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.

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  • What They Never Told Us: True Stories of Family Secrets and Hidden Identities Revealed
    What They Never Told Us: True Stories of Family Secrets and Hidden Identities Revealed
  • The Violence of Love: Race, Family, and Adoption in the United States
    The Violence of Love: Race, Family, and Adoption in the United States
  • Woman of Interest: A Memoir
    Woman of Interest: A Memoir

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  • 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… Read more

  • The Violence of Love: Race, Family, and Adoption in the United States

    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… Read more


  • Practically Still a Virgin: An Adoption Memoir

    Practically Still a Virgin: An Adoption Memoir

    During Alaska’s rough-and-tumble 1970s oil boom, a time when prostitution, violence, and lawlessness reigned, Monica Hall rebels against her strict Catholic parents in a downward spiral of delinquency. Overwhelmed by… Read more

  • Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption

    Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption

    Nearly every person in the United States is affected by adoption. Adoption practices are woven into the fabric of American society and reflect how our nation values human beings, particularly… Read more


  • Second Choices: A Story of Belonging and Finding Home

    Second Choices: A Story of Belonging and Finding Home

    Elise, an adoptee, had always felt like a second choice. When she fell in love with and married Evan, she believed she was finally someone’s first choice. She longed for… Read more

  • Phantom Parents: Memoir of an Adoptee

    Phantom Parents: Memoir of an Adoptee

    An unusual adoption, a gruesome family discovery, a lonesome journey through North America, a miraculous death escape at the 7/7 bombings in the London Underground and a life-altering diagnosis are just… Read more


  • Pulled by the Root: An Adoptee’s Healing Journey From Trauma, Shame, and Loss

    Pulled by the Root: An Adoptee’s Healing Journey From Trauma, Shame, and Loss

    Adoption involves complex trauma that, if unhealed and unheard, will pulse through subsequent generations. Pulled by the Root is a raw, vivid, and cinematic account of Heidi Marble’s lived experience as an adopted person. The story is led by Heidi as she pieces together her… 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 University (final report targeted for release in 2025), adopted people are 36.7 times more likely… Read more

  • The Adoptee’s Journey: From Loss and Trauma to Healing and Empowerment

    The Adoptee’s Journey: From Loss and Trauma to Healing and Empowerment

    Adoption is often framed by happy narratives, but the reality is that many adoptees struggle with unaddressed trauma and issues of identity and belonging. Adoptees often spend the majority of their youth without the language to explore the grief related to adoption or the permission… Read more


  • Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption

    Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption

    Nearly every person in the United States is affected by adoption. Adoption practices are woven into the fabric of American society and reflect how our nation values human beings, particularly mothers. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed… Read more

  • Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood

    Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood

    Adoption has always been viewed as a beloved institution for building families, as well as a mutually agreeable common ground in the abortion debate, but little attention has been paid to the lives of mothers who relinquish infants for private adoption. Relinquished reveals adoption to be a… Read more

  • In Reunion: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Communication of Family

    In Reunion: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Communication of Family

    “Do you know your real parents?” is a question many adoptees are asked. In In Reunion, Sara Docan-Morgan probes the basic notions of family, adoption, and parenthood by exploring initial meetings and ongoing relationships that transnational Korean adoptees have had with their birth parents and other… 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


  • 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

  • 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

  • Monstrous: A Transracial Adoption Story

    Monstrous: A Transracial Adoption Story

    Sarah has always struggled to fit in. Born in South Korea and adopted at birth by a white couple, she grows up in a rural community with few Asian neighbors.… Read more