Coincidentally, I read this book immediately after reading The Notorious RBG. Both reflect on how society and women's rights have changed over the last 60 years. During the author's childhood, there was no practical sex education and teenagers had no access to birth control or abortion. Marylee, an adoptee herself, is forced to surrender her firstborn child, who is a result of her unplanned pregnancy when she is 15 years old. Years later she seeks out her son and forms a relationship. She discusses the circumstances of her own adoption and her relationship with her adoptive parents, who are far from ideal. She has no autonomy and is forced to go to a home for unwed mothers, which is degrading and isolating. She grieves for her lost baby about whom she is not allowed to know anything. Her boyfriend is not at all sympathetic to her about the baby. This memoir is well written and compelling. The only negative thing I can say is that the writer's opinion on adoption is that it is a bad thing for the child involved. Not every adoption situation is tragic. I suspect that the screening of adoptive parents in the 1940-1970s was poor compared to today, putting adopted children into precarious situations.