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The Earthquake Child: A Novel
The Earthquake Child is the story of an adoption, told through the voices of an adoptee, his desperate young birth mother, and his loving but grieving adoptive mother.
How can Joshua’s behavior be explained? This question is all-consuming for his adoptive family. Joshua was relinquished at birth, then adopted only days later. Is it his genetic inheritance of substance abuse and generational poverty that causes him to act out, run away and eventually become involved with drugs? Is it the losses he’s experienced in his adoptive family? Or is it the very fact of adoption itself—the trauma of being amputated from his gestational mother to be raised by a family unrelated to him by blood, culture, or biology?
What makes our children who they are? These voices and questions will resonate with all parents, but particularly with those who are or have been part of the adoption adoptees, mothers who have relinquished a child, and parents who’ve added a child to their family through adoption.
How can Joshua’s behavior be explained? This question is all-consuming for his adoptive family. Joshua was relinquished at birth, then adopted only days later. Is it his genetic inheritance of substance abuse and generational poverty that causes him to act out, run away and eventually become involved with drugs? Is it the losses he’s experienced in his adoptive family? Or is it the very fact of adoption itself—the trauma of being amputated from his gestational mother to be raised by a family unrelated to him by blood, culture, or biology?
What makes our children who they are? These voices and questions will resonate with all parents, but particularly with those who are or have been part of the adoption adoptees, mothers who have relinquished a child, and parents who’ve added a child to their family through adoption.
293 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 20, 2023
13 people are currently reading
31 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 28, 2025
*4.5
This is less a book about adoption and more a book about loss, struggle and mental illness/addiction. Well written, with believable characters that you root for and cry with. The only thing that doesn't quite give it 5 stars is a relationship towards the end of the book that I struggled a bit with. Other than that, a great read.
This is less a book about adoption and more a book about loss, struggle and mental illness/addiction. Well written, with believable characters that you root for and cry with. The only thing that doesn't quite give it 5 stars is a relationship towards the end of the book that I struggled a bit with. Other than that, a great read.
October 3, 2025
If it hadn’t taken me so long to get past the cover blurbs that say it’s a book about adoptive families, I’d have liked the book more. I don’t believe Joshua’s struggles are because he’s adopted, though that’s a part of his story. It’s much more a book about mental illness, tragedy, and family support.
June 22, 2023
It kept me up until 5:00 in the morning. I couldn’t put it down, anxious to know what happened next. I wasn’t disappointed. It was wonderful.
May 27, 2024
Novel of adoption from several perspectives. Disliked how the author made being criminal a genetic tendency.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews