Review: Not quite
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 07 21, 2013
This novel possessed potential to be good and would have been, if it had stuck with the theme of the blessings of adoption.  We share the heartache of the main character who becomes pregnant at 17 in 1962 and is forced by her family to hide her pregnancy and give up her child.  That pain affected the rest of her life.  Fast forward 30some years where her daughter from a subsuquent marriage has had a stillborn child.  She knows nothing about her mother's past, but uncovers several family secrets, meeting her sister in the process.  Adoption is promoted as a positive step, which I appreciated.  I am actually acquainted with several adoptive families and all are positive experiences.  I gave the novel 2 stars because the author gets preachy near the end and contradicts herself.  According to her the 1962 pregnancy would never have happened with sex education and access to birth control.  She tries to make the same excuses when a student in the story gets pregnant over 30 years later.  Sex education and birth control are all around us.  She also bemoans the lack of legalized abortions in prior days. Apparently it is easier to live with having killed your child, than give it to someone else.  In a novel which celebrates life so well, I find this disturbing.