I was sent The English American by Alison Larkin for review, well, many months ago. It has taken me until now to pick it up. Once picked up, I couldn't put it down. Not only is the writing absolutely phenomenal but the subject was so close to my heart that I simply needed to know how it ended.

Not a spoiler because it doesn't end in the way you expect but:... more

I decided to read Then She Found Me, a novel by Elinor Lipman, after I found out that it was being turned into a movie starring Bette Midler and Helen Hunt. I found it at our library, brought it home and stared at it for awhile. If it was being turned into a movie, well, what did that mean? Was it just that good... more

I don't often hold much hope for novels written about the birth parent experience. Fiction leaves room for exaggeration and personal opinion and so I try to go into reading with an open mind. My mind was blown by B-Mother by Maureen O'Brien (2007). While, in the end, some loose ends tie up too neatly, I think this is one of the best fictional books I've read on adoption and the birth parent experience.

The main character,... more

As my faithful readers know, I've been reviewing one book per month throughout this calendar year. The challenge, of course, is to find books about adoption that focus on the birth parent experience or, speaking of a novel, that are written from the birth parent perspective. I've made exceptions for novels that were written from the adoptee perspective as long as they contained enough birth parent involvement. The August-into-September chapter-by-chapter review of Lifegivers leaves me with nothing left on my list.

And so, I implore my readers:... more

After fourteen chapters of in depth review, we've finally finished ... more

In the last chapter of ... more

As we near the end of ... more

It's hard work to be a "good" birth parent and chapter twelve of ... more

I think many adoptive parents would be interested in reading chapter eleven of ... more

Before actually reading chapter ten of ... more