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4.13 AVERAGE
4.13 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Enjoyable read. An expose on parenting and the many flavors of families. Fun cast of characters, particularly the kids. As always, enjoyed the back and forth of two time periods that each progressed forward.
This was a really... readable book, the story carried me through and the sequence of events had a good amount of momentum so I kept wanting to find out how things were going to turn out. But honestly... it's hard to give this a higher rating than three stars because it was just so trite. Like, the big, oft-repeated "point" of this book is that too many stories about adoption are stories about trauma, and shouldn't we also represent the good, happy adoption scenarios in fiction?
And like... okay, yeah. I can get on board with that. But I also just don't feel like India Allwood's story is "good representation" of what adoption usually is like, either. It's way too hokey and picture-perfect, and as much as you say that this is a story about how "messy" family can be, it's also just incredibly emotionally neat and tidy the whole way through. Yes, Fig has trauma about her birth mother, but she always snaps out of it quickly and is loving and loved. Yes, India's two ex-boyfriends had complicated feelings about India's decisions with her pregnancy, but both of them were good, loving men who wanted what was best for her. Honestly, Team Robbie personally, if India's going to get back with one of her two exes as the ending seems to imply, I'm much more about the high school boyfriend, he had more of a personality.
I enjoyed the process of reading this book, but I came out of it thinking that it was just a bit too cheesy to really cement itself as something for me to truly love.
And like... okay, yeah. I can get on board with that. But I also just don't feel like India Allwood's story is "good representation" of what adoption usually is like, either. It's way too hokey and picture-perfect, and as much as you say that this is a story about how "messy" family can be, it's also just incredibly emotionally neat and tidy the whole way through. Yes, Fig has trauma about her birth mother, but she always snaps out of it quickly and is loving and loved. Yes, India's two ex-boyfriends had complicated feelings about India's decisions with her pregnancy, but both of them were good, loving men who wanted what was best for her. Honestly, Team Robbie personally, if India's going to get back with one of her two exes as the ending seems to imply, I'm much more about the high school boyfriend, he had more of a personality.
I enjoyed the process of reading this book, but I came out of it thinking that it was just a bit too cheesy to really cement itself as something for me to truly love.
The central premise of the book, that most popular culture adoption stories are about trauma, is belied by the fact that the perspective of the adoptive parent is centered in the vast majority of all depictions of adoption in popular media. Adoption is a blessing (to adoptive parents). Adoptees are a gift (to adoptive parents). Adoptees are always better off with adoptive parents. Adoptive parents are always better equipped or better prepared parents. Relinquishing mothers may be sad, but it is always better that they not be parents. The claim that there is more need for rosy depictions of adoption is frankly ridiculous and entirely self serving of the author, an adoptive parent. She believes there is a need for more stories told about relinquishing parents who are nothing but happy about "placing" their chikdren for adoption and more need for stories about adoptees who do not feel any sense of loss?
So as an adoptive mom who only benefitted from adoption, she decides to write from the fictional perspective of a fictional relinquishing mother who in a fictional scenario is fictionally depicted in the absolute fictitious scenario of feeling no loss, no regret, no fear, no grief, no terror about not knowing the fates of her children. The fictional first mother insists on closed adoptions because she is so selfless as to not want to "interfere" with adoptive family bonding (as if preserving kinship ties are barriers to love.) The fictional grandparent feels no sense of loss. The fictional fathers root only for the relinquishing mother's happiness and success. But even her fictional children - like all children - can't play along with this parent-created fairy tale. They LONG for connection with siblings lost to adoption and answers that closed adoptions don't provide. Despite the author's agenda to tell an adoption story with all gain and no loss, her minor characters betray her by showing a glimpse of a truer, fuller story.
Frankel's main character, the ideal birth mother *from an adoptive mother's perspective*, considered growing, birthing, and "placing" an infant to be nothing but a gift and a joy. (The character's iron-fisted insistence on the Orwellian term "placed", sanitized of all hints of loss or grief, grated on my nerves almost more than anything.) Her babies were never hers, in her mind...they were magical fairies who granted her her deepest wishes, the vehicles through which she achieved her dreams. In the author's ideal vision of adoption without loss, the first mother never felt attachment or love for her babies, she felt only sadness and grief when her boyfriends dumped her. Her body never suffered; she thrived through pregnancy, she even got her biggest break because she was pregnant. Growing babies for others is was all only good for her in every possible way.
Of course, since this is entirely a fairy tale, she comes across as...deluded. Disconnected. Even slightly sociopathic. Completely unconcerned with any emotional impact on her boyfriends. Utterly incurious, unfeeling, and unconcerned about her first children, even after she adopts children herself. Her first children are objectified as talismans who grant her success just as adoptive children are objectified as gifts to their adoptive parents.
Of course more stories in the world are good things. And different perspectives are good things. But I can't help but wonder if the author ever wondered why an aoption story like this --- with all gain and no loss -- has not been told. If there are so many "placing" mothers out there who benefitted so thoroughly - physically, emotionally, and in career success - from growing other people's children, without even a hint of pain or loss, why aren't they telling their own stories?
As it is, this felt like a very comforting escapist fantasy for an adoptive parent, one where you never need to wonder whether a vulnerable young mother was coerced or guilted or pressured into relinquishment. One where you never need to wonder if your child might have benefitted from kinship connections to his extended biological family. One where no one is suffering loss. One where everyone's life is better in every way because you have this child. One where you don't need to think about how healing and fulfilling reuinion with your child's first family might be for your child AND its extended family. And hey, we all need escapism sometimes, right? We do.
But for someone who has been on a different side of adoption loss and gain, one who saw my mother's relentless guilt and grief and shame and loss as a relinquishing mother, and one who has found so much joy and wonder and happiness in reuinion with my sisters in adulthood, I can't help but shake my head in wonder that this book exists as a supposed counter to the prevailing depiction of adoption. But all it does is confirm the generally accepted societal myth that adoptive kids are universally better off with adoptive parents, that relinquishing parents are at least better off than they'd have been if they kept their first children...just sanitizing out any hint of grief, loss, or trauma.
What struck me as the most "off" about this book is that the author says she wrote it for her adopted child, so that her adopted child would see more adoption stories in the world that are less about loss and trauma and more about the love. But this story seems to only amplify one of the most painful things about adoption stories to some children...that they are objectified as GIFTS. That they exist as vehicles to achieve the happiness of their parents (both relinquishing and adopting).
Why two stars rather than one? There were elements I enjoyed...the love of theater, the romance, the unapologetic pro-choice stance, the trauma-aware depictions of Fig and Jack, and Fig's plucky spirit. But given that the author feels such passion that stories like this should be out there, I marvel that it hasn't occurred to her that there is a reason that first mothers aren't writing depictions like this, and that this is a fairy tale that serves her perspective in adoption more than anyone else's.
So as an adoptive mom who only benefitted from adoption, she decides to write from the fictional perspective of a fictional relinquishing mother who in a fictional scenario is fictionally depicted in the absolute fictitious scenario of feeling no loss, no regret, no fear, no grief, no terror about not knowing the fates of her children. The fictional first mother insists on closed adoptions because she is so selfless as to not want to "interfere" with adoptive family bonding (as if preserving kinship ties are barriers to love.) The fictional grandparent feels no sense of loss. The fictional fathers root only for the relinquishing mother's happiness and success. But even her fictional children - like all children - can't play along with this parent-created fairy tale. They LONG for connection with siblings lost to adoption and answers that closed adoptions don't provide. Despite the author's agenda to tell an adoption story with all gain and no loss, her minor characters betray her by showing a glimpse of a truer, fuller story.
Frankel's main character, the ideal birth mother *from an adoptive mother's perspective*, considered growing, birthing, and "placing" an infant to be nothing but a gift and a joy. (The character's iron-fisted insistence on the Orwellian term "placed", sanitized of all hints of loss or grief, grated on my nerves almost more than anything.) Her babies were never hers, in her mind...they were magical fairies who granted her her deepest wishes, the vehicles through which she achieved her dreams. In the author's ideal vision of adoption without loss, the first mother never felt attachment or love for her babies, she felt only sadness and grief when her boyfriends dumped her. Her body never suffered; she thrived through pregnancy, she even got her biggest break because she was pregnant. Growing babies for others is was all only good for her in every possible way.
Of course, since this is entirely a fairy tale, she comes across as...deluded. Disconnected. Even slightly sociopathic. Completely unconcerned with any emotional impact on her boyfriends. Utterly incurious, unfeeling, and unconcerned about her first children, even after she adopts children herself. Her first children are objectified as talismans who grant her success just as adoptive children are objectified as gifts to their adoptive parents.
Of course more stories in the world are good things. And different perspectives are good things. But I can't help but wonder if the author ever wondered why an aoption story like this --- with all gain and no loss -- has not been told. If there are so many "placing" mothers out there who benefitted so thoroughly - physically, emotionally, and in career success - from growing other people's children, without even a hint of pain or loss, why aren't they telling their own stories?
As it is, this felt like a very comforting escapist fantasy for an adoptive parent, one where you never need to wonder whether a vulnerable young mother was coerced or guilted or pressured into relinquishment. One where you never need to wonder if your child might have benefitted from kinship connections to his extended biological family. One where no one is suffering loss. One where everyone's life is better in every way because you have this child. One where you don't need to think about how healing and fulfilling reuinion with your child's first family might be for your child AND its extended family. And hey, we all need escapism sometimes, right? We do.
But for someone who has been on a different side of adoption loss and gain, one who saw my mother's relentless guilt and grief and shame and loss as a relinquishing mother, and one who has found so much joy and wonder and happiness in reuinion with my sisters in adulthood, I can't help but shake my head in wonder that this book exists as a supposed counter to the prevailing depiction of adoption. But all it does is confirm the generally accepted societal myth that adoptive kids are universally better off with adoptive parents, that relinquishing parents are at least better off than they'd have been if they kept their first children...just sanitizing out any hint of grief, loss, or trauma.
What struck me as the most "off" about this book is that the author says she wrote it for her adopted child, so that her adopted child would see more adoption stories in the world that are less about loss and trauma and more about the love. But this story seems to only amplify one of the most painful things about adoption stories to some children...that they are objectified as GIFTS. That they exist as vehicles to achieve the happiness of their parents (both relinquishing and adopting).
Why two stars rather than one? There were elements I enjoyed...the love of theater, the romance, the unapologetic pro-choice stance, the trauma-aware depictions of Fig and Jack, and Fig's plucky spirit. But given that the author feels such passion that stories like this should be out there, I marvel that it hasn't occurred to her that there is a reason that first mothers aren't writing depictions like this, and that this is a fairy tale that serves her perspective in adoption more than anyone else's.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Okay, this book has entered my new Top 5 hall of fame list. And I am now, just based on this alone, officially a Laurie Frankel fan!! Because wow this was one of the most unique reads I’ve ever come across and it was truly so insightful, thoughtful, and loving in the way it was told and touched on the topic of adoption. Idk if this is just a result of where I’m at in life right now, but my only critique is that maybe it could have been just a tad bit shorter, I got a little fatigued in the middle, but maybe I wouldn’t feel this way if I didn’t devour it all in such a short setting. Now the next sentence is a spoiler alert, but at the end we don’t know how the main character’s love story ends and who she chooses. And normally, something like that would have driven me CRAZY and cost the book a star. But in this case, Frankel writes this story so perfectly I didn’t find that bothered me at all, I felt happy with the love depicted and lowkey had fun leaving that up to my imagination (in my head, she ended up with both of them in a poly situation which maybe isn’t so far fetched given the uniqueness of their family as is). In fact, I might even be HAPPY she didn’t give a clear answer to that because I would have inevitably been disappointed either way if she ended up picking one over the other since I liked both options. So that just speaks further volumes to her writing style and I cannot wait to read more from Frankel!!
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Heartwarming and I loved the twists
Any book with precocious kids will always leave me wanting more POV from the precocious kids… but other than that, nice to have a book with a different perspective on adoption and love all the theatre stuff of course. A few places felt like pacing was an issue, but overall a very enjoyable read
LOVED. I love everything Laurie Frankel writes - Seattle authors represent! This had some of my favorite traits of her work: complicated yet lovely and loving families, absolutely to die for yet entirely realistic romances, precocious yet charming kids. India was a vivacious protagonist, flawed but in a way that only made her feel more real. My only gripe was that it was a bit on the nose at times, but you could tell Frankel had a platform and something she wanted to say, so I can forgive that. Highly recommend, as I do all of Frankel’s work
emotional
medium-paced