Including More Than 450 Adoptee-Recommended Titles!

Adoptee Reading is a catalog of books written by adoptees along with other adoption-related books recommended by adoptees.

If you’re new to this site, begin with the Overview and How To Use This Site.


  • Into the Light
    Into the Light
  • Road to Belonging: Establishing a Legacy of Love After Closed Adoption
    Road to Belonging: Establishing a Legacy of Love After Closed Adoption
  • Finding Loretta: An Adopted Daughter’s Search to Define Family
    Finding Loretta: An Adopted Daughter’s Search to Define Family

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  • Adoption and Suicidality: An Anthology of Stories, Poems, and Resources for Adoptees, Families, Healthcare Professionals, and Allies

    Adoption and Suicidality: An Anthology of Stories, Poems, and Resources for Adoptees, Families, Healthcare Professionals, and Allies

    This book is a wake-up call to those impacted by adoption and to those who interact with them. According to preliminary results of a groundbreaking study out of Winston-Salem State… Read more

  • Almost Loved: Poems

    Almost Loved: Poems

    “What if you spend the rest of your life chasing love, only to find her cowering in the pit of your stomach? What then?” Almost Loved follows a former foster child’s… Read more


  • Road to Belonging: Establishing a Legacy of Love After Closed Adoption

    Road to Belonging: Establishing a Legacy of Love After Closed Adoption

    Each person has their own unique story, and as Lynne Leppard’s early life included foster care and adoption, she often found herself wondering about her origins and heritage. Her loyalty… Read more

  • Finding Loretta: An Adopted Daughter’s Search to Define Family

    Finding Loretta: An Adopted Daughter’s Search to Define Family

    Adopted as an infant by a naval officer and his wife during the Baby Scoop Era, Diane Wheaton has always heard conflicting versions of the truth of her origins—but it’s… Read more


  • Into the Light

    Into the Light

    When you’re like me, you have to lie.It’s been one year since Manny was cast out of his family and driven into the wilderness of the American Southwest. Since then,… Read more

  • Sacrificial Animals: A Novel

    Sacrificial Animals: A Novel

    Inspired by Kailee Pedersen’s own journey being adopted from Nanning, China in 1996 and growing up alongside her family’s farm in Nebraska, this rich and atmospheric supernatural horror debut explores… Read more


  • A Fire Is Coming

    A Fire Is Coming

    The true story of when Emma Stevens learned her new next-door neighbor was a psychologist, she innocently asked about how to find a therapist for her own issues. Dr. Carol Brenner decided to accept her as a patient. Against a backdrop of the Laguna Beach… Read more

  • Coloring & Journal Book For Adoptees With Motivational Quotes: For Adoptees Healing Journey – Volume 1

    Coloring & Journal Book For Adoptees With Motivational Quotes: For Adoptees Healing Journey – Volume 1

    As an adult adoptee that struggles with the seven core issues of being adopted, (loss, rejection, guilt and shame, grief, identity, intimacy, and mastery/control), I have created this therapeutic coloring book with motivational uplifting quotes and affirmations, original illustrations and patterns, and journaling pages to… Read more

  • Swear, Vent & Coloring Book For (very) F*cking Angry Adoptees: For Adoptees Healing Journey – Volume 1

    Swear, Vent & Coloring Book For (very) F*cking Angry Adoptees: For Adoptees Healing Journey – Volume 1

    Why an angry sweary coloring and journal book? Because punching people in the face is frowned upon, and anger isn’t great for your overall mental and physical health if you hold on to it–so just let it all out! As an adult adoptee that struggles… Read more


  • The Price of Children: Stolen Lives in a Land Without Choice

    The Price of Children: Stolen Lives in a Land Without Choice

    A powerful church. An acquiescent government. In The Price of Children, investigative journalist Maria Laurino details the shocking story of mothers and children deceived and exploited as directed by the highest levels of the Vatican. Between 1950 and 1970, the Vatican and the American Catholic Church… Read more

  • Genetic Stigma in Law and Literature: Orphanhood, Adoption, and the Right to Reunion

    Genetic Stigma in Law and Literature: Orphanhood, Adoption, and the Right to Reunion

    This book critically analyses the way in which traditional sociocultural and legal biases might be perpetuated against those with unknown – or unknowable – genetic ancestries. It looks to law and works of literature across differing eras and genres focussing upon such concepts as inherited… Read more

  • Adoption Memoirs: Inside Stories

    Adoption Memoirs: Inside Stories

    Adoption Memoirs tells inside stories of adoption that popular media miss. Marianne Novy shows how adoption memoirs and films recount not only happy moments, but also the lasting pain of relinquishing a child, the racism and trauma that adoptees such as Jackie Kay and Jane Jeong… Read more


  • Adoption and Suicidality: An Anthology of Stories, Poems, and Resources for Adoptees, Families, Healthcare Professionals, and Allies

    Adoption and Suicidality: An Anthology of Stories, Poems, and Resources for Adoptees, Families, Healthcare Professionals, and Allies

    This book is a wake-up call to those impacted by adoption and to those who interact with them. According to preliminary results of a groundbreaking study out of Winston-Salem State… Read more

  • When We Become Ours: A YA Adoptee Anthology

    When We Become Ours: A YA Adoptee Anthology

    There is no universal adoption experience, and no two adoptees have the same story. This anthology for teens edited by Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung contains a wide range of… Read more


  • Almost Loved: Poems

    Almost Loved: Poems

    “What if you spend the rest of your life chasing love, only to find her cowering in the pit of your stomach? What then?” Almost Loved follows a former foster child’s… Read more

  • In Praise of Late Wonder

    In Praise of Late Wonder

    In his most personal collection of poems to date, California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick writes with openness about his adoption from Korea in more than 25 new memoir-like prose poems.… Read more


  • Into the Light

    Into the Light

    When you’re like me, you have to lie.It’s been one year since Manny was cast out of his family and driven into the wilderness of the American Southwest. Since then,… Read more

  • When We Become Ours: A YA Adoptee Anthology

    When We Become Ours: A YA Adoptee Anthology

    There is no universal adoption experience, and no two adoptees have the same story. This anthology for teens edited by Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung contains a wide range of… Read more