Emma Stevens/Linda Campbell Pevac

Making the unconscious conscious

Revisado: 08-31-24

I appreciated how the author shared the slow burn of how he came into his “adoptee” consciousness. It was equally powerful when he became educated on other issues such as racism, religious abuse, and the concept of what love is and what it isn’t. As a fellow adoptee, I rallied for Harrison and rejoiced in his coming into self and finding his own voice—letting go of the guilt and shame that were never his to hold. Well done.

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Lovely and true

Revisado: 05-20-24

No one can tell an engaging story better than author and human, Anne Lamott. She’s a true artist.

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A valiant effort of reckoning with the unknown and the unclear.

Revisado: 11-26-23

Jack Rocco does an amazing job painting a picture of his life and sharing his thoughts and feelings of imagining he may have absorbed his twin early on. He describes how he finds himself living in a mystery of who he was and if he was “good” Jack, or “bad” Jack. Maybe he was both? Who would he have been if he had grown up with his biological family? Which was more important—nature or nurture? Jack shares his thoughts by asking and exploring all these poignant questions. And as he writes, there just aren’t any easy answers. His search for answers is honest and real. I would have loved it if Jack had narrated his own story so that the emotion could have radiated from the source. However, it’s an engaging adoptee story to help amplify adoptee voices and to speak to his lived experience of coming “out of the fog” of being an adopted person and moving into “adoptee consciousness.” The result is showing the reader how Jack Rocco has found his true identity by accepting the mystery and totality of all of who he is.

Emma Stevens
Author of The Gathering Place: An Adoptee’s Story and A Fire Is Coming

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Perspective

Revisado: 11-15-23

Please listen to this transracial adoptee! Angela’s lived experience documented in this bold memoir will help bring awareness to the complexities of adoption as well as to the additional struggles a transracial adoptee must learn to navigate.

I’m also an adoptee. There were many similarities of Angela’s story to mine. One being that my birth/first mother was also not forthcoming about the details of my adoption when I met her, nor was she about the identity of my birth father. What I misinterpreted to be her resistance, was actually her unresolved trauma that had “frozen” her in time. She honestly didn’t remember.

Another similarity was Angela’s mention of her closed adoption and how much time she spent in her “ghost kingdom” while growing up, I, too, spent an inordinate amount of time fantasizing about who my mother was—instead of being given the chance to deal with life on life’s terms. To see my birth mother as a real person instead of needing to make up a fantastical one. Angela writes about how the closed adoption system damaged her by denying her access to her medical history, pertinent background information, and to her biological family.

Being a same race adoptee, it was important and enlightening to me to learn of the many additional layers a transracial adoptee must face. Thanks to Angela, I now have a deeper level of understanding.

Emma Stevens aka Linda Campbell Pevac
Author of “A Fire Is Coming” and “The Gathering Place: An Adoptee’s Story”

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Very Entertaining

Revisado: 11-09-23

The twists and turns of the story were interesting and provocative. I really enjoyed the book and the narrator.

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A book that identifies / clarifies trauma bonding

Revisado: 04-22-23

Ingrid Clayton’s sharing of her lived experience and doing the difficult work necessary to identifying and clarifying what happened to her is invaluable. At least it is to me, and I’m sure there are many of us who’ve endured a very similar story. Thank you. My awareness has deepened as a result.

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Haunting

Revisado: 03-14-23

Daniel Levin’s chilling memoir accurately describes the insidious ways a predator seeks the unprotected. It’s always one calculated step at a time where a vulnerable person thinks they’re finding truth, only to later discover that beyond the smoke-and-mirror routine, it was mostly total deception. Speaking from experience of being a one-on-one cult survivor myself, Daniel has shown great courage in breaking the power deferential that he was subjected to. Thank you for bringing more awareness of this abuse to others, so the healing can begin. #igotout

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Always a thoughtful read

Revisado: 01-16-23

I seek out Mitch Album’s books. Always enjoyable and provides lessons in growth and healing.

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Excellent Memior

Revisado: 12-13-22

A.M. Homes describes some of the exact experiences I had during search and reunion. Asking myself some of those same questions of who am I if I’m far from feeling connected to my birth mother, or birth father? Her honesty mixed with humor was heartwarming and will stay with me as I continue to navigate my own adoptee experience.

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Such a descriptive writer

Revisado: 12-02-22

This is not the first book I’ve read by the author. And that’s because I love her descriptions and the way she develops her characters and the situations they’re in. She’s also a wonderful narrator.

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