RECENTLY ADDED
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What They Never Told Us: True Stories of Family Secrets and Hidden Identities Revealed
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The Violence of Love: Race, Family, and Adoption in the United States
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Woman of Interest: A Memoir
Including More Than 450 Adoptee-Recommended Titles!
Welcome!
Adoptee Reading is a catalog of books written by adoptees along with other adoption-related books recommended by adoptees.
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NEWLY PUBLISHED
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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… Read more
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Woman of Interest: A Memoir
In 2020, Tracy O’Neill began to rethink her ideas of comfort and safety. Just out of a ten-year relationship and thirtysomething, she was driven by an acute awareness that the… Read more
RECENT MEMOIRS
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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
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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
RECENT FICTION
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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
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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
RECENT PSYCHOLOGY/SELF-HELP
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45 Days of Pushing Through: A Guided Journal
Are you ready for a change? Like really ready? Have you battled low self-esteem, poor internal dialogue, remnants of a traumatic childhood, abusive relationship, or simply feeling a bit… lost? You have the key to unlocking a better you… right inside yourself. In your heart, your mind,… Read more
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Let Us Be Greater: A Gentle, Guided Path to Healing for Adoptees
Adoption is a lifeline of support and opportunity for countless people, but it can bring challenges and emotional conditions that are often silenced or left unaddressed, including PTSD, risk of suicide, and fear of abandonment. Author Michelle Madrid has experienced these challenges as a foster… Read more
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Adult Adoptees and Writing to Heal: Migrating Toward Wholeness
We live in a world where conversations about trauma are becoming commonplace and adopted people are using their voices to educate the general public about the effects of maternal separation and genealogical bewilderment. But for many adult adoptees the act of speaking truth to power… Read more
RECENT JOURNALISM & RESEARCH
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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
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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
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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Mirrors Made of Ink
A collection of sixty poems spanning moments across a lifetime, Mirrors Made of Ink focuses on the emotional catastrophe of adoption. Quist muses with varied style on family, existence, and the liminal… Read more
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Going Unarmed Into the Wail
Going Unarmed Into the Wail is an intense, intimate chapbook that wrestles with what it is to be a product of the adoption-industrial complex. With rich visuals, the poems in this… Read more
RECENT CHILDREN/TEENS
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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
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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