I was actually taking the month off from my book review series. I needed a mental breather from heavy topics like adoption. So I went to our library, picked up a few books that seemed like light and easy reading and got to work on the one with the pink jacket. (I judge books by their cover, it is true.)

The Bad Mother's Handbook by Kate Long (2004) launches into an adoption sub-story by page forty. It figures, right? I continued on, hoping that it would go well for all involved, mostly myself, somewhere near the end. Nothing went well.

First and foremost, as opposed to the books I have previously reviewed, this book is not coming from the birth mother's point of view. We get to learn about the adoption as the adult adoptee, in her thirties and a mother herself, finds out that the elderly mother she is caring for is not one of biological relation. Unfortunately, the mother's mind is failing and she is of no immediate help to the eventual search.

I kept reading, knowing this wasn't from the point of view I normally try to cover, again hoping that maybe, just maybe, this fictionalized search and reunion would be positive. But that doesn't sell books, does it?

To boost the story's depth level, the daughter of the adult adoptee finds herself pregnant at seventeen years of age. As she plans to abort the baby, her mother finds out about the pregnancy and a fight ensues. This argument is one that I think many birth parents could relate to on some levels, especially if they, themselves, were the result of a young or unwed pregnancy. Words are thrown back and forth, including, "Don't make the same mistake that I did!" My heart broke for this young girl in the midst of her own crisis.

Many birth parents speak of how they found little to no familial support during their pregnancies. Fights like the ones portrayed in this book are not entirely fictional. I had one with my own mother. (Or two.. or.. ) While the pregnant teen decides and goes on to parent the child, eventually with her mother's approval and support, the emotions and feelings talked about by the mother and daughter through these segments are ones that many a birth parent could relate to even if the end result was drastically different.

Back to the search.

The adult adoptee, under British law, is able to get a copy of her original birth certificate. She then has multiple meetings with Social Services to locate her biological mother. Mysteriously, she is sent to a woman who knew her birth mother. During this meeting she finds out that her biological mother and another man spent time in jail in the years after her birth and placement because they had neglected a child (her biological half-sibling) to the point of death.

You can see where this is going.

Against the advice of this intermediary woman, the adult adoptee goes to search for her biological mother only to be met with angry words and a door in her face. My heart sunk.

I know that adoptees face these things. I know that if it was my reality, I would be annoyed with the happy stories of successful birth parents who lead great lives after the placement of their child. But it still doesn't make me feel good now.

The book itself attempts to be a feel good story about family. However, the ending is abrupt (what happens with the teenage mother's new boyfriend? It's as if he falls off the face of the Earth!) and I really don't approve, at all, of the set-up between mother and daughter for care of the new baby. But, as far as adoption books go, unless you feel like being ticked off, I might avoid it all together. If anything, the name holds true: one mother was bad for never revealing the truth to her daughter, another mother was bad for saying insanely nasty things to her daughter, another mothre was bad for neglecting one child and denying the other a right to information and another mother was bad for leaving the child behind. All in all: it's bad.


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For more of my Monthly Book Review Series, read:

4. The Mistress's Daughter - April 2007.
3. Somebody's Daughter - March 2007.
2. The Girls - February 2007.
1. Singing Bird - January 2007.

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Photo credit: Book cover, Ballantine Books, 2004.