wanted to give her a hug.  With growing awareness around perinatal mental health issues, I did wish that Chadwick had drawn this strand back together.  There is nothing unusual or unnatural about feeling overwhelmed about imminent parenthood even in these most unusual of circumstances.

The strange thing is that while the technology around the imagined o-o fertilisation may be a long way in the future, the debate around two-mother/two-father families belongs in the past.  I am in my thirties now and a girl who I grew up with had two mothers - at least three decades of children born by donor insemination.  Similarly, where once it was deemed unnatural for a child to be conceived in a test tube, these children too are long grown up and producing the next generation.  We know that the sexuality of one's parents has no bearing on the kind of person you grow up to be.  We know that the method via which one is conceived is equally irrelevant.  Other than the obvious fact that o-o fertilisation does not exist, all other arguments against it feel like narrow-minded bigotry.

XX bucks the general trend in feminist speculative fiction where the future is implied to be very bleak.  Even though it is set in a world where post-truth right-wing populism also holds sway, XX has an optimism about what what the future might hold.  Rather than fear-mongering about faceless corporations exploiting the fertility of women, XX keeps things on a personal level - two people who love each other decide to have a baby together.  This is a story quite literally as old as time and yet whenever we see that two has become three, that a new life has begun, the human instinct is to rejoice in a new family's happiness.  Although other reviews have labelled XX as provocative, I actually found it to be the opposite.  Rather than any attempt to be ground-breaking, Chadwick instead states the case quietly for small steps being the key to a more inclusive and diverse view of what family truly means.

XX is such a clever book and so much more. For me it was a little break from my usual diet of thrillers and psychological misfits and it was a truly welcome and brilliant change. In XX we meet Jules and Rosie, a lesbian couple who are very much in love with one another. Jules has never particularly hankered after parenthood but when news breaks of a trial of ovum to ovum fertilisation where a woman could ‘father’ a child, Jules sees it as the opportunity to realise Rosie’s dream and share a family that is truly theirs.

What follows for them is a dark journey which exposes human nature at its darkest; judgmental and cruel, particularly when their identities are leaked to the press. A journalist herself, Jules believes that the only way to deal with it is to starve the media of any interviews and to keep yheir distance. As two people who simply want have a child of their own they cannot prepare themselves for the horrific backlash against them and it will test them and their relationship to the maximum.

This is such a wonderfully written novel. Told from Jules’ point of view it is achingly real and so raw that you almost feel as she does. It would be a fantastic book to discuss within a book club as it raises so many fundamentally human questions about birth, family and morals. It could certainly provoke some intense conversations as it is touching on issues that are debated globally yet at its heart is a very tender love story about two people simply wanting a family.

Shocking at times, also heartbreaking and most certainly thought provoking, XX is a great read and one that I think I will be thinking about for a long time to come.

I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect from XX but I ended up loving it; the story felt very believable & I feel like Angela Chadwick understands people really well because all of her characters personalities/reactions/etc. were spot on. I loved the relationship between Jules & Rosie, & wanted a baby for them just as much as they did. XX is a very emotional read that pulls at your heartstrings & your womb.

Books like this are key to opening people’s eyes & I hope that one day science like that in the book is truly possible.

⚠️ This book contains discussions violence, rape, miscarriage, homophobia (to the extreme) & mental health issues ⚠️

Extended Review: https://wp.me/p8MbIo-2IY

I struggled to get into this book as I found I didn't particularly like the lead character (point of view character) but I am glad I persevered as the story really picked up as it went on. The female/female pregnancy and the impact on the couple and their surroundings is very well covered and there is much here to applaud. It also seems timely with the debates currently ongoing about "otherness" and what constitutes family. I will look out for other work from this author.

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.