RECENTLY ADDED
Including Nearly 500 Adoptee-Recommended Titles!
Welcome!
Adoptee Reading helps adopted people discover books and other writing about adoption from the adoptee perspective.
Check out the Overview and How To Use This Site to learn more.
NEWS FOR ADOPTEE READERS
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Let Us Know What We Missed
We need your help! These past several months, we were focused on technical issues with the Adoptee Reading website and likely overlooked some books that adoptees should know about. Please…
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Adoptee Reading Is Back!
Hello again, adoptee readers! Some of you may have noticed that Adoptee Reading has been inaccessible for many months. In late 2025, I realized that the site was being inundated…
NEWLY PUBLISHED
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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
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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
RECENT MEMOIRS
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Connecting Threads: Five Siblings Lost and Found
A graphic memoir about siblings of Indigenous and European-American heritage who are taken from their first family, placed in foster care, and most were adopted-a story of the journey to… Read more
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Tell No One
A stunning memoir of one man’s search for his birth parents, which uncovered an astonishing global scandal at the heart of the Catholic Church. Brendan Watkins was eight years old… Read more
RECENT FICTION
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Seoulmates
When Hara Wilson lands in Seoul to find her birth mother, she doesn’t plan on falling in love with the first man she lays eyes on, but Choi Yujun is… Read more
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The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be: A Speculative Memoir of Transracial Adoption
Part memoir, part speculative fiction, this novel explores the often surreal experience of growing up as a mixed-Black transracial adoptee. Dream Country author Shannon Gibney returns with a new book woven… Read more
RECENT PSYCHOLOGY/SELF-HELP
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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
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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
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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
RECENT JOURNALISM & RESEARCH
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The Sun Won’t Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood
The orphan story has been mythologized: Step one: While a child is still too young to form distinct memories of them, their parents die in an untimely fashion. Step two: Orphan acquires caretakers who amplify the world’s cruelty. Step three: Orphan escapes and goes on… Read more
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What They Never Told Us: True Stories of Family Secrets and Hidden Identities Revealed
What They Never Told Us tells the stories of ordinary people who made extraordinary, life-changing discoveries about their parentage and/or race and ethnicity that fractured their identities. The book asks the big questions: Who are we? And what is family? Blending social history and personal narratives,… Read more
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The Violence of Love: Race, Family, and Adoption in the United States
The Violence of Love challenges the narrative that adoption is a solely loving act that benefits birth parents, adopted individuals, and adoptive parents–a narrative that is especially pervasive with transracial and transnational adoptions. Using interdisciplinary methods of archival, legal, and discursive analysis, Kit W. Myers comparatively… Read more
RECENT ANTHOLOGIES
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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
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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
RECENT POETRY
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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
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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
RECENT CHILDREN/TEENS
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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
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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