Posts Tagged ‘Kirkus Reviews’

More reviews for MAMALITA. One calls it “Part thriller, part love story, part exposé”

Friday, October 29th, 2010

What a great feeling to have readers respond to Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir. “Guateangel” wrote a review on Amazon that included this sentence: “As an adoptive mother who adopted from Guatemala I want to thank you for writing down everything many of us were afraid to speak about.” Thank you, Guateangel, for sharing your reaction. If Mamalita can help one person reflect on and possibly sort out her complicated adoption experience, I’m thrilled. 

This past week, Mamalita garnered some wonderful national press, as well.  I’m especially happy about the review in the November/December 2010 issue of Adoptive Families. Soon after Olivia joined our family, I began subscribing to AF, and over the years, I’ve appreciated its helpful, insightful, constructive advice.  The review is written by adoptive parent Tesi Kohlenberg.

Here are a few review excerpts. Where available, I’ve included the corresponding link so you can read the review in full.

Thanks for helping me spread the word about Mamalita!

REVIEWS FOR MAMALITA: AN ADOPTION MEMOIR

 “[A] richly written book, part thriller, part love story, part exposé… [A] cautionary tale.”
Adoptive Families Magazine

“Regardless of age or intent, this is a riveting read.” –Marin Magazine

“Kafkaesque… An important and timely book about one woman’s harrowing experience adopting a child from Guatemala.” —Shelf Awareness: “daily enlightenment for the book trade”

“A scathing critique on a foreign adoption system and the harrowing account of one woman to fight against it.” – Kirkus Reviews

“[H]arrowing and moving… deftly handled.” –Publishers Weekly

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Kirkus Reviews: Mamalita

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

My publicist at Seal Press, Eva Zimmerman, forwarded me this advance review of Mamalita  from Kirkus Reviews. The Mamalita publication date is November 1, 2010. To order your advance copy, click on the “Book” tab on the Mamalita site.

From Kirkus Reviews:

“‘I’ve never given birth,’ writes O’Dwyer, ‘but I know the exact moment when I became a mother: 10:00A.M., September 6, 2002’—the moment she and her husband sat in a hotel lobby, awaiting the infant girl they hoped to adopt. Yet this celebratory moment was soon overshadowed by the corrupt Guatemalan adoption system. The author recounts her initial naiveté, how she and her husband shelled out vast amounts of money to adoption facilitators and notarios in order to assist them in wading through the red tape of a foreign adoption. Yet nearly two years and thousands of dollars later, O’Dwyer and her husband remained no closer to their goal. Rather than continue her transcontinental flights, the author quit her job and moved to Antigua to focus on her daughter’s adoption full time. This decision led her into the dark side of adoption, a seedy terrain in which she was forced to weave through the barbs of a system set up to exploit the most money and resources from potential parents. Armed only with her elementary-level Spanish, she was forced to rely on a small band of trustworthy Guatemalan officials and potential American mothers struggling through the same experience. Her obsessive quest was constantly hampered by paperwork, signatures, DNA tests and countless other bureaucratic pitfalls. But despite the tragic circumstances, the optimistic author tells a hopeful tale in which she viewed every procedural misstep as a step leading her closer to her daughter.”

“A scathing critique on a foreign adoption system and the harrowing account of one woman’s attempt to fight it.”

Kirkus Reviews

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkus_Reviews

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