I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir and the look at what an adopted child must feel when faced with the large and boisterous family Hopgood found. Having lived outside of Detroit myself, I was familiar with the landscape of her childhood and found the common ground there to give me just that extra bit of joy at the recognition of schools and places. I'm certain that Hopgood censored some of her feelings a bit out of courtesy towards family members but overall this was an interesting look into a very complicated situation that is probably going to become more common as today's international adoptees grow older. Recommended. My thanks to the lovely folks at Algonquin Books for the chance to read the Advanced Reader's Copy.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Sunday Salon: Review: Lucky Girl by Mei-Ling Hopgood
I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir and the look at what an adopted child must feel when faced with the large and boisterous family Hopgood found. Having lived outside of Detroit myself, I was familiar with the landscape of her childhood and found the common ground there to give me just that extra bit of joy at the recognition of schools and places. I'm certain that Hopgood censored some of her feelings a bit out of courtesy towards family members but overall this was an interesting look into a very complicated situation that is probably going to become more common as today's international adoptees grow older. Recommended. My thanks to the lovely folks at Algonquin Books for the chance to read the Advanced Reader's Copy.
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This sounds interesting.. Enjoy your week! :)
ReplyDelete"especially when she was coming to terms with being the "discarded" child trying to understand how her birth family could possibly make that decision"
ReplyDeleteI am going to disagree. I received an advance copy of it. Mei-Ling barely touched on it. It's there, but it just ends there; she doesn't explore it or express anything regarding it in-depth.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER!!
Even when it is revealed that Min-Wei was almost surrendered to the Hopgoods as well, all she says is, "Interesting."
That's it. Mei-Ling herself narrates that she wonders how Min-Wei is handling it aside from that one word, but then goes on to say "Well it happened in the past and you can't change the past, so no point in dwelling on it."
END SPOILER
It's not that I "expected" to find Mei-Ling dwelling over it all the time. But I got the distinct impression she felt it just wasn't significant enough to explore, and that irritated me.
Anyway, I'll shut up now before I spoil anything else. I liked her book, it gave me valuable insight as well, but I didn't agree with some aspects of it.