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achadamaia's review against another edition
4.0
At first, I found this book difficult to get into. The writing style seemed wordy and it took awhile to get used to the plot being written in present tense. Three chapters in I found myself sucked into Shelley and Xuan Mai's stories.
Shelley is the wife of a mortician. They have been trying to adopt a child from another country.
Xuan Mai is a Vietnamese immigrant who left Vietnam at the end of the 1970s. She fled the country for personal reasons and lives an isolated life.
Though Shelley story is the basis of the book, I found Xuan Mai far more interesting. Her personal history and how she plays off Shelley makes this story work.
This is a pretty good look into the complexities of foreign adoption. It's an emotional, complicated process, which sometimes leaves couples with nothing.
I'm glad I didn't give up on this one. It turned out to be a very well written book.
Shelley is the wife of a mortician. They have been trying to adopt a child from another country.
Xuan Mai is a Vietnamese immigrant who left Vietnam at the end of the 1970s. She fled the country for personal reasons and lives an isolated life.
Though Shelley story is the basis of the book, I found Xuan Mai far more interesting. Her personal history and how she plays off Shelley makes this story work.
This is a pretty good look into the complexities of foreign adoption. It's an emotional, complicated process, which sometimes leaves couples with nothing.
I'm glad I didn't give up on this one. It turned out to be a very well written book.
faydrastratton's review against another edition
3.0
I love reading books about places I know and reading this was like going back to Wilmington - nice. Having adopted internationally from Russia there were a few things early on that jarred me (how can she switch from a Slovakia adoption to a Vitnemese one so quickly... it just doesn't work like that!) But overall I love the messages here... of the importance of stepping out of your world (literally and beyond) in order to love and forgive.
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