The 52 Book Club: 2025 / 2026 Challenge discussion

There are a lot of characters in literature who have been adopted. This could be a key part of the story line or a minor note.

You could also pick non-fiction options, like a book for individuals who may be considering adoption, or memoirs by individuals who have been adopted or who are adoptive parents themselves

Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

The Memory Watcher by Minka Kent

"A Little Princess" by Frances Hodgson Burnett

We by Ben Barnz

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards is another.

Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

The Gilrs Who Went Away by Ann Fessler
The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

The Leavers by Lisa Ko

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home

Anne of Green Gables

My Father’s Words by Patricia MacLachlan. The main characters adopt a shelter dog.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy or Feed by Mira Grant.

Secret Daughter
by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Digging to America by Anne Tyler. So good!! Also written in multiple perspectives, including a great variety of personal experience.

Twenty-One Wishes by Debbie Macomber https://cdnbookworm.blogspot.com/2021...

I read The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson.

I read Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies about Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be by Rachel Hollis

She talks about their adoption of their daughter in the book

https://titlesurfingwithtraci.blogspo...

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Completion Post:

Just finished reading: "The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade" by Ann Fessler (★★★★☆), it is a collection of twenty stories of women that Fessler has interviewed who was forced to relinquish their children decades before Roe v. Wade.

Fessler traveled across the United States interviewing women willing to speak about the reason behind their relinquishment of their children, while researching archival records and the political and social climate at the time where single mothers were shunned by family and friends, evicted from schools, sent away to maternity homes to have their children alone, and often treated with cold contempt by doctors, nurses, and clergy.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng.
Fits perfectly.

Far from the Tree by Robin Benway

Silas Marner

And the TV series was good too.

Other People's Children by R.J. Hoffmann. The main couple has been struggling to have children and want to adopt the baby of a teenager who gets pregnant. The premise and beginning were really good, and the author does a good job at portraying all the emotions of the different characters, but the ending got too ridiculous for me to believe.

Inheritance by Dani Shapiro

The Book Charmer - Grace and her sister are placed in a foster home

I read All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung, 4 Stars

The Bad Seed

It turns out Rhoda, the main character's mother has been adopted and her real father was a serial killer ...

Just finished Wuthering Heights for this category.

I read Digging to America by Anne Tyler. I believe this is the first of hers that I've read. It was enjoyable enough. It definitely met the challenge.

Overshare by Rose & Rosie — a book by a same sex married couple. There is a chapter that talks about their options for having a family.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
Completed: October 13, 2021

I read "Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society" by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate.