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*No quote because I already sent this off to my aunt to read before jotting down my favorite lines*
Thank you to BookishFirst and Grand Canyon Press for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
I am usually a fiction reader, and that perhaps was the most difficult part of reading Surrender. The end of the story is told in the beginning, in the about the author section, and even in the free excerpt. This is the memoir of someone adopted at a young age who then found herself forced to adopt out her own child at a young age. Despite knowing this, I found myself hoping for a happy ending throughout the entire book. It was heartbreaking how much Marylee went through during this pregnancy while John (other than working for his father) got to continue living life to fullest. This story makes me grateful for the educational opportunities afforded to both young women and men on the practices of safe sex and birth control. We had multiple seminars at freshman orientation at university on that and consent that were not available to previous generations, something I realize my annoyed eighteen year old self took for granted.
As a wife of a soldier, I could also relate to the frustration of being expected to pick up and move wherever your husband's job calls for it. This book will always be memorable to me as I began reading it during a pandemic, during the end of my husband's first deployment, and my first year living completely alone. This honest and raw memoir felt like a close friend during a sea of polite small talk and telling people I was fine as to not be a burden. Even better, in the final chapters, I put this book down to open presents at home, and found under the tree an unofficial adoption certificate from my mom to me!
I am so happy that the author was able to find and reconnect with her son years ago! I wonder if this process, of finding one's biological child, is any easier in the 2020s.
I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in memoirs, the complicated puzzles of what 'family' means, or those interested in the ordeals of adoption and teen pregnancy during the 1960s.
*No quote because I already sent this off to my aunt to read before jotting down my favorite lines*
Thank you to BookishFirst and Grand Canyon Press for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
I am usually a fiction reader, and that perhaps was the most difficult part of reading Surrender. The end of the story is told in the beginning, in the about the author section, and even in the free excerpt. This is the memoir of someone adopted at a young age who then found herself forced to adopt out her own child at a young age. Despite knowing this, I found myself hoping for a happy ending throughout the entire book. It was heartbreaking how much Marylee went through during this pregnancy while John (other than working for his father) got to continue living life to fullest. This story makes me grateful for the educational opportunities afforded to both young women and men on the practices of safe sex and birth control. We had multiple seminars at freshman orientation at university on that and consent that were not available to previous generations, something I realize my annoyed eighteen year old self took for granted.
As a wife of a soldier, I could also relate to the frustration of being expected to pick up and move wherever your husband's job calls for it. This book will always be memorable to me as I began reading it during a pandemic, during the end of my husband's first deployment, and my first year living completely alone. This honest and raw memoir felt like a close friend during a sea of polite small talk and telling people I was fine as to not be a burden. Even better, in the final chapters, I put this book down to open presents at home, and found under the tree an unofficial adoption certificate from my mom to me!
I am so happy that the author was able to find and reconnect with her son years ago! I wonder if this process, of finding one's biological child, is any easier in the 2020s.
I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in memoirs, the complicated puzzles of what 'family' means, or those interested in the ordeals of adoption and teen pregnancy during the 1960s.